A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK
THE death of Willis Abbot of. the Christian Science Monitor is a loss to journalism of the highest type everywhere. After an apprenticeship on various American papers—the Tribune, the Sun., and, strange to say, the Hearst Press—he settled down to. his life's work, the editorship of that remarkable combination of competence and ideals the Christian Science Monitor. To newspaper readers in this country he was known primarily through the able articles he regularly . contributed to The Times on Presidential election prospects. He was, of course, a convinced Christian Scientist (as well as an impenitent Prohibitionist), and when I last saw him, in London at the end of last year, he told me a remarkable story of a broken thigh, from the effects of which he was still limping. He saw no doctor, stayed in bed for a fortnight, hobbled about his home for a few days more, and then went off to the Republican Convention at Chicago, after which he had an X-ray. taken at John Hopkins and was told there that the thing was incredible, for he ought to have been in plaster of Paris for six weeks at least. To the surprise of many of his friends he came back from a Far Eastern tour just after the Manchurian affair a strong supporter of the Japanese. Serious and responsible journalism, and at the same time lively and readable journalism, has never had a better representative.
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