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¶ One of those stately lectures which high British officials now and then condescend to give to an irreproachable organ like the New York Times was scrupulously mirrored in its pages last week: "With thrones toppling in Europe or being in subjugation to a dictatorship, it was the opinion of advisers to the throne that King George and Queen Mary were the perfect exemplars of British constitutional monarchy. . . . King Edward, however, has chosen to go his own way. . . . This has given rise to a considerable amount of bitterness and has split high society into two sections. . . . Mr. Simpson regards the friendship of his wife and the King as purely platonic.
"In well-informed circles Mr. Simpson's name has been mentioned among others who are likely to be honored. The nature of such an honor is the subject of considerable speculation. If such an honor is conferred, it will be entirely on the King's initiative, unaffected by court precedent.
"There is nothing furtive in His Majesty's relationships with his friends. He considers his private life a thing apart from his kingship. This attitude, unusual in a King, has been so distorted by mystery and ill-founded rumor that it has placed these three persons in an invidious position."*
¶ King Edward's 13-year-old nephew, Viscount Lascelles, elder son of the Princess Royal, Countess of Harewood, reached in his Eton schooldays last week that awful moment at which his Tutor assigned him to "fag" for a senior Etonian. This "fag-master" will expect his tea to be made and his room tidied by Viscount Lascelles who will find his posterior more or less vigorously "swished" with a cane or fives-bat if the toast is burned or the fag-master's cricket boots are improperly cleaned. The King's nephew will most certainly be thus belabored like any other Eton schoolboy, but Viscount Lascelles is most unlikely to be flogged with the Eton birch by athletic, rock-climbing Headmaster Claude ("The Emperor") Aurelius Elliott. It was the sight of the Eton birch which made Queen Mary exclaim: "If I had known the boys were thrashed with this, I should never have let Henry [The Duke of Gloucester] go to Eton." Appointed in 1933, new Headmaster Elliott found Eton finances shakey, Eton boys unruly. With great success he put Eton on a paying basis, flogged a record number of culprits during his first term, has made Eton boys as good as they need be to grow up the Empire's masters.
*From Palestine, under whose laws Communism is not suffered to exist, 36 Communists including 16 women were deported last week.