Miss Australia

Australian girls are very fine girls. Heave away! Heave away! With codfish balls they comb their curls. . . . Heave away for far Australia! --Antique Song

Some months ago, Australian artists, sculptors, sport experts, physicians and professors examined and considered from every angle a dark-haired, athletic young thing named Beryl Mills, finally arriving at the conclusion that, of hundreds of other specimens studied, she was the finest young university woman Australia had produced in this generation. Thereupon they named her "Miss Australia" and awarded her an educational tour of the U. S. Last week she had crossed the continent from west to east. Manhattan newspaper reporters could think of but one thing to ask anyone called "Miss Australia": would she enter the current beauty contest at Atlantic City, where pursy bankers, showmen, hotel loungers and politicians sat in judgment upon the curves and proportions of "Miss Texas," "Miss Georgia," "Miss Idaho," etc., etc.? Beryl Mills did not like to disappoint her interviewers. And she thinks "all this talk about how vulgar you Americans are," is "silly." She thinks Americans are "perfectly adorable," especially U.S. college girls, even if they do smoke more than Australians and use "ever so much more" makeup. Nevertheless, she was obliged to say no, certainly not; she had not the faintest idea of entering the Atlantic City "struggle" (as the reporters called it) or any other.