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H. R. H. Edward of Wales: "By a slight departure from accepted evening dress, I last week distressed London young men who follow my fashion-lead. I appeared at a public dinner in tail coat, white tie, but black waistcoat. Discreet inquiry revealed that I was mourning the Emperor of Japan."
David Lloyd George: "'My experience,' said I, last week in London, 'has been that most strong men were great talkers.'"
Stanley Baldwin: "'The Prime Minister's job is the loneliest in the world,' said I last week at Worcester, Eng., '. . . the holder . . . is in the position of the captain of a ship. He must stand on the bridge and possess his soul in patience.' Some of my hearers recalled that Mr. Lloyd George had once likened his own position as Premier to that of a man on a high mountain top, possessing a good view, but chilly."
Mrs. Samuel Insull, onetime Gladys Wallis, actress: "I last week announced a mid-January close for my Repertory Theatre in Chicago, opened last November. I have produced therein two plays. Neither was of any artistic importance. Except on fashionable opening nights, many a seat was empty. Statistics-mongers estimated the loss at $1,000 a day and, with outstanding bills, at $200,000 for the season."
James A. Patten, Chicago "Wheat King*"—: "My wife, Louise, last week rushed into Evanston police headquarters and reported the sudden disappearance of Skippy, her pet Persian cat. Detectives detected indigestion in one of her pet goats."
Curt Taucher, called the "indestructible tenor" of the Metropolitan Opera Company: "I am always having bad luck. On March 11, 1925, I fell through a steam trap used in Siegfried and fell 25 feet onto a concrete floor. A while later I had mastoiditis. And last week in the subway a thief slashed my overcoat while I was hanging on a strap and took away $200."
Bishop Edwin Holt Hughes, Methodist, Chicago: "Gluttony, grouchiness and use of narcotics among ministers I last week deplored in an address to the pastors of my diocese. 'Temptation to use narcotics is especially strong in men who hold, public office,' said I. Then I drew a vivid picture of a gourmand: 'One of the most lamentable cases in the Chicago Diocese at present is of a brilliant young preacher who has become an almost insensate mass because of overeating.' '
Marie Curie, co-discoverer of radium: "Agitation for better pay for professors in France revealed last week that I earn but $1,500 a year."
Adolphe Menjou, cinema gentle-man-villain: "A court action revealed last week that my annual salary is $130,000."
*Presbyterian, co-educational institution of 300 students, founded 1887, at Alma, Mich.
*Born, 1852, in Preeland Corners, Ill., he worked first as country store clerk. In 1902, he made $2,000,000 in a wheat "corner" that forced the grain from $1 to $1.34, then a record achievement, resulting in national activity for regulation of such operations. Of late, retired from grain commission business, he descends but seldom on the pit.