Evening Standard from London, Greater London, England • 7

7 Evening Standard Tuesday February 23 1937 THIS TATTOOING BUSINESS were kept busy putting permanently healthy glows on cheeks or colouring their lips with rouge that even death would not erase There are a good many beautiful women some of them on the stage to-day whose colouring has been tattooed on their faces so that no matter how they age they will always bloom Sometimes tattooing is an aid to Dudley Barker not fastidious about his appearance There is always a restricted but lucrative market for tattooed men and women in sideshows at fairs One man formerly a major in the Hussars went to Mr Burchett and had his whole head and shoulders tattooed with black and white stripes like a zebra and his ears done in black He has made a comfortable living eVer since Just after the Boer war another man had the bright idea of having a portrait of Kruger tattooed on his shaven head and he lived for years on the hospitality of the Dutch people in South Africa But who shall explain the whimsical American who got Mr Burchett to tattoo a hinge on each joint of his body? Or the man who was so elderly that he had to climb up to Mr room supported by two sticks to finish off his snakes and dragons? It is to such people that the tattooists are now largely reduced and not to the Army officers the peers and princes the fashionable men upon whom they once flourished was the war which really killed the tattooing said Mr Macdonald sadly not what it was in the old days surgery Plastic surgeons can rebuild a face smashed in an accident but they cannot quite control the pigment of the skin they graft on Tattooing to bring the patches in harmony with the rest of the face has often solved that problem I knew a man who blinded in one eye as a child had that eye tattooed in to match the good eye An ophthalmic surgeon did the job more than 25 years ago and to-day it is still impossible to tell that the colouring of that eye is not real Tattooing on his body can sometimes provide a man with a job if he is MR SUTHERLAND MACDONALD a leading tattoo artist with a book of sample designs THE tattooing business is not what it was Its peak came in the years before the war when it was in great fashion King George while Duke of York had a dragon tattooed on his right arm by Mr Sutherland Macdonald most famous of the tattoo artists and there are three kings now reigning in Europe who carry Mr handiwork or them He waited on them in their own countries and stayed at their royal palaces while he worked make you (dlusile lereS much talk of TAN at Fenwick ay A score of his clients among the royalty and nobility tattooed their signatures on his arms which are thereby a notable autograph album Prince Henry of Prussia the brother had a Japanese girl tattooed on him and Mr Macdonald went to Russia to put a cossack on the arm of the Grand Duke Michael brother of the Tsar Several Indian princes had themselves tatto oed when they were in London The Maharajah of Bikaner for instance chose to be ornamented with a tiger the Maharajah of Patiala with sporting designs such as a head with a rabbit in its mouth The Sultan of Johore has his arms covered with snakes dragons and tigers A few years ago Lord Lonsdale bared his arms at a dinner given in his honour in Glasgow to show the guests the tattooing with which they were covered The Duke of Montrose and Sir Iain Colquhoun who were present at the dinner took up the challenge removed their jackets and showed that they too had been tattooed Lord Byng of Vimv as a junior officer in the 10th Hussars was one of Mr earliest clients he started his career as a tattoo artist at Aldershot and the Army officers all went to him Sometimes he would travel to Plymouth the barge would come ashore to meet him and out he would go to the flagship to add a little more to the tattooing of Admiral Montgomerie The Marquess ot Winchester who was killed in the South African War was the first man to try the effect of green tattooing when coloured designs were just coming into favour Mr Macdonaid still has his studio in a tiny shed perched on a rooftop in Jermyn-street One of his colleagues Mr George Burchett has been at work in Waterloo-road for 35 years There are three more in outlying suburbs One or two more travel the country with fairs picking up it is said a very nice living and a few live in the orovinces i looked througn a wnole picture-gallery of tattooed men ornamented with the most diverse and curious designs One man named Watson had a huge ferocious devil right across his back it once saved tns life Captured by natives in the Matabele war and about to be Knobkemed he threatened that the devil on his back would haunt the herds and crops ol the tribe if he were killed They took one awed look at his back and let him go Another picture was that of a barrister who is most ornately tattooed all over his body with the exception of his forearms which might show Every time he takes his seat in court he is sitting on a highly coloured picture of Pharaoh by the Nile with a few palm trees and a slave or so There was a portrait of Charles Sugden the actor with a flight of storks across nis cbe-st and two eagles fighting on his back Near bv was one of a Colonel Cropper who had a fancy oni- of socks tattooed on his feet and ankles During the South African war he was hot through the ankle and came back to with a whito soar in He would not let the tattooist cover the scar with more sock but insisted that a darn should he tattooed where the twllet had struck him Mr Burchett the professor in Waterloo-road thinks that the reason for tattooing is often vanity That would certainly account for the eminent general who was a big-game shot and had the head of every beast he killed tattooed on him until he was a zoo in himself He is encaged at present in tattooing an under-the-sea scene complete with mermaids on a woman whose husband is well tattooed too and thinks a family should be one-minded on the subject A year or two ago it became fashion-! able to substitute tattooing for make-up on a face and the tattooists This London Tan taking it right to made In Tan Its unusual cartridge Other shades are Navy and Ceylon that Is Spring Tailor this Suit with and pocketings Cossack Green sizes 6Jgns And so Percival I must ask you to release me from our engagement could never marry a man who doesn't smoke Greys Cigarettes' So Perce after rushing blindly into the night discovered that he could now afford to smoke more and better cigarettes and found his true helpmeet in Greys Not quite convincing? Well say that Greys are very good cigarettes and leave it at that THE Greys CIGARETTES 10 fo 6d Footnote Twenty ordinary cigarettes a day says a doctor can do a smoker no harm The trouble is that judging oy what one reads there is no such thing as an ordinary cigarette except Greys St a Bon of Zd idlies Brook St Settlors.