Grey Twelfth

Last week King George had a dinner of fine plump red Scotch grouse shipped by express from Balmoral Castle, but many another grouse-loving Briton ate mutton or went hungry. On the morning of the Twelfth--opening date of the Scottish grouse season--a violent thunderstorm swept over the moors, leaving boggy ground and a heavy mist in its wake. Sportsmen standing ankle-deep in the sticky peat of shooting butts had no sooner begun popping at dimly seen grouse than another storm broke and drove them home. But not before a gamekeeper had been shot dead at Clonmannon. Growled an expert: "The worst morning of the Twelfth known in the North for 20 years." The shooting season's inauspicious opening was not due to bad weather alone. U. S. lessors of Scottish estates were conspicuously few. John Pierpont Morgan was there, as were Tycoons Solomon Guggenheim, John W. Converse and Andrew Watson Armour. But many a moor was barren of beaters. Although bracken has lately been encroaching on the heather it was well filled with healthy birds, and those who had leases planned a season of hard shooting to reduce the big coveys to a few birds so that those that remained would mate and continue the supply. Further news of the Twelfth: P: In London bankruptcy court, Charles Lancaster Co., famed gunmakers, blamed its insolvency on 1) loss of customers killed in the War, 2) the popularity of automobiles, 3) high tariffs, 4) changed social conditions. P: In Ickornshaw, Yorkshire, where Viscount Philip Snowden was born, hundreds of jobless men took advantage of their ancient right of free shooting, reaped handsome profits, spoiled the shooting for sportsmen. P: At Balmoral the King & Queen were expected this week. In anticipation of their coming the Glasgow Sunday Mail treated its readers to an intimate, not particularly respectful description of the royal train. Said the Mail: "Not even Hollywood stars or Argentine millionaires own more luxurious railroad saloons. The King's smoking compartment [is fitted] with apple green leather and fiddleback mahogany, while the Queen's boudoir saloon has paler green silk upholstery and Jacobean oak furniture. Her sleeping compartment is decorated in blue and there is a pink marble bathroom adjoining." P: Not to be outdone by the railroads, Scottish bus companies began uniforming their conductors in kilts and blazers embroidered with the companies' initials. Chided the Manchester Guardian: "From blazers it is an easy step to ties--and from busses it will be strange if the house-tie habit does not extend until stevedores write letters to the newspapers complaining against the cads who wear ties for which they never carried coal-sacks."

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