Effect of Holiday Weather: Former China Station Flagship to B
Broken Up Br London, Aug. 26.
London in August is what your personal feelings make it, according to whether you have come to take your holiday there, or have Just been {aking a holiday somewhere else.
'The beau monde, the expensive cars, the exquisitely' gowned women fare' gone, of course. Yet the West End streets are crowded and hotels and restaurants do roaring business. No fewer than 28 theatres, a very unusual number for August, are oper and playing to good houses. They include "Pride and Prejudice," which many thought, when it was staged would be caviar to the general Public; St. John Ervine's "Anthony and Anna." about which orities wace nifty, but the public like it; and th evergreen "Lady Precious Stream, now approaching its 700th perform: ance and apparently as popular a ever. contrast with the West End, the City is singularly deserted and tran quil. Queen Victoria Street, for instance, is usually an endless doubl: stream of thrusting. trate. Thece was hardly a vehicle in sight when T crossed it yesterday afternoon, Th? same may be said of the Cornhill.
Every other girl you meet now hatless, 'Those who aren't meshy wear large-brimmed shady straw? like the" old." fashioned. Leghors though, as a lady cynically said me, "I expect they are cheap drapers' models." Still, they are pretty and becoming.
Preitier still, I venture to think, the return to' stockings. Very. few girls in London are bare-legged this summer in contrast with last yeas when they all were. "Have they dis" covered that it is by no means every Jeg that can bear exposure to the Dublic eye?
Among men I have seen quite noticeable number of pongee suis very welcome in these warm days: and there can be no question but that the "gent's boater" is steadily coming back Into general use. Headgear for men in summer time Is cer {tainly a problem. Straw Panam seem out of place for any but retires deans and the villain of melodrama {in his riverside palace (which really belongs to the heroine) at Maldenhead," Bowlers and even light gre} Homburgs are very hot, The "boater is admirable in every way, except that unfortunately the daughters of most of us won't let us wear it.
Thatehed House Club Renovations bers of the Thatched Howse temporarily enjoying the lity of the Devonshire while their own abode is being thoroughly renovated, telephones put in each bedroom and so forth. "This courte of exchanging hospitality, universal among London clubs is equally dis-Jiked by hosts and guests, We are. sociable people. So. the China community in London will not be seeing much of each other for; some weeks. hear that Sir Reginald Johnston has finally resigned the directorship, Chinese at London University and, retreated to his islands in Scotland. It is not decided who wilt succeed him, possibly the Indy who deputize for him during his recent absence China and Manchoukuo.
Mr. and Mrs. A. W. Burkill have left Camberley and seltted at Brack-nell.
Mr. O. S, Barnes, manager of the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank in London, is sending his eldest son for 3 our of the Far East, India, the Straits and China. Afier which he will have to got his nose to the grindstone, though what sort of grindstone is not yet decided.
My eldest daughter and her hus and had a truly miraculous escape when motoring back to London on a recent Sunday night after a weekend with us on the Thames. A cat too far over from its proper side struck theirs a glancing blow which caused them to skid round violently, when another car coming on took them "amidships. Their car was! smashed to smithereens, a total loss. Why they were not both killed is marvel. "As it was, my daughter escaped with a black eye and a slight concussion which means a few weeks Fest and her husband broke a couple of bones in his left hand, Akzerlty to be Broken I see that the Alacrity, formerly the C.-in-Cis private yacht in China to be broken up. Many readers will remember this singularly beauful ship. She was built in 1900 by. Mr. EL: Watson who designed the (annie for Anthony Drexel, the talion should have in permanent possession. enough vehicles to mechanize One lesson of the work was an ae- at need one company of riflemen as|are said to be very poor though "mounted infantry, new model American millionaire. He sold her to the Marquess of Anglesey, from whom she passed in i911 to Princess Schahorsky-Gleboff-Strechneff. 'The Russian government used her as 2 cruiser during the War. She was at Plymouth" when the Bolshevist revolution turned out and I fancy the crew turned Bolshevik. At any' rate she never went back to Rus Dut became the British Government' property and in due course came 10 Chins er internal decorations clearly showed her millionaire ancestry, and they included a very lovely dessert service with Napoleon's initial worked into the border, and portraits of the various lovely ladies of his court. I remember hearing a lady, at dinner tone night in the Alacrity, innocent ly exclaim to the captain "Oh, but T thought that 'N' stood for 'Navy'."
The Last Admiral on the China station to have the use of the Alacrity was the late Sir Alexander Clu, In or about 1922 Labour M.P's began to ask silly questions about her. and the Admiralty, to pacify ther, ordered the Alacrily to be sent hom: although as Admiral Duff said, no economy to take her away, It's much cheaper to send me about in
a sloop' the Alacrity than in the Hawkins Since 1983 the Atscrity has been tied up off Upnor, near Chatham, and used as a floating clubhouse. "Two years ago the fishermen on the Med: way complained to the Admiral' that she interfered with their smelt Gshing. So she is to be broken wy. Some' would say that two years was rather quick time for 2 complaint to take effect in a government office, The Zinoviett Amtalr The Moscow trial and execution of Zinovietl, Kameneft and their fourteen fellow victims has equally di gusted and mystified us. are apparently others to follow in the former rather" popular 'Soviet Ambastador in London, and Radek, Stalin's own leader writer on the "Izvestia' call it a trial, in which the accused were nct allowed counsel and. the evidence against them was mostly. ther own confessions, obtained only the Ogpu knows how, is a mockery.
"these mad dogs. of Fascism" Between the savage denunciations of Vishinsky, the hysterical prosecutor, and the abject, weeping confession of the accused in the dock, the whole spectacle was too nauseating and barbarous for words, There are many conjectures as to why these men, condemned on charg-connected with the Kiroft murder eighteen mev.ths ago, are suddenly dragged cut prison to face now, recusutions, Some believe that Moseuw's real objective is Trotsky (sate im Norway), and that it Is hitting him through Zinovie! & Comlike the ¢runken man who being nearly hit by an omnibus runs after it and, kicks the conductor. Whatever the motive, the anal is @ great shock to our intellectuals, ike G.BS. and Professor Lasky who are never weary, of extolling the high civilization of Bolshevik Russia, "And in fact it had been thought that the Soviet had lived through its days of blood-lust, In the lurid light of Nazidom and Faceism Soviet Russia was becoming quite the white-haired boy. Plainly the spirit vhich avenged the attempt. en Lenin's ute in 1918—when 509 Whites were shot in Moscow - and. over 700 in the ¢rovinees: Zinoviefts work: i use resting t¢ recall—s very much alive, Must of the heroes of the revolu-a are no more. Uribsky, head of the Petrograd Cleka, and Volodarsky were assassinated. Joffe, the frst Soviet Ambassador to China com-roitted sulelde as Tomsky has now done. Alexandroff, first Vice-Pr>- sident of the Moscow Cheka, died for hhis share in an attempted coup d'etat. Chicherin and Derjinsky are dead; 'Trotsky and' Rakovsky, ambassador London at the time of the famous Zinoviell letter, are in exile, Lenin's death is stid to have been hastened the attempt on him in 1910, Stalin remains, practically the Inst the Octobrisis.
Sorel, the French historian said that "il is always minorities strongly organized which have launched the great events of history." But: another writer, French or not 1 ean-of recall, has commented that volutions always end by devouring, their own children."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.