LEAP YEAR PRIZES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 270, 4 February 1928, Page 26

LEAP YEAR PRIZES

Who Is Most Eligible Single Maim Available for Girls Who Wish to Exercise 192 S Prerogative ?

■ N close pursuit of the baby year 1928 are the prettiest girls the world has to boast. Or at least they should be, and with butterfly nets, lariats, salt, sugar, and every known variety of bait or trap that exists! For 1928 is Leap Year, and never has the year of feminine privilege dawned when the parade of eligible young bachelors was more alluring.

This year’s crop of husbands that might be includes heroes, millionaire, a presidential possibility, worldfamous aviators, the champion prizetighter of the world, a literary star—not to speak of a new six-foot movie idol who wore half a million hearts around his belt, even while debutantes and matrons watched him in his street-cleaner’s suit in the Latin Quarter of Paris. For the maiden who prefers her hero young and good-looking, and a combination Shelly and Hercules, who could ask more of life or the marriage market than Gene Tunney? Or for the rapturous young debutante who begs nothing further of fate than to sit for the rest of her days and watch the perfect and romantic features of a tall young movie hero, who could fit more perfectly in the picture than Charles Farrell, the newest great lover of the screen? Does the girl of the hour want a handsome explorer hero, who has trekked the lonely places of the earth and ridden in a great ship over the icy top of the world? And would it matter to her if he had millions, a castle In Switzerland, and famous ancestry to boot? Well, then, for her there is Lincoln Ellsworth, who rode to deathless fame with Amundsen in the great airship Norge.

For the young girl who is patient and fond of angling, there’s a famous Vanderbilt left—Harold, who may be had. but not simply for the asking. For the girl with literary ideas there is H. L. Mencken. The prize of the Leap Year does not require more than one guess. He is Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh, of course. When did Heaven ever make a more complete hero? Handsome, daring in heart, modest in nature, amazingly winning in personality, unruffled, a dreamer, a doer, sincere and unspoiled in the face of adulation such as no man of his generation has ever known. Here is the other side of him. He is a tall, blond, pink-cheeked young man, shy of girls, extremely fond of his mother. He has a good disposition, is easy to get along with when two million men and women are not all trying to make a fuss over him at once. But

The hero side of young Colonel Lindbergh so overweighs the human side that it is doubtful if the Leap Year girl has the courage

to do anything but dream that some day she may have the good fortune to imprint the faintest of kisses on his blushing cheek. But maidens turning away from Lindy wl ”L a s *Sb need not despair. Whose heart would not give an extra pit-a-pat at the thought of Lincoin Ellsworth? The Leap Year

girl who landed him in her net would capture a husband who is a millionaire many times over, a gentleman of impeccable ancestry, the owner of beautiful Castle Lensburg in Switzerland, brother of the owner of the famous Villa Palmieri at Florence, where Boccaccio is said to have written his "Decameron.” But young Ellsworth cares nothing for society,-

and all attempts to lionise him are futile. Gene Tunney is the most unusual champion of the ring the prize-fight world has ever known. The American girl lucky enough to wear the skill won and retained the heavyweight championship title of the world, but a youth who combines with

this physical genius a certain poetical quality that defies description. There would be no silences at the Tunney breakfast table, because Gene is what is known as a bookish person, and men who read books are noted for liking to talk about them. Gene has a great deal of money as his share in the last Dempsey-Tunney encounter alone. His purse was 990,000 dollars. And he could have

had a great deal more money, but he refused to commercialise his championship. This member of the young bachelor brigade of 1928 is noted for sterling religious principles. But, alas! here is something sad to add— Gene Tunney is girl-shy. Harold Vanderbilt has been called the most eligible bachelor. Possessing, as it is rumoured, £20,000,000 — and, in addition to this, good looks and charm—he is the catch of the season. The names of countless society girls have been linked with that of “Mike” Vanderbilt, as he is called by his intimates. For the Juliet in search of a sheer conquest this most elusive of Romeos is recommended.

The girl of to-day may scorn the Leap Year legend passed on as tile one age-old platform in women's rights which has never been argued about. But it would take a very modern young woman, indeed, to sit through a certain romantic picture in which Charles Farrell stars without wishing at least that all one had to do in 1928 was say “Be mine!” and tremulously wait for a young man's answer. In real life Charles Farrell is 25 years old. He comes from Cape Cod, and is a real down-easter, with a Boston accent that can be spotted a mile off. He was playing extras and small leads when James Cruze discovered him, and made him the young hero of “Old Ironsides.” That launched him to fame. Young Farrell is a cheerful, friendly, smiling chap, not shy, but enough of a bachelor to be found almost nightly with a round table of buddies at his home, the Hollywood Athletic Club, because no girl in or out of the film capital has yet been able to ensnare his heart. Henry L. Mencken, of Baltimore, editor and author, is the world’s most famous literary bachelor. He has been called “the Bernard Shaw of America.” The average blithe young American girl can think of something easier than trying to keep up with Bernard Shaw at the breakfast table. She will pause before trying to net his young American prototype. The nation’s most talked of literary critic ntould probably have something to say about being netted himself! Just as has that most celebrated bachelor of all time —his Royal and unchanging Highness, Leap Year or no to the contrary, Edward Albert, Prince of Wales!

Leap Year was brought about, so far as the calendar is concerned, by Julius Caesar. Not until 1223, do we hear of it playing a significant role in feminine existence. In that year Scotland went so far as to decree by law “that any maiden lady, of high or low estate, shall have the liberty to bespeak the man she likes.” And if he refused he was fined!

So let this year’s brigade of bachelors be wary!