SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 1932.
Eve
26, The Arcade,
Gloucester Building.
SMART SPRING
DRESSES
IN
Crepe, Georgette, &
Silk Voiles, from $30.00. Washing Prints from $12.50. White Silk Tennis
Dresses $21.00.
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SPRING
SALE
NOW
ON
YEE SANG FAT
Co., Ltd.
•
PHOTO-SUPPLIES
Kodaks and Cameras. Films, Plates and Papers, etc. Developing, Printing and Enlarging.
ZIESS and BUSCH FIELD GLASSES.
Price Moderate,
A Trial Order is Solicited.
A. SEK & CO.
Tel No. 23459,
26A. Des Voeux Road, C.
Hong Kong.
THE CHINA MAIL.
The WOMAN'S Page
THE ROMANTIC WEST.
"I FOUND PALE ECHOES OF MY IDEAL" AS FIGURED IN DREAMS OF CALIFORNIA
New Orleans.
By Mildred Tonge.
autos,
and washing. The Texan's voice, row on the station with souvenirs rumbled on in indignant defence of to sell in the few minutes that the I knew exactly what I expected of his State-it was the biggest State train stopped. Junior bought the romantic West, and all the way in the Union, it had more
bow and arrow and I bought some to California I looked for it with more roads, more money, more cul-beads and an Indian doll, and we ture, more university graduates were turning them over with pride ruthless intensity. Even in the than any other State.
when the brakeman I shivered in the train endless baked flatnesses of Texas at this vindication of a State that told us the squaws had, of course, found pale echoes of my ideal. should mean the Wild West, and bought them from the ten-cent store
listened gratefully to the small boy for the benefit of tourists. There, for instance, in Texas back Junior as he explained to me what train pulled out and we had a last yards were cacti growing among the
a coral was. "I'll show
glimpse of the women tying up their tangle of weeds and roses; and at prairie-dog hole if I see one," he souvenirs in the coloured shawls and the railway crossings were pictures-premised generously, and confided stalking slowly down quely dirty Mexican children who that he had never been West before Street in high-heeled stared at us from under fringes of but knew all about it from books. shoes I clutched desperately at my jet-black hair. I tried to ignore "I'll wake you up if I see a cowboy," disappearing ideals of the West. the blatantly American modernity he said wistfully as my eyes began
you A
of the brisk little towns that stood to shut under the hypnotic influence S...............t intervals along the line, built on of a thousand miles of vague brown
ALEXANDER
INSTITUT
DE BEAUTE
Phone 25169.
Pedder Building
(1st Floor)
Opposite Entrance to
Hong Kong Hotel.
As our
the Main American
fornia itself actually satisfied the So when the first day in Cali-
visionary 'gleam I stared about me gratefully. There in actual fact were all the things that California enthusiasts had told me I would 'find. Warm, green alleys where millions of oranges grew,
-סט
Į believably, blue sky, snow-capped] mountains that were foothills of the Rockies, more groves--walnut this time, then grapefruit, then lemons. The trees that looked like weeping willows or
at the foot of the cliffs where we was were driving was the Pacific.
The re- telephone service in, our rooms, golf-
at our ing, swimming, tennis, cooking by
poplars were 'exotic I staggered gratefully out of the us to the discreet notice-board so but because it had emerged from things, such as pepper and euca. glare of desert sunshine into the that we could glance over the pos- them into a brisk and efficient pre-
I sibilities. Obediently we read the sent. lyptus. That incredibly blue sea hotel lobby and looked about me.
in one of America's super-notice-board. Apparently for an hotels. The hall was in Old Eng-adequate number of dollars we could Vaguely I heard my Californian lish style, with plenty of settees and have In the desert the fulfilment of which would in- friends telling me the stupendous antlers; the dining-room was Japan-jall our desires,
to the hotel facts about California. This road ese; the lounge beyond was Italian. clude, according
bathrooms and along which we were driving was a A reception clerk bowed over us, the managers, tiled miracle of modern engineering; it hostess smiled toward us. had cost so many million dollars, it sources of the hotel were was to produce so many millions disposal, they assured us, and waved more. All along this road, they told me proudly, there were-20 I saw-building lots, embryo cities that so far had usually only one store, one country-club, one beauty shop, and one boulevard of houses but which would indoubtedly be developed within the next few years. "It's got to come. Look at the climate we have, look at our natural resources, look at all these people living in New York who dream about coming to California to end their days. Why, if you come back here in fifty years you'll find one continuous city all along this coast. Nothing can stop it. There's everything here-best roads in the world, electric power, light,
a standard pattern of Main Street prairie, parallel to the railway, all asserting The Squaws and the Souvenirs. heat, money, all forms of sport. their efficiency by chain stores, drug Through the afternoon he prod- It's a marvellous, country.
