Milestones, Oct. 24, 1938

Married. Lord David Douglas-Hamilton, 26, youngest son of Scotland’s Premier Peer, like his eldest brother Douglas, Marquess of Clydesdale, a famed amateur boxer, airplane pilot, mountaineer; and 23-year-old Prunella (“Perfect Girl”) Stack, head of Great Britain’s Women’s League of Health and Beauty; in Glasgow, Scotland.

Died. Elzie Crisler Segar, 43, comic-strip artist who created “Popeye the Sailor”; after long illness; in Santa Monica, Calif. Six hundred trademarked articles, a cinema cartoon and a radio program were named after Popeye. Because spinach was his only food its sales boomed, and the grateful citizens of Crystal City, Texas, U.S. spinach-raising centre, put up a Popeye statue. Three years ago, when Segar’s comic strip appeared in. over 500 newspapers in the U.S. and 20 foreign countries, Popeye nosed out Mickey Mouse in a nationwide poll as the most popular comic-strip character. Some of the strip’s phrases which have passed into the language: “goon” (a homely person, or one with a hangover), “jeep” (a girl who demands an expensive good time), “I yam what I yam.”

Died. Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovitch, 62, pretender to the non-existent Russian throne, first cousin of Russia’s late Tsar Nicholas II; of blood poisoning; in Neuilly, France. A convivial royal liberal, Grand Duke Cyril flitted through Europe’s night life, married a divorced woman, the Grand Duchess Victoria of Hesse-Darmstadt (an offense for which he was temporarily banished from Russia). In the Russo-Japanese War he was blown up on the Petropavlovsk at Port Arthur. When the 1917 Revolution began, he placed himself and his regiment at the service of the Duma, fled when Kerensky and the Provisional Government fell.

Died. William Isaac Purvis, 66, who was hanged for murder in 1894, escaped death when his head slipped through the noose, was later pardoned; of heart disease; in Lumberton, Miss. Twenty-six years after his near-execution, when another man confessed to the murder for which Purvis was convicted, Mississippi voted Will Purvis a shamefaced $5,000 “for services rendered to the State.”

Died. Martin Bladen, Baron Hawke, 78, famed English cricketer, often captain of England’s cricket team, longtime (1883-1910) captain—of Yorkshire; in Edinburgh. His heartfelt prayer (“I pray God no professional may ever captain England”) has not yet been denied.

Died. Karl Johann Kautsky, 84, famed Austrian Socialist, author (The Guilt of Wilhelm II, Bolshevism in Deadlock), friend & associate of Karl Marx; in Amsterdam.