Uncommon Clay

Ripe, laughing wenches--half a score of them--took turns at dancing with their future King and Emperor when Edward of Wales visited the excessively plebeian Lambeth Carnival one night last week, and later moved on to quaff punch with sailors and their dolls at the Union Jack Club.

His Royal Highness may be said to have spent the week slumming. One morning he burst in upon five different families dwelling in the London County Council tenements at Wadsworth; caught mothers red-handed at their washtubs; made daughters scarlet-cheeked at his presence. Thence he visited the White House, a hostel for bums in Settle Street. Everywhere his cheery, infectious smile brought a roar of welcome from those many voices named collectively "The voice of God."*

Meanwhile voices bereft of such Divinity, the voices of England's old aristocracy, spoke without mincing of His Royal Highness. They recalled the oft quoted sneer which he may or may not have uttered when his only sister, Princess Mary, married Viscount Lascelles (Feb. 28, 1922). Said Edward of Wales, reputedly, on that occasion: "Every day I get commoner and commoner, and every day Lascelles gets royaler and royaler." To Lord Lascelles and others of the landed peerage, the remark has seemed to have a backhand twist not inappropriate to Slummer Edward.

At present, with Her Royal Highness the Duchess of York on the way to Australia (TIME, Jan. 17 et seq.), the relations of Edward of Wales with his sister were reported less cordial last week than is usual when his undoubtedly charming sister-in-law, the Duchess, is in London. Elizabeth, Duchess of York, is, by now, quietly well-known for her ability to get Edward into a good humor at family gatherings --especially toward Princess Mary and her husband, punctilious Lord Lascelles.

Viscount Lascelles is 44, and still awaiting the death of his father, the Earl of Harewood, 80, sound as a cudgel. Though the King-Emperor often hunts with the Earl of Harewood, His Majesty almost never visits Goldsborough Hall, the estate of Lord Lascelles and Princess Mary. When the Queen-Empress goes there it is noticed, moreover, that Lord Lascelles is usually away. From this state of affairs springs the suspicion, now current in court circles, that Viscount Lascelles pointedly" resents the King-Emperor's neglect in not raising his rank since his marriage to Princess Mary.*

Edward of Wales, irrepressible, does not conceal from Viscount Lascelles his satisfaction that the latter must await his father's death to become an earl. From this unspoken taunt springs the dislike between them which is common knowledge. Therefore, last week, British clubmen cackled loudly at a mot which Lord Lascelles was said to have made anent the London slumming exploits of Edward of Wales: "One would think he got near enough to the dirt at Melton Mowbray [the hunting centre where Edward has so often fallen off his horse into the mud]."

*Vox populi, vox Dei-ALEUIN (800 A. D.)

*His Majesty did, however, create him a Knight of the Garter.