"Spectator " Competitions

RULES AND CONDITIONS

Entries must be typed or very clearly written on one side of the paper only. The name and address, or pseudonym, of the competitor must be on each entry and not on a separate sheet. When a word limit is set words must be counted and the number given. No entries can be returned. Prizes may be divided at the discretion of the judge, or withheld if no entry reaches the required standard. The judge reserves the right to print or quote from any entry. The judge's decision is final, and no correspondence can be entered into on the subject of the award. Entries must be addressed to :—The Editor, the Spectator, 99 Gower Street,

London, W.C. 1, and be marked on the envelope Competition No. (—).

Competition No. 22 (Set by " SCADAVAY.") ASSUME that an American film company has committed itself, in a moment of aberration, to the screening of four of Shakespeare's plays. A prize of £3 3s. is offered for the best list of the four titles under which it is finally decided that the finished masterpieces shall go forth into the world. Competitors should, of course, give the original titles of the plays as well ; but they may choose any plays they like.

Entries must be received not later than Monday, September 14th, 1931. The result of this competition will appear in our issue of September 26th.

Competition No. 23 (Set by "Duam." ) IT is assumed that, to increase the national character of the present Government, places are found in the Cabinet for Mr. Edgar Wallace, Miss Amy Johnson and Mr. Jack Hobbs. A prize of £3 3s. is offered for a paragraph, in the style of the News of the Week section of the Spectator, expressing approval of these appointments. No paragraph must exceed 250 words in length.

Entries must be received not later than Monday, September 21st, 1931. The result of this competition will appear in our issue of October 3rd.

The result of Competition No. 21 will appear in our next issue.

Report of Competition No. zo

REPORT AND AWARD BY " SCADAVAY."

EPITAPH ON A METEOROLOGIST.

A PRIZE of £3 Ss. was offered for a 200-word Epitaph on a Meteorologist.

To my mind there is something almost obscene in making a living out of the weather. The meteorologist of my imagina-

tion is spiritually akin to the tricateuse. But the weather-

prophet is always without honour in his own land ; and in my saner moments I recognize the trade as a necessary and honourable one. But I must say I was surprised by the number of epitaphs composed in a spirit of eulogy untempered by even the kindliest criticism : though I suppose anyone who can stand up to the British climate, even in print, commands respect. Of those who lauded to the skies their interpreters on earth the best was " Celtico."

Of those who did the reverse the most representative was perhaps T. G. Seton, of whose meteorologist we learn—with or without a twinge of pity, according to our natures—that "His outlook's 'Rather warm to hot." The pithiest was F. J. Lewcock, who finished with 198 words still in hand by submitting as an epitaph simply HIC JACET." F. Loftus Wigram was almost as terse :

" The swine Said ` Fine,' And yet 'Twas wet."

The Rev. F. Keeling Scott had a good first line : " Depressed, but not unsettled, here he lies ' ; and Protec- tionist " started off even more promisingly :

" Here lies Professor Hull-Baloo

Who fell into the snake-pit at the Zoo,"

but the connexion between this nasty accident and its victim's vocation was too arbitrarily established. Of Miss Dorothy Kerr's Vane Hope, D.Sc., it was poignantly recorded that " He died of a broken heart, at Old Trafford." L. V. Upward's entry was good, and showed how one can be topical even on a tombstone by ending :

" He died a lunatic, his work half done, Driven insane by 1931."

The Rev. A. H. Storrs, Arthur J. Mackey, Miss Rosa Vine, and A. Mercer Smith all deserve praise. A first prize of two guineas goes to P. S. Crisp, who re- minded us that Meteorology is all the funnier for being a science as well as a joke. A second prize of one guinea goes to W. G., who speaks out bravely for a civilization which has been taught that, in case of calamity, " it is kinder to say nothing about it," and thereby traces to its true origin the odium incurred by meteorologists. Very honourably men- tioned are James Hall, for a pleasantly fatalistic epigram ; T. E. Oliver, some of whose sentences are very unlucky not to

have won him a prize ; and the Rev. P. M. Gedge, who reminded us that they did these things as least as well in Greece. FIRST PRIZE.

