The death is announced to-day of Lady Clifton, aged only 37, who will be well remembered by many people in China where she stayed for a considerable time in the early 20's, when her stepfather Admiral Leveson was Commander-in-Chief. She was the only child of the 16th Lord Clifton, who was also 7th Earl of Darnley. The barony of Clipton passes in the female line, so when her father died in 1900, shortly after her birth, she became Baroness Clifton, while a brother of her father became Lord Darnley. His son, the present Earl, now succeeds to the Clifton title. The late Lady Clifton's mother will be well remembered in China.
Lady Clifton had no idea of resting on the prestige of her ancient title. She was first called to the Bar, and then did a good deal of journalist work under the pen name of "Lenox Fane," in which she published some books, including one called "Legation Street," written after her stay in Peking. She was a great friend of Sir Sidney and Lady Barton, and stayed for a long time with them when he was Consul-General in Shanghai.
She had vague ideas once of buying and running the old "Shanghai Mercury," but was dissuaded from doing so by her friend:
"The Times" to-day has a very sympathetic note on the death at the age of only 26 of the Hon. Desmond Edward Parsons, brother of the pre: ent Earl of Rose, who, I image must have been well known at least to your northern readers. A friend writes of him to "The Times";—
The death at Zurich of Desmond Parsons will shock those who knew him to be only 26 years old. Intellectually he forsook the mathematical tradition of his family. He wanted to be an Orientalist, already spoke Chinese fluently, and in 1935 had made a dificult' journey into Kansu along the old highway to the west, which led him past the tall of the Great Wall to the Tun-Huang caves. There he was placed under temporary arrest But before this happened he- had photographed the paintings in the caves, and his pictures, more than 100 in number and including some paintings not previously published, are now the Courtauld Institute.
What people valued in him was his truth. He never let a lie pass; hi never compromised with the preten tious or the second-best. It was this essential honesty, combined with a half-laughing, half-sulky grace, which so endeared him to so many friends. When a rare and horrible disease fastened on him in Peiping he knew then that he had only two more years, "But he fought those two years
the more he resolved to live. hour by hour, and the worse he got would still return, he thought to the courtyard in Peiping to se he had planted more the music of the pigeons and the cry of the gold-fish-Seller in the narrow grey street. His hopes have all vanished, but not his example. And that, now, we must cherish the more.
The two flying-boats this week did exactly as they had been meant to do, in fact a little better, for Captain Wileockson of the Caledonia thought that it would take him sixteen or seventeen hours to reach Botwood and he did so in 154.
Of course earlier aviators had none of the advantages of previous organization and perpetual instruction throughout the flight that the Caledonia and Clipper III enjoyed. But that is really the point of the whole experiment, which was to prove the possibility of a regular commercial trans-Atlantic service, when flown under the same watchful care that, say, an express train from London to Edinburgh, receives.
Comparisons cannot fairly be made until the American flying-boat has shown what she can do on the return journey against head winds. and the Caledonia on the easterly track with wind behind her. Although the Clipper only took 121% hours across. her air speed was less than that of the Caledonia, which cruised at 150 m.p.h. but was cut down by the wind to 132 miles, while the Clipper made an indicated speed of 130 mph. which the wind increased to an average of 164.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.