Notes

Empire Day (May 24), birthday of Queen Victoria, and since 1903 a patriotic holiday, passed off with the usual parades and numerous renditions of Rule Britannia and God Save the King. The following Sunday, a great thanksgiving service was held in the stadium of the British Empire Exhibition. King George and Queen Mary attended in state; numerous symbolic processions filed past them; one was led by the Archbishop of Canterbury and some half dozen Bishops.

In the Chapel of Henry VII at Westminster Abbey, the ancient ceremony of "redeeming the sword" was held by the Knights of the Grand Cross of The Most Honorable Order of The Bath, created in 1399 by Henry IV. The ceremony takes place on the installation of new Knights. Ten Knights (Earl Beatty, Earl Haig, Earl of Ypres, Lord Southborough, Lord Chalmers, General Sir William Mackinnon, Sir George Buchanan, Viscount Esher, Sir Joseph Ridgeway, Lord Stamfordham) in plumed caps, wondrously colored robes, wearing massive gold chains and bejeweled stars, offered their swords to the Dean of West minster, and made the vow to "Love the King. Defend him and his right; defend maidens, widows and orphans in their rights. Suffer no extortion. Hold the order in as great honor as ever it was."

Said one Dr. T. H. Corkery in a report to the Devon Education Committee : "The rural child has lost its heritage to the child bred in the country. Formerly one pictured the country child with a chubby face, pink cheeks, bright eyes and sturdy figure. Now you find many of the children in country schools are pale-faced, anemic."

At Sotheby's, famed London auctioneers, was sold Robinson Crusoe's gun for $937. The arm belonged to Alexander Selkirk, upon whose adventures (from 1704-1709) Defoe based the story of Robinson Crusoe.

Unemployment in Britain subsided to 1,026,100 persons on May 12, according to figures just published. This is 259,523 less than at the beginning of the year and a reduction of 14,560 over the figures of the previous week.