I am not a music-hall addict. It must be ten
years since I last visited one of these nobly-named institutions, as Mr. Chesterton called them. That, no doubt, is why I failed to appreciate the much- advertised Miss Martha Raye at the Palladium this week. Miss Raye's claim to admiration is. an out-sized mouth, which can be twisted into every conceivable shape, the rest of her visage follow- ing the oral lead. She also has a large voice with an unlimited range of key, and she creates vast mirth by kicking her shoe into the audi- torium, climbing down after it and kissing the obliging gentleman who puts it on for her. Well, if you think all that sounds attractive, don't miss the Palladium on any account. Incidentally, you will find attached to a free-for-all harmonica huddle a little clown, Jacky Conselo, who is worth all the rest of the programme put together. A short history of itself which The Statesman, the well-known Calcutta and Delhi daily, has just published has a special interest for The Spectator, for The Statesman, started in 1875, embodied in 1883 the Friend of India, which William Carey, the pioneer Baptist missionary of Serampore, had helped to start in 1817—and in 1844 the editorship of the Friend of India was allotted to Meredith Townsend, who returned to England in 1859 and two years later became proprietor, and with Richard Holt Hutton joint editor, of The Spectator. A common ancestry, therefore, as well as alliteration, links Statesman (the old firm, not to be confused with a new) and Spectator, and I offer my respectful congratulations to the editor of the former on what he has already achieved, and my best wishes for a continuance of the same success in a different India from the India in which The Statesman grew up.
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