A Pot Pourri From London

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 16, 11 September 1931, Page 5

A Pot Pourri From London

Geoifrey

Tebbutt.)

TEST MATCH, AIRSHIPS AND SWEEPS

(Specially Written for the "Post" by

I spent tbis afternoon at Kennington Oval watching a Yorkshireman and an Indian belabouring the New Zealand bowling, and trying to bring myself to the realisation that it was a real Test match. With great respect to Mr. Lowry and his team — and they have done better than anyone here, in Australia, or, probably, even in New Zealand, expected — there is as yet an atmosphere of unreality about an AngloNew Zealand encounter. There is the same laclc of the "genuine article" feeling when England or Australia play South Africa 01* the West Indies. It may be fine cricke-t, the encounters will provide spirited fights and perhaps unexpected results, but it will not be a Test match in the sense of those grim Anglo-Australian struggles. Another decade, perhaps Lord's and the Oval. While comparisons are in the air, one cannot help drawing another between Lord's and the Oval. There is something about Lord's that would, I think, provide even a non-cricketing mind with food for thought and an entertaining few hours. The Oval, technically superior in some ways to Lord's, is a good, if cheerless, cricket ground, and no more. Lord's may have a wieket with a cant, an outfield with a very pronounced slope, and batsmen are apt to find it sometimes far from being a paradise; but to the cricket watcher (unless he happens to have been born on the Surrey side of the Thames, and destined from birth to be an Oval patriot) it never gives the pleasure that aristocratic Lord's, in its slightly rural setting, with its dignified old gentlemen, its artistic young ladies, its 1 clergymen and its tiered seating, can [ provide. Of course, one is apt to judge places by events of which one has been a spectator. The greatest cricket match I ever saw was played at Lord's- — hetwe-en England and the 1930 Australians. And the Oval is associated in my mind chiefly with, uninspiring games, drawn with an air futility. And, as I write, it seems that the undistinguished fate of a; draw is in storo for the Anglo-New Zealand match. The Car of the Future. The Prince of Wales is always up to date in aeroplanes and speed-boats, and in the matter of cars he' now seems to have got ahead of the times. His latest car — the Burney Streamline — - gives a glimpse of the not-dis-tant car future,. and, his Royal Highness' lead iii these matters, as in others, is frequently followed hy the Kingdom and the rest of the world. British manufacturers, indeed, have more for which to thank the Princethan any other single person. Sir Dennistoun Burney, the f amous authority on airships, and designer of

R100, is responsible for this latest car model. " You may already have read something of it in the cables, but the striking nature of its design must be seen to be fully appreciated. I saw the Burney Streamline slipping along -Pall Mall this morning with a liverie-d chauffeur, in the direction of the Prince's garage, and those who dubbed it "the airship car" certainly had -good reason to do so, for its rear slopes roundly, tapering away on lines which bring to mind a modern airship. In general outline it is reminiscent more of a tank, but with a beauty those machines of frightfulness were never meant to attain. Everything in its shape is designed to produce comfort and lessen resistance; it speaks throughout of speed, and one can appreciate the Prince's reported decision to keep the car for use on the open country roads. Certainly it would not be fulfilling its designer's aim were it to encounter London's traffic blocks at every few intersections ! Revolutionary though this car appears to-day, it is clearly no freak in construction, and its depth and lowness bespeak air-cushion riding. I expect the general lines of the Burney Streamline will he widely copied, and become commonplace on the road, within a few years. The Land of Sweeps. The Free State of Danzig, whose brand-new constitution is untrammelled by Acts.of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries regarding lotteries, apparently welcomes promoters of sweepstakes with open arms. An Australian syndicate is already operating at this Baltic health resort, with its blue skies and golden sands, and now, spurred on by the Irish sweepstake's success in the cause of charity, another lottery is to be run from Danzig. Mr. G. F. Mowatt, who has himself Been blind from the age of seven, told a gathering of London newspaper men all about the scheme, which is for the benefit of the World Blind Fund. Organisations for the blind in any country may apply to participate in the benefits, and the lottery is to be run on Irish sweepstake lines. The Govfernment of this remote Baltic country welcomes a form of "industry" which, in England, attracts the not very enthusiastic and not very discouraging attentions of Scotland Yard and the General Post Office. Ireland could not expect to stand alone and unchallenged at the he-ad of countries exporting lottery tickets, but one wonders whether the sweepstake field may not become over- crowded. , At any event, historians in the next century will probably scratch their heads over the problem of why, in tlie depressed and critical year of 1931, when money was not 'to be found for anything else, it came in a golden stream for lottery tickets.