LEGENDS

not recollect whether the position of the Indian princes
was discussed. At any rate, I know that there was no
discussion as to their being "wiped out/3' Yet other
parties, attended by other Bengalis, were given in
Delhi to Miss Mayo, who joins Mrs. Roy in affirming
that the latter lady's luncheon was not the occasion of
the conversation in question.

A more interesting incident concerns the well-known
actress, Madame Alia Nazimova.

One day during the winter 1927-28 the author of
Mother India was surprised to receive, from a promi-
nent producing company in New York, an invitation
to attend the opening performance of a new playlet,
with Madame Nazimova heading the bill, entitled India.
A second surprise came when she read that its author,
Edgar Allen Woolf, acknowledged that his sketch was
* Based on her book. Whether Miss Mayo approved the
production or resented it, she was helpless in the mat-
ter, because Hindu customs are uncopyrightable, and
because Mother India, although it purports to portray
Hindu customs within a certain limited field, can claim
no monppoly of the topic.

The Russian actress's playlet, nevertheless, was the
**abfect of many questions in the Central Indian Legis-
lature and of newspaper comments up and down the
country, all assuming Miss Mayo's responsibility in the
matter. Thus, the New Empire of Calcutta, under date
of February 29th, carried a despatch, 'from our own
correspondent, New York, February 27th,' under the
headlines 'Mother India Explained,—Miss Mayo's Mis-
representation On The Stage,' Yet the 'story* itself,
when divorced from its misleading headlines, Is