"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. 20 (Set by " SCADAVAY.") A PRIZE of ES 3s. is offered for an Epitaph on a Meteor- ologist in not more than 200 words of verse or prose.

Entries must be received not later than Monday, August 31st, 1931. The result of this competition will appear in our issue of September 12th.

Competition No. 21 (Set by "Doom.") A PRIZE of £8 8s. is offered for a stanza on the lines of the Mad Gardener's Song in " Sylvie and Bruno," beginning

"He thought he saw the Schneider Cup . . "

For the benefit of those readers who may have gone away without the works of Lewis Carrol, one of the Mad Gardener's verses is given below.

"He thought he saw a banker's clerk Descending from the 'bus : He looked again, and found it was A Hippopotamus: 'If this should stay to dine,' he said, There won't be much for us ' "

Entries must be received not later than Monday, September 7th, 1931. The result of this competition will appear in our issue of September 19th.

The result of Competition No. 19 will appear in our next issue.

Report of Competition No. 18

(REPORT AND AWARD BY " SCADAVAY.")

Barn the quality and the quantity of the entries exceeded my wildest hopes. Almost all were amusing, and there was none of that elephantine facetiousness which the arbiter in these affairs comes to dread above all things. Of those two public benefactors, Mr. Drage and Mr. Stuart, the former was by far the more popular. Perhaps pretensions to univer- sality are easier to guy than pretensions to exclusiveness, though I should have thought that, as a background, the turf had more possibilities than the less glamorous linoleum.

The disciples of the Irish drama were far more numerous than the followers of Ibsen, Coward, and the anonymous Expressionist with his name still to make. The latter's technique, however, was very ably suggested by Mr. J. A. R. Pimlott, who combined the earlier methods of Mr. Elmer Rice with the later methods of Mr. Eugene O'Neill in a gripping Sunday night's entertainment called The Drage Slave. Mr. L. V. Upward made Ibsen and his translator seem very much at home among the ethics of the Hire Purchase System. Mr. C. W. N. Richardson, in an amusing scene liberally punctuated by thunder, laid on the Scandinavian atmosphere with a barometer. Mr. F. Loftus Wigram assumed Mr. Noel Coward's manner with several neat touches of parody, but Mrs. Margaret Richardson was much the best of his imitators, and galvanized Mrs. Everyman into confessing that "I've no more backbone than that woman in the hotel at Cannes who wore woolly combinations because her aunt advised it, the climate being so treacherous." The last five words are a palpable hit.

The idiom of the Irish dramatists was made to look very specious, for almost everyone wrote dialogue which had a more or less authentic ring. Messrs. George van Raalte, Seton Crisp and W. Sterne would all be seriously considered for a second prize if I had one to give, and there were good entries from H. C. and C. J. Weston and James Hall. Mr. R. H. Redmill made a gallant attempt to sound the praises of a turf commission agent in the accent of a mystic, and Mr. L. P. Freer's domestic interior after Mr. Sean O'Casey kept at any rate within sight of its original. W. G. produced some vigorous dialogue and an animated scene. Miss J. Kitty Gallagher impressed me enormously by attempting the manner of all four dramatists (not at once, of course), but rather shocked me by making scandalous allegations against the last of them in connexion with a lady to whom she insisted on referring as Miss Gerald Lawrence. Much the best entry for this competition, and indeed I think for any of the competitions I have set in the Spectator, is G. P.'s. It combines good parody in execution with a nice sense of incongruity in conception. It wins in a canter.

THE PRIZE-WINNING ENTRY.

(IN THE MANNER OF AN IRLSH DRAMATLST.)

(An immense vaulted room, the walls hung with tapestry in dull colours. The room is full of furniture except for a space where SEUMAS DRAGE site turning an ancient ledger. Round him are clerks. Five doorways open through which one sees dimly other rooms similarly filled. THADY and NITALa are coming from door on left. NUAL.a is touching objects

in a sightless way and weeps.)

SEITALAS.

Returned at last, White Birds.

THADY.

White Birds without a nest Till reeds or feathers, aye, or bramble leaves Serve us poor mortals for our furniture. We still must wander, this Dark Rose and I, Like Crania did in ancient days with Diarmuid, For where would honest folk like us get silver ?

Ntraze (Dreamily).

There does be silver still in Cloglmun Fair Silver enough to buy all's here And we in want. &taxes.

But did you see those things For which the wish is on you ?

THADY.

Aye.

SEIIMAS.

Then take them all, For we are not as other merchants are Nor all the silver that the Sluagh Sidhe Have buried in the misty slopes of Crockanlower Could give to us one half the joy we take In thinking of our happy families Now planted over all the land From Glabbersna to Mullaghtonegan.

For silver, give me what you can, For every hundred pounds that's left To every month its share, the way That when the Moon the half a hundred times Has shown the shrieking gulls the point Of Doonty Head, all will be paid.

THADY.

It can not be.

It must be lies is in it.

FIRST CLERK.

Hush.

SECOND CLERK.

Hush.

ANOTHER CLERK.

Hush.

IsTUALA.

Hush, Thady, Sure he means it all.

The blessed light of goodness in his face (Falls weeping at his feet and kisees them)

Oh Sir, you'll have your money.

On coming Saxnhain night.

I'll kill the spreckled hen and take her To the Big House- Szume.s.

Hush.

THADY.

But for bail-

SEIIMAS.

Hush. Furthermore

Should Fire or Water come

Or should the Danes spread death On you or yours, I ask no more.

My men shall lay the rushes on the floor And I will be to yours, a Godfather.

THADY. Good-bye.

Good-bye.

processions of plain vane. SEUMAS, in golden armour, directs them.) mountain top bathed in golden tight; up and down it wend endless (They go out. Darkness falls. A vision appears--a rocky

G. P.