Hie JACET.

NEWTON T-Teri.vy ROCKSAVAGE.

Only Son of the late Alhezen Rocksavage Esq., by Whom, as a Child, he was Inculcated with the Nascent Desire to Acquaint himself with the Science of Meteorology.

AS a Mere Boy, he was as Skilled in the use of the Anemometer, the Hygrometer, the Evaporometer, the Nephoscope and the Polarimeter as he was in that of the Globes.

AT the age of Eleven, he had read Alhezen on Twilight, and Vitellis on the Rainbow, and although Galileo on the Law of Inertia had been Banned by Zealous Tutors as Somewhat. Undesir- able in Precept, ho Nevertheless Acquired a Mastery of the Principles Enunciated in this Monumental Work.

HE took a Precocious Interest, in his Thirteenth Year, in the System of Weather Reports as Devised by his Late Majesty Ferdinand II of Tuscany and Soon had a System Perfected under which were Collated, Daily, Statistics from the Neighbouring Towns of Whortlebury-on-Ooze and Syncope-in-the-Mire. IN 1888, following some Ten Years of Intense Study and Research, he Evolved his Famous Theory . . .

G=1(2 n sin. 41-1-cos iv/01.'83,000 Which has Never Been Controverted, Although Many of the World's most Distinguished Savants have Sought to Refute the Irrefragable.

TWO Years later, in the September of 1890, he Crowned his Life's Work by Issuing his Celebrated Treatise on Curvature in Isobars.

He who had spent a Lifetime in the Study of Meteorology was,

in the Ninety-third Year of his Life, Stricken Down by a Meteorite

while Conducting Pleistocene Researches in the Yosemite Valley.

— This memorial was erected by his Son, Kelvin Rocksavage and has been renovated by his grandson, Einstein Rocksavage.-

P. S. Ouse.

SECOND PRIZE.

Here lies a wretch who from his earliest youth Rejoiced to bawl th' intolerable troth.

Of Eagle (S.) and Jeremiah blent, He deemed himself to spread ill tidings sent.

In honeyed tones he told the shrinking boor That tempests round his cot next day would roar : With infinite complacence marked the spots Where sheep would have the footrot, cows the bots With wreathed smiles the hailstorm prophesied, And lisped his baleful tale with modest pride.

His lightest converse was of flooded lanes,

Depressions deep and very heavy rains..

And 0 ! what mortal ear could e'er endure The way he mouthed : " A falling temperature " Does he still ply his trade ? We cannot tell.

No frost is there in heaven, no floods in hell.

Learn from his life, unthinking passerby—

If truth's unpleasant, tell a graceful lie.

W. G.

HIGHLY COMMENDED.

Beneath this stone limit one who, year by year, Did take the measure of our atmosphere ; Until, when both were working at high pressure,

The atmosphere prevailed to take his measure :

But, tho' we know not, of divergent ways,

Which one he took, he now knows better days.

JAMES` TriT.T..

In Memory of SECONDARY IMPRESSION

the renowned meteorologist and cynic who disappeared during a bright interval, on 15th July, 1931, and is believed to have made Direct Descent from this spot in an endeavour to propitiate a belated heat-wave. . . . Tracing from S. Swahili and Dame Shipton, for many years he upheld the orthodoxy of Old Moore ; but in later life he discarded the use of corns and seaweed as means to prognostication, and derived entirely from Science. . . . His serene optimism proved of inestimable service to the com- munity during long periods of chastening by cyclonic disturbance and pressure from Iceland ; while his glossary of predictions remains indubitably the finest reference available to equivocators.

Among many other remarkable achievements he instituted

thermometric and barometric readings as substitutes for lotteries ; and, despite popular misconception regarding the principles con- trolling coded selections, his ` Further Outlooks " were generally accepted as the prime factor in all ante-post speculation.

To mark their esteem and gratitude, this tablet was dedicated by the Amalgamated Druggists and Medical Prrzctitioners.

T. E. OLLivee.

aparov 4t7 57"01./V TOT' ox' cOpcirco an-v(6n yvar S'etpx.0 ras re 842ous Maras REv. P. M. GEDGE.