Evening star., 1923-05-25
Greeks and Turks Unable to Agree
On Whether "Rabbits'' Are "Asses,;

IN any case, with the seat of the
70 Angora. negotiations there will be
Tar more difficult than at Stamboul
Where the Turks have always had
peIore their eyes something to re-
mind them that they had other con-
siderations TO bear in mind than
their own selfish views and preiu
olces. AT Angora they Will be ant
10 Iose sight of this fact.
Arthur Ponsonby, the Iaborito
member of parliament from Sheffield.
VINO has just introduced a bill in the
mouse of commons designed to ter
inmate hereditary titles, which he de-
nounces as "grotesque" and which
would enable present peers to re-
nounce their titles and would bar
heirs and heiresses to titles horn
after the passage of the bill from
succeeding thereto. has long been a
pronounced foe OF the house of lords
and OF everything pertaining thereto
although he belongs by birth m Tho
very class which he seeks to abolish
For he was brought up at court in
the household and under the con-
slant eye of the late Queen Victoria
as younger son of the late Gen. Sir
Henry Ponsonby, who throughout
well nigh forty years was the late
queens chief private secretary and
keeper of her privy purse, while his
mother, Lady Ponsonby, after being
maid of honor TO the queen vas
appointed on her marriage to be a
Lady Ponsonby We're therefore al
ways with Queen Victoria, in at
tendance upon her at Windsor Cas-
tie. at Osborne and at BalmoraI
coihus coi Sir fHns9n6ys Fps9ntic eldest brother,
stands at court in the same relation
70 King George as his father did to
the late queen.
AS for Arthur Ponsonby, he was in
his boyhood a page of honor to the
old queen, was educated at Eton and
at Balliol College. oxford. and after
leaving the university entered the
diplomatic service. being stationed in
turn at Constantinople and at Co.
penhagen, after which he put in three
years at the foreign office. Then he
became private secretary to the late
Sir Henry -Bannerman
when the latter was premier, and
after the latter's death developed a
species of revolutionary streaks A
scion of the great house of Ponsonby.
of which the Earl of Bessborough is
chief, and grandson of Earl Grey,
the prime minister, he developed into
one of the most determined adver-
saries of the hereditary prerogatives
of the house of lords and achieved
note as speaker and writer on the
alleged moral and physical degener-
alton and even degradation of the
works on the subject being a book
entitled "The Decline of the Arfs-
tocracy, published in 1912.
Arthur Ponsonby looks his part as
sour iconoclast. He is the Knight
Of the DoIeful Countenance" Born in
1871, he is old and sad beyond his
years. The pale anemic face and
scanty hair, the dropping figure, sug-
gest one who mopes and pines amid
the frivolity Of a butterfly social sys-
tenn. He rarely cheers up. A smile in
his eyes is as rare as a joke on his
lips and the joy of life seems to have
passed him by. This is all the more
surprising since the Ponsonbys have
always been renowned for their good
looks. Indeed, at the close of the
eighteenth century, one of them, John,
Viscount Ponsonby, great grandson Of
the first earl, was celebrated as the
handsomest youth of his day and
owed his life on one occasion to his
striking appearance. The incident oc-
Cured in Paris during the terror,
when there was all over France q
very strong feeling against England.
Lord Ponsonby happened to fall in
with a Paris mob busily engaged in
the massacre of aristocrats, and was
at once seized by an angry, drunken
lot Of men and women who took up
the cry started by one of them Of "A
Ia lanterne," the lampposts at that
time being the most convenient OBJ
ject to convert into a makeshift gall
lows. He was pushed and dragged
along to the street corner. The rope
that usually held tie lantern was
placed around his neck and he was
hauled UP. actually hanging in mid
air, when the women-it will be re-
membeeed what a fiendish part they
played In the great revolution--as il
by a common impulse, rushed for
ward, cut the cord and let him drop
to the ground, exclaiming that he was
| too handsome a boy to be hanged
even though he was an Englishman.
Bearing him on they carefully attend
ed him until he had recovered from
his injuries, and then capped the mat
ter by helping himsto reach London