Sir Harry Flayed

Oh, when I was twenty-one!

When I was twenty-one!

I never had lots o' money,

but I always had lots of fun!

The words rollick. The little Scot prances and taps them out with his cane as he sings. Two plump, white knees twinkle below his kilt, and the Puckish smile of Sir Harry Lauder becomes as irresistible as the merry light in his grey eyes. Soon one more audience has succumbed to Scottish magic and is lilting the chorus joyously:

Oh, I was a har-r-rum sear-r-rum!

And my courtin' days begun

On the ver-r-ra, ver-r-ra, ver-r-ra NICHT!

When I was twenty-one. . . .

Could any man who has joined with Sir Harry Lauder in such a chorus shake off the spell sufficiently to speak ill of him ? Sir Harry's friends would doubtless deny the possiblility; but in Edinburgh last week at a meeting of the Town Council, Mr. Councilman Gilzean struck the table a blow with his doubled fist and shouted:

". . . I say that no man has done more to bring Scotch songs into contempt than Harry Lauder! . . ."

The Council has been debating whether to confer "The Freedom of the City" on Sir Harry, and had heard several councilmen wax unetuous over his morale work during the World War, not forgetting to add that "his only son lies buried in a hero's grave."

Mr. Gilzean roundly said that Sir Harry Lauder has not only debased and vulgarized the songs of his country; but that "he portrays a type of Scotchman not found in the heavens above, on the earth beneath, or in waters under the earth." Waxing emphatic, Councilman Gilzean cried: "If that type of Scotchman ever went about Scotland in the flesh, we would pack him off to an asylum!"

Since many people do find Sir Harry Lauder's performances wholly or in part distasteful, what are his obnoxious points? Partial list: 1) His habit of performing character sketches between his songs in which the "character" is supposed to be, for example, an idiot boy who constantly wipes his nose with gusto on a homespun sleeve; 2) Sir Harry's habit of "forcing" new songs written by himself (and for sale in the lobby) on an audience which gives vocal and unmistakable signs that it wants chiefly his "old favorites"; 3) the extreme conceit and cocksureness with which Sir Harry presumes to address his audiences, a mannerism which delights some proletarian* hearers, but causes many sturdy citizens quietly to withdraw; 4) the primitive range and calibre of Sir Harry's voice, which, while it is the very touchstone of his magic, also bears testimony at every note to his oft repeated boast: "I've never done anything for my voice but smoke and drink when I felt so inclined."

No doubt the Town Councilmen at Edinburgh are as fit to judge Sir Harry as any men alive, and their final verdict last week, was to decree that he shall receive the Freedom of the City. They know that Sir Harry has at least earned what is his. They know that as a boy of eleven he spent twelve hours a day combing flax for two shillings and a penny per week (60-c-). They know that he was working as a coal miner in 1894 and earning only seven shillings and sixpence an evening extra when he went out to sing in some seamen's tavern or cheap music hall. "When his antecedents are allowed for, the alleged 'vulgarity,' 'stinginess' and 'conceit' of Sir Harry Lauder cannot weigh much in the scale against him."

Two days after the Town Council had acted, in Edinburgh, a telegraph instrument began to click at Dunoon, Scotland. Soon the Councilmen were scanning newspapers which made them feel that their favorable decision had barely saved the Council on the brink of a horrible misstep. They read that there had died in Dunoon, after an operation at first pronounced "successful," the universally esteemed Lady Lauder.

Annie Vallance was the daughter of one of Harry Lauder's first employers. He has said: "I began going with Annie when I was 14 (and she 12)." Said he, proposing, "Annie, if y'll marry me, I'll make you a Lady some day." Said she to her coal-miner suitor, "I'll have you anyway, Harry, Lady or no Lady."

Thirty-seven years has been the span of their married life, and for eight years they have been Knight and Lady. Meanwhile all the world has learned to carol a song which Sir Harry is believed to have written during his courting days:

Oh, I love a lassie,

A bonny, bonny lassie!

She's as pure as the lily in the dell!

She's as sweet as the heather,

The bonny bloomin' heather!

Mary, ma Scotch blue bell.

*Cicero defined a "proletarin (Latin Proletarius) as "a citizen fo the lowest class who serves the state only by being a father of children."