"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. z8 (Set by " CRISPIA.N.") Who's Who (the admirable production of A. & C. Black, Ltd.) provides a fascinating array of autobiogra- phies in miniature. In skimming through its pages, the attention of the reader is occasionally arrested by the recital of a career which, for all its compression of telling, stands out from the rest as being unusually romantic, diverting or bizarre.

A .prize of £8 3s. is offered for the best suggestion for such an autobiography in the manner of Who's Who, the subject to be an imaginary man or woman. There is a limit of 300 words.

Entries must . be received not. later than Monday, October 26th, 1931. The result of this competition will appear in our issue of November 7th.

Competition No. 29 (SET BY " CARD.") A PRIZE of £3 3s. is offered for the best list of play and book titles suggestive of any five of the various parties in the coming election. Choice is restricted to works written in the English language : not more than one title for a party may be included in any one list • and for purposes of the competition it will be assumed that there are the following nine parties : (1) Conservative, (2) Labour (Mr. Henderson), (8) National Labour (Mr. MacDonald), (4) Communist, (5) Liberal, (6) National Liberal, (7) Mr. Lloyd George's, (8) New, (9) Independent.

Entries must be received not later than Monday, November 2nd, 1931. The result of this competition will appear in our issue of November 14th.

The result of Competition No. 27 will appear in our next issue.

Report of Competition No. 26

[REPORT AND AWARD BY " CRISPIAN.1

" IN their relationship to man, the and the appendix may be observed by the perceptive to share a common charac- teristic ; namely, that they draw peremptory attention to themselves only when threatened with inflation, remaining at other times in a state of unquestioned tranquillity 1 "

A prize of £3 3s. was offered for the best expression of this powerful truth in epigrammatic verse of not more than six lines duration, and no prize of any sort, let it be noted, was offered for the expression in epigrammatic or in any other kind of verse of other and possibly equally powerful truths based upon further similarities observed by the really peculiarly perceptive.

As a matter of fact, in a large field of competitors there was a well-represented school which appeared to consider that it was possible, and indeed desirable, to draw a very close parallel indeed between these two rather remote objects and, whereas the competition required of them merely to commemorate one single similarity, they went all out and roundly stated that the pound is the appendix of the nation (Captain J. R. Cleland), that the country is suffering from " Poundicitis " (Miss G. M. Robinson), " John Bull has got appendicitis, A painful £1 sterling crisis " (Miss G. R. Brown), and that the only successful solution lay in " Excising both by sharp repudiation" (I. Ormsby).

Now this school produced some excellent verse, and although I am by no means convinced, poor and trusting economist as I am, that the necessarily best treatment for an inflated £1 is immediate extraction by surgical means, I cap very well understand the temptation to work in such obvious winners as " cuts " and the " Doctor's Mandate." So that, while the over-perceptive cannot hope to have their zeal rewarded, they may take scant comfort from the fact that their ingenious efforts diverted me considerably. The two following suggestions may be selected to represent the school to which they belong :

The sterling £ and the appendix are, Though City Chat ignores it, on a par

Unmoved, they stand unnoticed, but inflation _ _

Brings Doctors' Mandates both for man and nation : In body politic, as man's, the price is essential cuts to heal internal crisis.

L. A. WI:mum.

And

(The Chancellor soliloquises) " Your Pound's inflated. But you needn't fret.

The knives are sharp. The Faculty are met. Pounds, like appendices, are soon removed.

You haven't got one ? Pooh, that's only fright." (Pause for inspection.) " Why, the beggar's right ! " Mr. W. GLADDEN.

There remains the more austere school which confined itself to the epigrammatic expression of the one common charac- teristic dished up to them, namely, the fact that man never thinks in an abstract manner of a or an appendix save when these elusive objects are threatened with inflation, a fact which serves to constitute a bond between them.

There were some excellent entries, and " Richard," 16 Stratton Street, W. 1, wins the £3 3s. with six lines very much to the point and pleasantly reminiscent of

" Three poets in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn."

Before setting down the winning entry and those to be honourably mentioned in the same breath with it, propos de bones and the probably all but forgotten Competition No. 24, the following terse but terrifying " crowded third- class carriage conversation " has reached me from a belated source ; Charles Keen immortalized it by his drawing in Punch:

First Traveller : " How clearly you can see the lights of Hanwell from the train."

Second Traveller : " Not half so clearly as you can see the lights of the train from Hanwell."

Here, to return to the matter in hand, is the winning entry :

Two forces, motive in a different way, The bodies politic and human sway ;

The first, the £, on sterling worth depends ;

The next, th' appendix, turns to baser ends ;

A diverse pair, yet in this one thing mated—

Both 'scape attention save when they're inflated. RICHARD.

HONOURABLY MENTIONED.

Pounds receive but scant attention, and appendices no mention From mankind in normal, quiet days ; But when threatened with inflation, those who use their observation Notice that, in very many ways,

Appendices become obtrusive, and that pounds—though most elusive—

Force men to take note : and notice. pays, LT.-COLONEL L. R. ROGGE.

Man will react alike, 'tis found, To the appendix and the £. Quite harmless normally ('tis stated) They call for treatment when inflated. And in this case the man no doubt Wakes up to find his work's cut out. Mns. J.- E. PARKINSON.

Puffed up with pride of person or of purie, The appendix and the pound project their curse : Quaint quiddity I quaint quid I herein discern What tiresome tires 'neath wheels of progress turn : These, to the plump pneumatic unrelated; — Are most efficient when they're least inflated.

Guy Irna-s.