O. K. for Mr. A?

A man's virtue, in the public eye, is often heightened by his past iniquity--as was Henry IV's,* Roach Straton's,/- Julius Caesar's.**

When the young Indian Prince, Sir Hari Singh, was detected in intimate residence with a "Mrs--. Robinson" at Paris (TIME, Dec. 15, 1924, LAW) the world reverberated with the scandal of his trial under an alias, "Mr. A." Yet last week, sentimentalists from Benares to Boston scanned with moist-eyed approval a meagre despatch from India:

His Highness, Sir Hari Singh, Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, has effected such improvements in the administration of his Forestry Service by Occidental methods that the revenues from the forest of Kashmir have increased from $100,000 to $250,000 per annum.

The erstwhile young scapegrace, it was touted, has brought back from the Occident more than a world-notorious name, has sown among his benighted people the priceless seeds of Western knowledge. . . . Cynics scented propaganda in the despatch, awaited more of the same from Sir Hari's highly paid and skillful British advisers. The late Maharaja, Sir Pratap Singh, has not been long in his grave (TIME, Oct. 5, MILESTONESQ, and the coronation of his nephew, Sir Hari (TIME, March 8), occurred so recently as to preclude $150,000 increase in the Kashmir forest revenues by any "Western" method-- except an orgy of chopping.

*As everyone knows, Shakespeare's dramas, Henry IV and Henry V, trace the development of "Prince Hal," from the days when he consorted with wild tavern rakes until he ascended the throne as Henry V, spurned Falstaff, became renowned as a monarch sagacious and brave.

/-Dr. Straton, loud-speaking apostle of doom, said (TIME, Dec. 1, 1924, THE PRESS), "I was [formerly] deep in sin, loving sin, following sin, living for sin. ..." (See p. 19.)

**"Veni, vidi, vici," has been supposed by wags to have been originally uttered not anent the conquest of Gaul, but on the occasion of one of his innumerable youthful female conquests.