Suffering Royalty

A pungent complaint against news camera men was made on behalf of a member of the British Royal Family, last week, and punctuated with a swear./-

Naturally the complainant was not Edward, Prince of Wales, nor Albert, Duke of York, nor Henry, Duke of Gloucester, nor the youngest Royal Brother, Prince George, soon to be created Duke of Kent.

Snapshots of all these princes are usually "successful," often "flattering."

Neither were camera men flayed on behalf of Elizabeth, Duchess of York or her daughter "Baby Betty," for whom the Duke of York last week bought a new Alderney cow. Just now Duchess and Babe are the two most flatteringly snap-shotted Royalties in England.

The King, behind his Van Dyke beard, is safe from impudent lenses.

And no camera man has ever caught Queen Mary in an undignified attitude or with her mouth too wide open.

Remains to be accounted for only their

Majesty's daughter, Princess Mary. Last week her husband Viscount Lascelles opened the British Photographic Exhibition at Bradford pungently and profanely thus:

". . . There are three categories of photographers--scientific, amateur and those who photograph for profit. From the last I have suffered a great deal and Princess Mary has suffered a great deal more. Such photographers have the most tiresome knack of clicking the camera just at a moment when one's mouth is wide open and some unattractive attitude is being struck by their victim. I would like to call that kind of a photographer a damned nuisance. . . ."

Sympathetic friends of Princess Mary deem that she is indeed "suffering a great deal," for, until the Duke of York married and begot "Baby Betty" (TIME, May 3, 1926), Princess Mary was the feminine best bet of British camera men and they always clicked her at her best.

/-The swear was only "damned" and should be carefully distinguished from an oath. Although oaths and swears are losely synonymous, a proper swear is chiefly descriptive, and need not involve that blasphemous appeal to a Higher Power which is the distinguishing characteristic of an oath. "Zeus damn you, Sir!" is a blasphemous you appeal to Zeus, and a proper oath: while "Sir, you are a Zeus damned liar!" is an affirmation, and a proper swear.