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he affair was aggravated when certain Clubbers told that they had seen the bride sway slightly, as she emerged from her limousine to enter the Oratory, only to be steadied by a Bobbie—a policeman!**
Shocked Britons of the Carlton ended by dismissing the wedding as rather an "Irish Bull," since the bridegroom's father, the Marquess of Headfort, is a Senator of the Irish Free State.
Nihon-Jin-Kwai, the 46-year-old club of the Japanese gentlemen of London, rustled with Oriental mirth, when a member returned from Cork, with a tale.
A relative of the member, Mr. Tsuneo Yamamoto, had been present at Blarney Castle, last week, when the petty Sultan of Muscat (Arabia) visited the Blarney Stone and emplanted a most peculiar kiss. Mr. Yamamoto was in a position to reveal that the Sultan of Muscat gingerly placed in contact with the Blarney Stone only the tip of his cane and then cautiously kissed the stick's big gold handle.
Thus all danger of too potent emanation from the magic stone into the Sultan of Muscat was cleverly avoided.*
Boodle's Club, anciently founded in 1762 (thus antedating the hoary Carlton by 70 years) was a typical retreat, where robust clubmen discussed over whiskey and Schweppe's, last week, the climax of the famed "Taxicab Case" of Miss Helen Adele.
Public sympathy has rallied strongly to the young woman—so poor that she Lad no home except the taxi cabs parked overnight in a garage—and so unfortunate as to have been falsely charged with improper conduct by two constables.
Regrettably the case developed into a contest between lying witnesses.
Stormed Mr. Justice Humphreys, in his charge to the jury: "Perjury and foul perjury has been committed in this court. . . . Your duty is to say whether you are satisfied whether the perjury is on the side of these two constables. If so you ought to convict them. . . . I am not referring to the fact that the wretched girl is either a prostitute or something near it. That is beside the point."
Soon the jury found for Miss Adele; and Mr. Justice Humphreys was obliged to sentence the constables to 18 months imprisonment for "conspiracy to prefer a false charge."
That is to say, the Jury absolved Miss Adele of any specific misconduct, although the Judge had trespassed the bounds of legal propriety to accuse her in general.
*The Duke's excessively ancestral surname.
†Slang for the State's allowance for the unemployed.
**Next morning's illustrated newspapers supplied photographic confirmation.
*Cut deep into the stone is the name "Cormac McCarthy" and the date "A.D. 1446." But legend says it was in 1602 that Cormac McCarthy agreed to surrender Blarney Castle to the English and then put off doing so again and again until the situation changed and he was allowed to keep his castle.
Cormac's skill in "blarneying" or "putting-off" the English lent to his stone its potent reputation.