Notes

Jacked up upon the ways of the great naval shipyard at Birkenhead, a new British battleship, said to be the heaviest and most powerful in the world, awaited only its christening as H.M. SS. Rodney, before slipping into the eternal brine.

Three times Princess Mary, Viscountess Lascelles, propelled a bottle of champagne toward the monster's bow plates. Only at the last throw did she succeed in smashing the bottle.

British gossips recalled that Princess Mary is one of three ladies of the Court who recently announced their approaching retirement to the country, there to await the appearance of further issue to the British aristocracy. The two other ladies so circumstanced are the Duchess of York and Lady Louis Mountbatten (wife of the cousin of King George).

In London, one Alderman Lambeth paused amid dead silence for one minute and twelve seconds during the course of a speech which he was making in Borough Council anent labor conditions. Resuming his speech, he declared: "You have just sat and fidgeted through the 72-second eternity which it takes the average workman to lay one brick."

The Amalgamated Union of Building Trades at once called a strike "in protest against this insult to our dignity."

Sir Brodericks Ruin

London cables last week left U. S. drys jubilant and wets glum. They reported Sir Broderick Cecil Hartwell, "rum-running baronet," as listed in the Official Gazette for bankruptcy.

In 1923 Sir Broderick organized a company to buy liquor and ship it--not to U. S. shores but as close thereto as the twelve-mile limit allowed. The idea was not, so the Baronet asserted, to act as a bootlegger. Only it so happened that a craft lying off shore laden with Scotch and other forbidden liquors would soon find buyers swarming towards it. Once his merchandise was sold--for cash--Sir Broderick would cease to be interested in its further history. Perhaps it entered the U. S. Perhaps not. He really could not say. But he sent out circulars inviting the public to subscribe to stock in his company, promising large returns.

The early days of the rum fleet were however concluded by the American coast patrol, which seized several thousand cases of contraband liquor belonging to Sir Broderick's company. The Baronet admitted that this disastrous coup exhausted his funds. He gamely stuck at it, however, and announced that he would next try to land cargoes through the "Bahamas International Trading Co." if he could finance the new organization. But the British press frowned upon the venture. The influential London Daily Mail warned prospective investors against it. The apparent result was Sir Broderick's recent bankruptcy.