"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 com- petitor 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 fudge, 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 addrossed to :—The Editor, the Spectator, 99 Gower Street, London, W.C. 1, and be marked on the envelope Competition No. (--).

The result of Coinpetition No. 4 will appear in our next issue.

Competition No. 5 (Set by "Dumi:r.") A prize of £3 3s. is .offered foi: a list of suggested familiar names for the following flowers : Chrysanthemum, nasturtium, dahlia, geranium, gladiolus, fuchsia. (Ex- amples of familiar names are cherry-pie for heliotrope, snapdragon for antirrhinum, &c.) Only one name may be suggested for each flower.

Entries must be received not later than Monday, May 18th, 1931. The result of this competition will be announced in our issue of May 30th.

Competition No. 6 (Set by ‘` SCADAVAY.") In his choice of title the modern biographer has developed a habit of compromising between the flamboyant and the allusive : witness such recent publications as Ariel, The Savage Messiah, The Incredible Marquis and The Mysterious Madame. A prize of three guineas is offered for the best titles of this sort for popular bio- graphies of four of the following individuals : . .

Mr. Philip Snowden, Mrs. Meyrick, Piimo Cafnera, Somerset Maugham, Miss Nellie Wallace.

Entries must be received not later than Monday; May 25th, The result of this competition will appear in our issue of June 6th.

Report of Competition No. 3

(REPORT AND AWARD BY " DUGLI.")

A PRIZE of £3 3s. was offered for a Little Essay on Motoring, in not less than one hundred and fifty or more than two hundred and fifty English words of one syllable.

This competition was not really an easy one. There arc a great many one syllable words in the English language, and it is possible to string hundreds together in more or less readable form. The skill lies in choosing and arranging them.

To enumerate all those parts of a motor that have mono- syllabic names, to write " a short guide on how to drive a car," to reduce the Highway Code to nursery language, is not to write a little essay. Then, the heat of composition has too often driven two syllable words—even Fiench and Latin quotations !—to the tip of competitors' pens. Ross, for example, begins splendidly, and crashes instantly !

" We once bought a car. It was no Rolls, so we called it Buns. As fine a car as any . . ."

Some competitors fall into ecstacies of rapture in contem- plating their own motors. " Oh, my love, my love, my ear ! " is one beginning. " Joy, the car means joy ! " says another. At the other end of the scale are those who, like J. J. Nevin (who writes a good essay), " speak for the vast crowd of men who do not own ears, who have to walk," and resent the man who " thinks that if he owns a car he owns the road too."

Alice W. Knight treats another aspect in an amusing essay.

" I have not a car of my own. I do not mean to get one But now and then friends ask me to go for a run. As they mean to be kind and as I do not wish to be rude I go with them." " Cars may have their use," she ends, " but—thank God for legs."

" Grandmarnmi's " list of driving rules is ingenious.

" Do not drink strong stuff that smells, as you may meet a

cop. . . Do not scare a poor thing on foot. . . . A lone

she ' should. not pick up a man who wants a lift. He may kill her, and steal the car. Do not let a nice girl sit by you, as she will talk too much, and you will think of her and not of .hoW -to drive."

In the rather small first class of entries T. E. 011iver writes well from the tramp's point of view :

" SIR,—I don't know a Rolls from a Ford—though I'm told it smells as sweet !—but I do know that the wheels of each fling dust and filth. . . ." C. B. Knight diaws a good picture of " the Man at the Wheel " whose " one aim is to be where he is not now " and who longs to touch the god whose " name is Six Times Ten." " AA-31 " is the best of those who have written little guides to motor driving. " Yeldah," J. R. Murray, L. V. Upward, the Rev. C. B. Whelan and Isabel M. Lillie deserve special mention.

The prize is awarded to " J. H.," 14 Doughty Street, London, W.C. 1, whose pleasant little essay may be enjoyed without any sense of the shackles in which it was written. Will " J. H." send a name to which the cheque for three guineas may be sent ?

THE PRIZE-WINNING ESSAY.

You know, it's all in your point of view. Trite, you will say, but, take it from me, none the less sound. for all that.

When I go on foot, this is the sort of way I talk. " What a lot those poor fools in cars miss ! No chance to peep at the nests that are hid in the depth of a hedge or high up on a bough. Can they lean on a gate and lift up their eyes to the hills or take in the life of a farm ? Not they ! There they have to sit and gulp down gusts of wind and grit, God help them, while I use my limbs and lungs as a man should ! "

But when I am in a car—and most of all if I am at the wheel—ah, then I think : " How fine a way this is to see the face of the land ! Hill, wood, vale and stream—great sweeps of them—and I roll a .new, stretch of the scene on, as and when I will. • This is the life !

As I said to start with, it's all in the point of view.

J. H.