REMARKABLE WAGER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 June 1941, Page 6

REMARKABLE WAGER

£lOOO FOR SHOWING FLAG. In America's national cathedral in Washington lately, some of the most prominent citizens of the United States took part in a service of prayer for the people of Great Britain. This gesture of friendship recalls the little-known story of a most extraordinary wager, writes an American correspondent of a London journal. Two well-to-do Americans were discussing the attitude of Britons to the United States. One of them declared it to be friendly; the other maintained that it was hostile. “Will you make a bet on it?" one suddenly challenged. "I’ll lay you an even 5000 dollars that I'll carry an American Hag throughout the length and breadth of England, and that it will get a friendly reception wherever I go.” “I’ll take that bet,” said the other man. “You and the flag will be hooted and jeered at everywhere.” The man who declared his faith in England won his bet. There is a veteran Londoner, Mr W. A. Morris—77-years-old retired Ealing man —who vividly remembers seeing him passing through the Uxbridge Road, Ealing, with the flag. “I was a schoolboy,” he says, “JVe were let out of school half an hour earlier than usual, so that we could see him. We had walked almost to West Ealing before he came in sight. “He was wearing a sombrero. He was tall and gaunt and bronzed. I was only 12 at the time —it was 1875. The Stars and Stripes he was carrying was a large one. “We all crowded forward to shake hands with him. “He had undertaken to carry the flag through the length and breadth of England, and he did so. He was given a cordial reception everywhere.”