1946
MAY 20,1946
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
PAGE FIVB
Just Thruppence For 19th Century Fun at H'English'amstead'eath
By FREDERICK C. OTHMAN
(United Press Staff Correspondent)
Hampstead, Eng. (UP) - Ere we are on 'ampstead' eath where his seem to be against the law, the poet Keats once tossed a lady in the pond, and a 'usband still' is 'arrassed'.
The trouble is the Easter fair, spreading up from the pond where Keats, in a better mood, also wrote his ode to a nightingale. All over the place, mates, are these darts games, penny pitchings, gypsy quoets, a merry-go-round, lemon squash stands and side shows, including one displaying the world's biggest rat and smallest race horse in the same tent, thruppence.
So it's thruppence here and sixpence there and the little woman always asking for more, and it makes you think of giving her the Keats treatment. The pond's 'andy. Or so a weary Londoner told me over a bitter at Jack Straw's castle tavern while his wife bounced (sixpence more) on a gilded tiger in the most magnificent carrousel I've ever seen.
But let us skip matrimonial difficulties and get along with my attempt to describe an English fair. It's straight out of the last century, even to the steam callope, the pearl buttons on the suits of the costermongers and the cockney women in black overcoats peddling fresh boiled wheels, cockles and mussels.
Fresh boiled whelks are undersized oysters, I hope. They taste like brass door knobs.
Priscilla Lee, the gypsy queen and a confidante (her sign says) of King Edward, sits in a mirrored wagon drinking milk between jousts with the love lines of a hundred sweaty hands. The knock the bottle off the ledge game turns out to be a phony. The bottles are made of iron, the baseballs of cork.
Harvey's sporting games offers darts at odds of 20 to 1 against you for such sorry looking prizes as tin cake pans, water glasses and pottery dogs that obviously survived four years of the blitz. Grooms modernized amusements is more of the same.
A girl who couldn't have been more than seven presided at one table, on which were three dozen boxes of matches, a scarce commodity in England. Toss your penny and if it land on a box, you get it. Most of her customers were no older than the manageress. One youngster with a penny to toss looked no more than five.
"See the girl in the den of death with the lions" the next sign said. I wasted sixpeace of my employers' money. The lions turned out to be singular, and he was sleepy. A plump lady in pink hosies was in
there with him, though, reading a book.
For the thrill seeker, there were swings which you worked yourself by pulling a rope. There was a small merry-go-round powered by the hands of a 19-year-old boy, while a red-faced gent (you think he could have been Fagin?) helped with an occasional push.
One of the drawbacks of an austerity fair is the lack of food except those door knobs. Genuine lemons littered the lemon squash stands, but the drink itself came straight from a chemical laboratory.
Everybody had a good time, even so, except for my friend at Jack Straw's castle. If the auditor back in New York is worrying about my expense account, I have good news. It only cost me two shillings before I finally landed a button smack dab in the middle of an old phonograph record on my table and thereby won a pot of genuine (doubtful) paper carnations. These I presented to a rosy cheeked youngster. Her smile, I think, was worth 40 cents. Even to the auditing department.
France Has Wine But No Bottles
Hollywood (UP)—America's thirst won't suffer in the least when liquor and beer production is greatly curtailed by increased grain shipments to feed Europe's undernourished millions that is, provided bottles can be found for the huge stock of fine champagnes which were safely hidden in French underground wine cellars during the German occupation.
France ended the war with enough of its best wines to fill 120,000,000 bottles, according to Count Robert de Vogue, the head of the 200-year-old champagne firm of Moet & Chandon, who is touring the United States to re-establish business connections.
WHY WE SAY
"Our only problem," he explained "is the shortage of champagne bottles."
Local housewives, who can't buy milk at the corner grocery unless they turn in an empty bottle, could sympathize with the Count.
Kansas City Minister Retires
Kansas City, Kan. — Dr. W. C.
Hanson, pastor of the Old Mission
church in the Fairway district, Kansas
City, Kan., is retiring after 54
years in the ministry.
He was manager of the Methodist book company in Kansas City 18 years, superintendent of the Clay Center district, and formerly preached at Morrowville and Palmer.
by STAN J. COLLINS & L.J. SLAWSON
Park Avenue 'Snob Appeal' Invades Cinema
New York. (UP)—It won't be long before some 8,400 New Yorkers will have their own private movie house, with love seats and eager beavers in the loges.
It's going to be on swanky Park Avenue too, with a licensed beautician in the ladies powder room. A lounge set will be installed in the lounge.
Walter Reade, veteran New York showman, is building the new theater and he said today that it would be completed before September 15. It will be a 600-seat super-deluxe stadium - type house, operating strictly and frankly for "snob appeal."
"There will be no double features and no standing for my patrons," she said. " Their troubles will be over after they buy their annualickets.
Seats will be sold on membership basis only, and the memberships will be good for a year. Reade said that the price a ticket would run around $50 "plus a little added for taxes."
They're thinking about opening the matinee to the ordinary trade, but haven't quite made up their minds as yet. If the matinee operates on a closed basis too, it means around 12,600 exclusive clients.
At present Reade plans to run two shows a day for his private clients days a week, which means that 8.400 can be accommodated each week.
"We won't have any trouble filling the seats," the Reade office said. "Americans love that exclusive label. We have already had requests for about half the number we can handle."
Reade guarantees his patrons that they'll have the "52 best movies of the year" but he admitted that they might run a few weeks behind the regularly scheduled Broadway houses.
Each "member" will get a plastic card with his seat number marked on it. All the movie-goer has to do is to show the card to the doorman. The cards will be transferable, but the management will reserve the right to pass judgment on all strangers who enter.
Reade said that the buildings, which is being erected on the site of a former art gallery, is already about 60 per cent completed.
There will be no lowly "coming next week" ads in the lobby. Instead the patrons will feast their exclusive eyes on a continuous display of paintings, sculpture and jewelry.
Iola Holds Rabbit Show
Iola.-The first official show on the Southeastern Kansas Rabbi Breeders' association was held in Iola Saturday and Sunday. A. W. Trowbridge, Iola, was show superintendent, and Glenn Maglaughlin Baxter Springs, was chairman.
WANT ADS
WANTED—Date for the big navy dance by campus's most eligible and available young bachelor—must be crazy about aviators and have car-call Bobby Ricks. K.U. 120. —22-
Term papers or these to be typed? Accuracy, neatness guaranteed. Rates reasonable. Call 1351-M. —4-
FOR SALE—Photographic portrait enlarging lenses—75 mm to 23 1/8" focal lengths—also few filters—3 sets condensing lenses—4 by 5 contact printer. K.U. Photographic Bureau, phone K.U. 163. —22-
STOP at the Courthouse Lunch for good food. Open from 5:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. Across from the courthouse.
FOR SALE—Revere 8 mm movie camera. Has not been used. 1344 Kentucky. -22-
LOST—Black billfold. Name, Jackie Ogan, in gold letters inside. If found please call 1783. -22-
LOST—in vicinity of stadium, black Shaeffer fountain pen, half of a matched set. Sentimental value. Phone 721 or leave at Kansan office. -20.
HUDSON'S RENT. A - CAR SERVICE,
1536 Tenn. Phone 1431.
-4 LOST—Bunch of keys on chain in triangle north of Ad or north of Snow. Return to Bldg. and Grounds Office.
-21
FOR SALE—Two white uniforms for naval officer, phone 3147, Mrs. Earl Robbin at 804 La. -21-
AT YOUR MOVIES Jayhawker Granada
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