Business done.—Another plot that failed. For some weeks Opposition have not attempted to snap a division. Ministerialists, lulled into sense of security, off guard. Secret preparations sedulously made for trapping them this afternoon. Questions over, division challenged on formal motion. Ministerial Whips awake in good time to emergency. Urgent messages had been sent out to their men by telephone and special messengers. Arrivals watched with feverish interest. Ministerialists hurriedly drop in by twos and threes, presently by tens. Illingworth's massive brow, temporarily seared with wrinkles, smooths out. When, after division, Clerk hands paper to him indicating that ambush has been baffled, hilarious cheer rises from Ministerial benches. Renewed when figures read by the Speaker show that the motion is carried by 255 votes against 234.
"Not a high-class game in imperial politics," says Sark. "Rather akin to the humour of making a butter slide on the pavement for the discomfiture of unsuspecting passers-by. But boys will be boys."
A NATIONAL CALAMITY.
Great Performer contemplates Retirement.
Once more the Atlantic liner has delivered Mr. Bamborough (né Bamberger) back to us, and once more British concert-goers should in consequence rejoice. But their natural jubilations are unfortunately tempered by a momentous announcement which the great violinist made to our representative at Plymouth last week, on the arrival of the Julius Cæsar, to the effect that he has decided to retire from the active pursuit of his profession. On receiving the news of this national calamity our representative fell into a heavy swoon, and was revived with some difficulty. The thought of the permanent withdrawal from public life in his golden prime of the great virtuoso, with his opulent physique, his superbly Mosaic features and his luxuriant chevelure, was altogether too poignantly overwhelming. Let us hasten then to reassure our readers that the blow, though it must inevitably descend one day, is mercifully deferred for a considerable period. To begin with, Mr. Bamborough is under contract to give five farewell tours in the United States at intervals of four years before entering upon the penultimate stage of his severance from the British concert platform. This, which will begin in the autumn of 1934, is likely to continue until the year 1948, when he is booked for an extended tour in Polynesia, Japan, New Guinea and Java. On his return to England in 1950 he proposes to give sixty farewell recitals at intervals of three months, culminating in a grand concert at the Albert Hall.
"And then," mused the illustrious artist, "farewell to the platform for ever! I find it hard indeed to realise that the concert-going public and I by that time will have been intimate friends for more than seventy years, but so it will be, for I was only nine when I made my first appearance in London, in a velvet knickerbocker suit with pearl buttons and a Fauntleroy collar. Still, it will all make a lovely retrospect for me, and when I finally retire it will be with a heart very full of gratitude to my generous friends in all four hemispheres of the globe."
"And after that?" suggested our representative, now partially restored by these reassuring tidings.
"After that—literature," was the emphatic reply. "I have already signed a contract with Messrs. Goodleigh and Champ to write my Reminiscences in the form of a Musical Encyclopædia. My father-in-law, Sir Pompey Boldero, is giving me valuable assistance in preparing the material, but as he is already sixty-five I cannot, unhappily, count with absolute confidence on his being spared to witness the completion of the work. Still, he is so full of vigour that M. Metchnikoff considers his chances of becoming a centenarian decidedly promising. In any case the collaboration of my children, whose filial devotion is only equalled by their talent, is secured, and Mrs. Bamborough, as you know, wields a vivid and trenchant pen. But literature will not occupy all my time. My estancia in the Argentine will need supervision, and I hope to spend an occasional summer in the Solomon Islands, where the natives are strangely attached to us."
Mr. Bamborough pointed out that Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, who also returned by the Julius Cæsar, had only drawn receipts amounting to £107,000 in a tour of thirty weeks' duration, while he (Mr. Bamborough) had netted no less than £150,000 in a tour lasting twenty-seven weeks and three days. In addition to the receipts in specie, Mr. Bamborough had received several nuggets from the gold miners in Colorado, and a bull moose from Mr. Kermit Roosevelt, while Mrs. Bamborough had been the recipient of a highly-trained bobolink, and a charming young alligator from the cedar swamps of Louisiana.