Foreign News: Fit for a Prince?

Every Thursday afternoon, protocol permitting, a six-year-old American boy named Stephen Rutter will be excused from his private school on London’s fashionable Eaton Square long enough to go to Buckingham Palace and obey, by approximation, an admonition of the late Mayor Big Bill Thompson of Chicago, to wit: “Punch King George in the snoot.” The target will be George V’s great grandson, Prince Charles, heir to the throne of Britain. Stephen, the son of a second secretary of the U.S. embassy, was picked last week to be a sparring partner for five-year-old Prince Charles.

The Prince’s father, the Duke of Edinburgh, who used to have a pretty good left hook himself, decided that his son should learn the manly art at an early age. Stephen was chosen to be a sparring partner by his school boxing instructor who was appointed to teach Prince Charles. Stephen, a 45-pounder who is boxing champion of his age group at school, is five pounds heavier than his opponent.