Cuckoo

Even news of a royal prince--H. R. H. the Duke of Gloucester--was subordinated last week to the following item which London's august Times placed prominently at the head of its daily column "News In Brief": The cuckoo was heard on Monday morning in the coppices at Coombe Hill, Surrey. Two items down appeared an intimation that the Duke of Gloucester, third son of His Majesty George V, had consented to become the Patron of a charitable institute. Provokingly mysterious and stimulating to alert imaginations was a third gem of news, the eighth in the column: Two men dressed in plus fours were seen by a policeman early yesterday morning throwing coathangers over the railings of Battersea Park. When they saw the policeman they jumped into a red saloon motorcar and drove off towards Chelsea. The officer found more than 100 coathangers in the park.