Tue First Commissioner of Works will be asked by Dr, Edith Summerskill, M.P., if he will consider placing a mirror in the Members' cloakroom for the convenience of Members of both sexes, He was a worthy member Of Britain's Parliament, From Jan, unto December He worked with good intent: But frequently it grieved him That critics claimed a cause—That no one quite believed him As perfect as he was.
But now in expectation He sees a looking-glass, And finds some consolation For comments crude and crass: Though fame may shrink to zero, And insults grow apace, He'll see the noble hero He is—and face to face.
—By F. G. H. Salusbury in the "Daily Herald."
Contretemps THERE appeared in the law courts, the other day, a woman "who said that her evening frock had split when she -sat down at a dinner party."
One has no wish to raise an easy laugh (as was once remarked by a learned, judge who leaned over the bench, and tipped his inkwell on the wig of his slumbering associate), but her statement is extremely interesting as providing the only other example in real life of early slapstick film humour, No, when Lady Clanbridget sat down and there came that rending noise, nobody even smiled. There may have been an infinitesimal pause; but, almost immediately, she said to her hostess, "I wonder, my dear, if I could have a sheet."
"Certainly, my dear," said her hostess: and a sheet was brought.
"Oh, and some safety-pins, if I may."
"And some safety-pin' for her ladyship."
The sheet was draped round her in a few moments and fixed by her hostess' deft maid; and the dinner party proceeded to a conclusion. which would have been perfectly tranquil if the sheet had not been pinned, inadvertently, to the table-cloth.
The result, when Lady Clanbridget rose with the ladies, was in the best film tradition, It was discussed afterwards and all decided that she could have surpassed herself only by dropping a cigarette-end into a keg of gunpowder or, possibly, by falling head first into a barrel of molasses, But, of course, people were serious about films in those days.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.