and Whittingtons Coincidence has leaped more than five centuries in time and half world in space {0 pr vide the ADE. with an anecdote likely to go dowa fu its history. The casting director Of the club assigned the role of Dick Whittington "to 'Mélss Joy Pett, and tums out, "hitherto unknowingly, that the part has been played for more than a week by the direct desfendant of a man who claimed very real friendship with the original "Dick Whittington" Richard. Why-
It seems that, in the early 1400, Richard Sevenoke, of Sevenoaks, 20 miles from London, preceded Richard Whytingtone es Lord Mayor of London. This, Mr. "Sevenoke was a friend of Thomas Bette, who met Swhittington" ana became his friend, This is all recorded in a "History Sevenoaks School" and "Essays of Sevenoaks" and was called to the tention of Mr. M. W. Pett, of 907 Avenue Haig, Miss Pett's father, who waa able to establish, very definitely, the fact that he is a direct descendant of Thomas Peite, and to adi the following to the information already in possession of a representa tive of the "North-China Herald":
Richard Whytingtone was the sox of a West Country squire who ran away from home, and somehow con: trived to arrive in London with his famous cat. As the years passed, be worked himself ap, and at one time with "Richart friend Thomas Bette, Thus the part of the man who became thrice Lord Mayor of London was taken in far-off Suanghat by the descendant of a man wh: must have known the "Whittington" tale backwards and forwards,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.