Wait stores, and electric signs. It was ded me into momentary enthusiasms till you see what we've done to the much more gratifying to look for-nt a glittering kilt Mexican desert!** names like "El Nueva Bazaro," "Al- church and a graveyard decorated
The Super-Hotel.
falfa Mill," "Paiorna Blanca," and with pink paper garlands like those With an increasing amazement I "Texas Bluebonnet Pool-room.” we used to make for May-day pro- saw what they had done to the de- I tried to ignore the conversation cessions, at some buzzards hovering sert. We drove along a hundred of my fellow-passengers, who were over the carcase of a sheep; at the miles of perfect road that cut all cracking jests at the expense of loungers who wore such tilted wide through sand desert-holly and sage- Lustrous Oil Permanent Hair. Waren
on hats and such high-heeled boots that brush to a desert resort hotel. which are Large, Soft and Natural, the brakeman, the only Texan Artistic Finger and Marcel Waves. Of the coach. I discovered that Texas they must have been cowboys, al "There you see everything that Treatment, Shampooing, Henns Pack is to the American humorist what though they piled into battered cars civilisation can do," said my hosts (any colour), Hair Cutting and Mani-
"And all this had to be eure for Ladies and Gentlemen. Con- Wigan is to the English one-a instead of on to horses at the road-proudly.
In Arizona we brought across the desert by road. selantique, Artistle, Work by European Bource of ever-joyful mockery. With side stations. Expert, Mr. Alexander.
growing irritation I concentrated on actually saw Indians at one station There's no railway goes near here. adobe huts where sulky Indian wo--six squaws, dressed in barbaric You can't get a room here under men stared from among tin cans reds and blues squatted in a silent twenty dollars."
CHARGES MODERATE.
A VISIT WILL CONVINCE YOU.
a French cuisine, shopping service from the biggest American shops, private-wire brokerage service from the New York Exchange. A cow- boy-host would conduct us on moon- ight horseback rides over the de- sert, a college student would take us, on picnics to canyons; a staff. of entertainers, physicians, secretaries, teachers would cope with any of our needs.
It was in that desert glare of too- much western sunshine that the visionary gleam made its last flicker and died reluctantly. As my hosts drove me back enthusiastically over the desert trail I listened with a dawning understanding to their own idea of the romantic West. They were merely humouring me when they let me look at tourist- littered Spanish missions, at the cowboys advertising a desert rodeo for the benefit of New Yorkers, or at untidy scraps of Mexican villages What that were still unsalvaged. made the hearts of the Californians themselves glow was the perfection of the road surface, the efficiency of the road surface, the efficiency of the irrigation ditches, the evident dollars embodied in the "beautiful homes" of the towns. To them Call- fornia was. Avalon, the Land of Sunshine, the Golden State, the Land where the Rainbow Ends- romantic not because of pale echoes of pioneer and covered-waggon days
BONZO
I-THAT THE MAIL?
| LOOKS LIKE
| MORE BILLS/
YOU HAVE
SPOKEN!
-
GHEEKIE, THAT TRIP TO PARLS HAS LOT. TO. WAIT A BIT/AND. THAT. NEW FUR
COAT/
IVE LOT MORE DON'T TALK THAN I CAN CHEW OF IT AGAIN,
ALREADY!
By George Studdy
SAY YOU SOTA PACKET |ALL RIGHT!
YEPAND I COST ME A WHOLE LOT LIN POSTALE STAMPS
HONG KONG BENEVOLENT SOCIETY.
Donations and Subscriptions are now due and can be sent to the Honorary Treasurer, Mrs. Wynne Jones, 161,
The Peak.
-Brest Britain right
43 1932, King Features Syndicals,