A SPECTATO R'S NOTEBOOK O F all the public men—such as
Lord Addison and Lord Samuel— who demonstrate conspicuously the fallacy of judging mental and physical powers by calendar years the outstanding example is General Smuts, whose age is 78. On Wednesday of last week he arrived at Cambridge from London by road. In the afternoon he was down on the river for the first day of the May Races. Some undergraduates thoughtfully collected cushions and suggested that ' he might like to sit down (as most people were doing). He declined courteously, remarking aside, " It's very kind of these young men, but they don't seem to realise that I am a standing man." On Thursday he was installed as Chancellor of the University and delivered a speech of the first importance some thirty-Eve minutes in length ; went on to listen to " Chancellor's Music " in King's College Chapel ; moved from there to lunch in the Hall of Trinity, where he made another admirable speech (to listen to three men , of such varied eminence as the Master, Dr. G. M. Trevelyan, General Smuts and Mr. Churchill within three-quarters of an hour was no mean experience) ; then back to the Senate House to confer fifteen honorary degrees, each prefaced by the Latin speech by the Public Elector ; then to shake hands with some fifteen hundred people at a garden party at Christ's, where he dined compuatively quietly.
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