Relayed from WESTMINSTER ABBEY

NEW YEAR customs vary, of course, all over the globe. This afternoon Lady Hosie, who, through her father, Professor Soothill, and her husband, has had a long experience of Chinese life, will describe how tho Chinese welcome in the Now Year ; and those who heard her last talk will he glad to know that the characters whom they first met then—Yun Yun and Nieh Nieh-are to occur again today.

MENDELSSOHN'S PIANOFORTE WORKS
Played by MAURICE COLE
Three Studies

THE travelling Englishman' is still a byword on the Continent, and the average view of the English character held by foreigners would-if they were ever impolite enough to express it—considerably astonish many of us. Mr. Francis Hackett , who will discuss this strange but persistent state of affairs, will be remembered by many listeners for the extremely vivid character-sketch of Mussolini that ho broadcast last year. As an Irish writer and journalist who has lived in America and travelled extensively in Europe, he is-particularly well qualified to give the Englishman an impartial statement as to what is thought of him abroad.

A Broadcast Version of the Opera by Mr. Gay
Being a Sequel to 'The Beggar's Opera,' freely adapted by Clifford Bax
Music Arranged and Composed by Frederick Austin
The Wireless Chorus and The Wireless Orchestra
Conducted by Stanford Robinson
Characters in order of speaking :
Slaves, Indians, Pirates. Women of the Town
Scene: An Island in the West Indies
The Opera produced by Stephen Thomas

The popularity of The Beggar's Opera induced Gay, the enterprising author, to make, in 1728, a sequel to it, which he called "Polly."
This, for some unexplained reason, was at first suppressed by the Lord Chamberlain. Probably politics had a good deal to do with this, Walpole not relishing the idea of a renewal of the satire of The Beggar's Opera. However, this banning only made publicity for the new work, of which ten thousand copies were actually sold in one year, making a small fortune for its author. The Opera was first acted only in 1777. It has much the same bountiful measure of songs as had its forerunner - seventy-one in the original edition. Its plot, laid in the West Indies, is full of heroics - fights of pirates and Indians, and the usual love story, bringing in our old friend the highwayman Macheath, of Gay's earlier Opera, under the name of Morano.
Polly Peachum has sailed for the Indies to follow her husband, Maeheath, who has been transported to an island there as a slave. She finds, on arriving, that he has run away from his master's plantation and turned pirate, and she is told that he has married a transported slave.
Word comes that the pirates are coming.
Mr. Ducat, the wealthy planter, is an officer, and to him comes a soldier from a camp of Indians (who are in alliance with the islanders) begging him to fight. Ducat agrees.
The scene changes to the pirates' camp.
'Morano' takes leave of his new wife, Jenny, and prepares to do battle, but lie has hopes of frightening Ducat, who is a coward, and by craft overcoming the Indians. Polly, who has escaped from Ducat's house, is led in. disguised as a man. She is believed to be a spy. Macheath does not recognize her.
Morano plots to have his Jenny carried off, for lie wants to be rid of her. He hears that Polly is on the island, and says that if she be brought to him, he 'will restore her to Macheath.'
The armies join battle, and the Indians rout the pirates. Polly being slightly wounded. In the end, after some small operatic complications, Jenny pairs off with one of the pirates, and Polly is restored to Macheath.

It may seem, at first sight, rather late to talk about Christmas presents four days after Christmas. But a little reflection will convince anyone that the real problem consists not in buying them and giving them to other people, but in disposing of them after other people have given them to one's self. Mr. Woodruff, who will suggest a few variations on the old device of giving them away again for the New Year, is an ex-President of the Union at Oxford, and the author of 'Plato's American Republic.'

The WIRELESS MILITARY BAND, conducted by B. WALTON O'DONNELL Topliss GREEN (Baritone)