"Prince!"

Gum-chewers' sheetlets depend for their circulation upon bold features, vulgar "stunts", designed to be as easily comprehended and as greedily relished by the chewer as a fresh cud of Spearmint, Orbit, Beeman's, Black Jack, Beechnut, or Juicy Fruit.

Knowing this well, the Daily Mirror (Manhattan) splurged, with surprising success, on a topic that even a chewer would have thought to be as stale as a last month's gum-button under a seat in the subway:

LEAP YEAR--AND ED GUELPH/- STILL A BACHELOR "Wouldst Wed Wales?"

"How'd you like to be the ball-and-chain of Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Mr. Guelph of Britain? He loves American girls, is single, good-looking, and (they say) he can support a wife in the luxury to which she has been accustomed. Send your photograph with a letter proposing marriage and the Daily Mirror will forward it to the Prince. . . ."

(Five very complimentary poses of Britain's now-aging princeling decorated the page.)

In all gullibility, or hopeful of attracting the attention of a cinema director, lovely, fading or ambitious flappers responded. The Daily Mirror published the "best" alleged letters with suitable headlines :

PRINCE, HERE'S A QUEEN! "You will notice that I'm writing you on the Fourth of July. I don't mean anything personal by that, I assure you. . . . For five years I've been following you across the sea of printer's ink that has enabled me to be with you in your travels. I have seen you in the movie news reels. I have read so much about you that I feel as if I've known you for always.

"Somehow I'm not conscious of lese majeste when I write to you. Some how I didn't get a reaction of skepticism when I read in the Daily Mirror that those of us who will never, in the ordinary channels, get a chance to write to you, will now have a chance. . . .

"I wonder, Prince of Wales, if you're a good enough sport to answer me?

Hopefully, GLORIA DEDMAN."

(artist's model).

OBEY IMPULSE, PRINCE

"... I hope, Your Royal Highness, you'll like my likeness. You can't see my hair. It's golden brown and my eyes are blue. I've been sitting on the beach all afternoon, trying to make up the sort of a letter a Prince would be interested in and somehow I find I can't write to you in flowery phrases. I can only say that every time you fall off a horse and I read about it in my favorite newspaper, I feel as though I had fallen off. Really . . . you need somebody to take care of you --not a groom for your horse, but a bride for your house. . . . Look at Lady Astor.

She was one of us ... MARGARET FISHER."

Other headlines :

AN OUTDOOR GIRL, PRINCE! YOU THRILL HER, WALES PRINCE, MEET MISS LOWENTHAL!

The last based all on her picture, taken in a skin-tight bathing suit; was represented as having written only :

"I am enclosing a photograph of myself, from which you may arrive at a decision."

/- Ed Guelph--an ignorant mistake by the Daily Mirror. The Prince has been Edward Windsor ever since 1917.