GREAT BRITAIN: Mr. Churchill Regrets

From Dundee’s Town Council last week came a polite invitation to Winston Churchill to accept the freedom of the city. From Winston Churchill’s private secretary went a polite reply: “Mr. Churchill regrets that he is unable to accept the honor. . . .”

Official reason: the ungracious one-vote margin by which the resolution was squeezed through. Dundee Socialists were agin’ it ”till after the war.”

Unofficial reason: Winston Churchill was Dundee’s M.P. from 1908 until he was trounced at the polls in 1922 by a Scottish prohibitionist and teetotaler named Edwin Scrymgeour. Mild-eyed Scrym stuffed his speeches with Old Testament quotes on the evils of John Barleycorn, gave Winston a beating he has not forgotten.