HOW TO JUDGE BEAUTY CONTEST

Evening Star, Issue 22454, 26 September 1936, Page 26

HOW TO JUDGE BEAUTY CONTEST

I was recently co-opted on a village committee to choose a carnival queen, writes Eric Bennett, in the ‘ Daily Mail.’ The others on the committee were a well-known artist, a local business man, and his wife. We sat solemnly before a little table at one end of the village hall. The floor was left empty for the parade of candidates, but along the_ wall was crowded the entire population of the village. They were not there just to see 'the show. Each section of the crowd championed one of the beauties, and in one corner there was some brisk betting about the result. At a signal from the village schoolmaster, who was master of ceremonies, the girls entered in procession and filed round the hall. The local business man snorted and ruled some squares on a piece of paper. “We must have system,” he said. “ The only way to do this is to award marks to each candidate up to 10 for face, 10 for figure, 10 for deportment, 10 for personality, and so forth.” So we all ruled lines on little scraps of paper and made each girl do a solo parade of the hall. After I had awarded maximum marks to the first six I threw my paper away and relied on the roving eye and masculine intuition. It took us an hour and three arguments to weed out the last eight. Then came the struggle to pick the queen. We interviewed each of the eight one by one; the artist and I asked them questions while the other two put down particulars under the headings of Personality, Presence, and whatnot. After that came voice tests. They were charming, but not very helpful. At last we narrowed our choice to two girls. And then the Election Committee split w r ith violence. One candidate was tall, dark, and stately. She had been.an even-money favourite m the betting corner from the start. The other was a brunette with blue eyes with depths of violet in them . . . and had she got PERSONALITY? Well, there it was. 'A deadlock. The businessman and wife were for the stately one, the' artist and I voting for personality. Neither side would budge an inch. _So we called in the schoolmaster to give a casting vote. He refused the responsibility. “But,” he said, “you had better give it to the stately one. She is the favourite, and the other girl is_ not locally born and has only been living here three years. If you make her queen there will be a riot.” That settled it.„