The Crown

P:Queen Victoria's only remarks to a phonograph were discovered on a squeaky old Edison cylinder last week, found to be singularly up-to-date and topical. The record, made at Her Majesty's command, voiced her goodwill toward the then Emperor of Ethiopia, great empire-building Menelik. Carried to his wild capital, a reproduction of the cylinder squeaked Victoria's august words into his hairy ear, while the original lay until last week in the archives of London's Edison-Bell Co.

P:King George and Queen Mary enjoyed the Cowes Regatta without incident, except that Her Majesty aboard the Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert was vexed by a mouse.

P:Edward of Wales in a Provencal fisherman's wide cobalt blue trousers and short-sleeved white shirt with blue bars across the chest, turned up at Cannes dressed exactly like most other swanksters. One of H. R. H.'s entourage of six smoked a corncob pipe labeled "From Missouri." No. 1 Woman remained beauteous Baltimore-born Mrs. Ernest A. Simpson, wife of a complacent Briton (TIME, Sept. 24, March 11). Wallis Warfield Spencer Simpson and H. R. H. were vexed by an absurd pamphlet purporting to have been written by her and titled What Charmed the Prince.

Copies of this were snapped up by spite-loving socialites who got for their money advice on acquiring a honeyish Baltimore drawl and the aptitude to "listen and ask questions hesitatingly, girlishly, charmingly." Then: "Languidly take it easy, saving up strength for the 'concentration moments' when the man is around."

Said Mr. Simpson when told of the pamphlet in London: "I'm glad to know of it. Good cause for a libel action, what? Of course my wife didn't write it."

P:The Duke of York was guest last week to J. P. Morgan who was greeted recently by King George "like a long-lost brother" at the Royal Garden Party which closed the Silver Jubilee (TIME, Aug. 12). Mr. Morgan, who bought Genochy in County Angus four years ago for grouse shooting, was reported by terse Scots to have "acting as his hostess" Lady Elphinstone, the buxom Duchess of York's vivacious sister. Grizzled Host Morgan himself shot no grouse, strolled about the moors with the shooting Duke of York, conversed with animation. Scots reported that as usual male guests received from Mr. Morgan lengths of suiting from the native tweedery nearby.

P:The Duke of Gloucester, whose tour of Australia last year was considered in the Dominion a hint that King George would like to appoint him its Governor General, was passed over last week when His Majesty finally acted on the advice of Premier Joseph Aloysius ("Honest Joe") Lyons.

Accommodating Mr. Lyons, while firm against any of the King's sons as Governor

General, did not insist that George V appoint another Australian to replace the present Governor General, Sir Isaac Isaacs, appointed by His Majesty with the indignant comment, "a man whom I have never seen!"

A Briton frequently seen by Queen Victoria, King Edward and King George is the new Governor General put forward by Mr. Lyons last week, soldierly Sir Alexander Hore-Ruthven, brother of the ninth Baron Ruthven whose Scottish title dates from 1487. Sir Alexander was born in George Windsor's name town, Windsor, schooled at Eton across the Thames, decorated by Queen Victoria for bravery as a camel corps commander in the Sudan, and sent to Australia by King Edward as Military Secretary to its Governor General in 1908. Desperately wounded at Gallipoli, he received the D. S. O. from King George, went out as Governor of South Australia in 1928, and since 1934 has been Governor of New South Wales. Thus Premier Lyons, famed as Australia's "Great Compromiser," went as far as Australian public opinion would permit last week in advising His Majesty to appoint as Governor General an Old Etonian, something no Dominion today cares to stomach.

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