SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 71

Report by R. Kennard Davis

A prize was offered for an extract Mont a speech on the occasion of a prize-giving at a girls' school by Polonius or Joseph Finsbury or Alfred Doolittle.

It is the season of prize-givings. "The more cultivated portion of the ignorant," who compose so many of our governing bodies, are busy enlisting the services of the Joseph Finsburies who write on " Education: Its Aims, Objects, Purposes and Desirability." No educational function in Elsinore is complete without a " few words " from Polonius. If any headmistress is rash enough to invite the Wannafeller lecturer on Moral Reforrh, on the strength of his title, to address her pupils, she is asking for trouble ; but she and the audience will certainly escape boredom !

The speeches of these three distinguished visitors, as imagined by competitors, contain pretty well what might be expected of them. Polonius is long-winded and sententious, but his blank verse (not always impeccable) gives him a spurious liveliness. Finsbury is tedious and irrelevant ; luckily he is cut off after. 250 words. Doo- little, somewhat restrained, fortunately, by his environment, manages to inveigh against middle-class morality without entering into too embarrassing details. He breaks into alliterative rhetoric (" I'm warning you. I'm worrying you. I'M wounding you "). He even indulges in the apt quotation: —" As the immortal J. Keats said, ' A thing of beauty has a boy for ever '." But he is not quite his delightful, abominable self.

The majority of competitors chose' Polonius, whose well-known maxims were comparatively easy to adapt for the occasion. Frances Collingwood gave an.ingenious paraphrase in modern prose of the speech to Laertes. W. D. Gilmour ended well: " Polonius : My head ! My head is swimming. I feel faint !

1st Scholar (aside): I drugged his posget ! Cqrrect, th'apothecary's assumption ; No fear have we of a too swift resumption ! "

In awarding the prizes I am faced with a difficulty. The best entry, in my judgement, was that of Mrs. D. S. Walker, but (unless my notoriously uncertain arithmetic has misled me) she has exceeded by a small margin her quota of words. I think the fairest course is to treat her last three lines lasTmin-exiitent, and award her the first prize (£2) for the remainder. Second prizes of £1 each go to Michael Janies (Polonius), -Mrs.-Emily 'Neff (Finsbury) arid Ronald Gordon (Doolittle). Highly commended : Mcs. S. M. Gifford and Margaret Usborne- (-Polonius), D. L. ,L. Clarke (Doolittle) -and Myddleton Haslam (Finsbury):'

- _ - - FIRST PRIZE

- (MRS - D. S. WiILKER) e1OLONIus : Fair- mistresses1 -will not call you young ;

For some there be Whose ruddy cheek and lip Do speak me false, though seeming true : if false

'Tis pretty still, and pretty fair; though false.

(A vile phrase that, but leave it)=-Bear with me And dub me not a " tedious old fool" Or say " Longevity hath stole his.wit."

I still have something—mark well what I say—

Some craft and worldly subtlety not found In books and learning, study how you may.

If you must study, study first to please :

Give ev'ryman your lips, but nowise cheek : Be nothing vulgar, and still less familiar, For pert behaviours shock th' attendant male And looseness spoils the chance of husbanding.

Let each assess her worth and seek to make A well-matched, gilt-edged contract ; each beware Of entrance to a marriage, but being in Bcar't that thy husband may beware of thee.

Costly thy habit as his purse can buy, But if he prove unreasonable in this

Take thou his censure, but reserve thy judgement

And give thy thoughts no tongue. Should he relent,

Set thy entreatment at a higher rate

And so gain double. Thermlay put on him What forgeries thou wilt. I further urge,

When he has bidden guests to grace his board,

Entice them to essay thy sink of steel,

And do not soil thy palm with entertainment, With washing-up, potatoes, and the like.

SECOND PRIZES (MICHAEL JAMES) POLONJUS : Here's honours heaped unearned on these white hairs.

And praises undeserved, my good headmistress.

Thanks for your introduction. Now, in brief, Lest that in. marqueed tent the salad sandwich Curls in despair'abandoned, hear these precepts, And take it, not amiss to have them issued

By an old, bearded-man, who points his moral With skinny finger, when, were it elected, Your orator would be a younger champion Fresh plaudited at the Palladium. , Heed first your fathers, hold to their advice Garnered in suffrance, deep in observation Of nuptial couch and eke the typists' pool ; Scorn not their warnings ; in the ancient ram Lurks yet the memory. of the youthful wolf. Avoid good dancers, men who dance, dance out .A sorry measure on the maiden heart : Haste not to snare'th'elusive bachelor By dangling golden rings before his eyes : Rich paint thy parent's income, not thy nails : Spend more-„..on stockings than on Paris hats, Thus lending accent to the gift of nature And not extravagance. Be wise to 'shun The lipsticked cup and smouldering cigarette : Neither a gossip nor a cause for gossip be Belie your age, and let not spite run out In making little of your rival's charms, For spite, in-action like th'Australiati boomerang; Comes wounding home with a redoubled force. Thus. maidens, model your adult careers, And it shaWfollow, as the night the day, You'll take your choice of well nigh any man.

Y, (MRS. EMILY NEILL)

•

JOSEPH FINSBURy : With these remarks on. the subject of land tenure in _Greenland I trust I have aroused.yout attention.; Do you know how often the world " green " occurs in the Bible ? Three ihousand 'if I remember:exactly—nine times. I have never been-a great reader. -Life is my volume. BM L have travelled much in foreign lands and -made it my business. to study the customs, of the- inhabitants. I have `formed 'the impression that people-everywhere are averse from con- versation_and reluctant to receive instruction, but in spite of difficulties 'I succeeded .irf. filling. twentyAv.e notebooks with valuable statistics. Nothing was beneath `my notice. Thus in Naples I 'busied myself in learning the correct way to.eat Spaghetti,. and in Atlanta; Ga., to attack corn on the cob.

" I- have delivered More:than seventy lectures, all 'of them free of charge, though 'on two' occasions I received my expenses, and I lime noted that in my audiences the females. are always-the first to show signs -of- inattention. Let these young persons in the eighth, row take

this reproof to heart. .

Here is a copy of Oar- Feathered Friends, containing an- excellent article on -the different varieties of hens with special tables of their egg-laying abilities which I should like to lead to you. Hoiveyer, on consulting my watch I find we have but a bare hour before us and, therefore, must proceed" at once to my discourse on Education : its Aims, Objects, Purposes and Desirability.