Taxi Tourist

Van Lear Black* famed as the U. S. businessman who has taxied by air the largest number of miles, last fortnight gave up temporarily his most extensive taxi-tour. With one valet, two Dutch pilots and a sturdy triple-engined Fokker Jupiter plane, he set out a month ago to tour the world. No Jules Verne hero, he intended to break no record of speed, altitude, distance or endurance. He would go in a leisurely way from Croydon Airdrome, England, to Tokyo, and back, with sundry detours about the Mediterranean coast, in South Africa, and Mesopotamia--a matter of 40,000 miles in all. A broken wing and damaged engine forced him back to London, to wait for a new plane to be built. A luxurious traveler, in any case, Van Lear Black retreated from Khartum, Egypt, by special train.

* TIME, March 5, referred to Van Lear Black as the British born "owner of the Baltimore Sun papers, purser of a blockade-running munitions freighter during the great submarine war, navigator by sea and air." Actually he cannot himself navigate a ship or plane; has never been officially a purser; and is the U. S.-born chairman of the board of the A. S. Abell Co., publishers of the Baltimore Sun, the principal stockholders of which are Charles S. Abell, Harry C. Black, Van Lear Black, Joseph A. Blondell, Paul Patterson.