Page
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1933.
WHERE EMPIRES
MEET.
A Traveller Roams In
The East.
FLOWERS IN ASIA.
["The Loom of the East." By F. Kingdon-Ward. (Martin Hop- kinson. 58.)]
Among travellers in plants Mr. Kingdon-Ward may claim a reputa- tion of his own. The profession has a distinguished and curiously Httle known past. The feats of travellers for some older arms- Veitch had a pre-eminence of its own in this regard—are recorded only in our gardens, or are com pressed into an adjective such as Veitchiance,
A GUIDE TO THE NEW BOOKS
LIFE OF GENERAL GORDON
NOVEL OF THE THEATRE
By HOWARD SPRING.
"Groping." By Naona Jacob.
THE CHINA MAIL.
FAMOUS NOVELISTA. E. W. Mason Visits KING'S THEATRE
'LEAVES £150.
"Lucas Malet" Dies Poor.
DAUGHTER OF CHARLES KINGSLEY.
Lucas Malet, author of "The Hla tory of Richard Calmady," and one! of the most famous of British wo men novelists, left only $150.
She has left it to her cousin, Miss Gabrielle Vallings.
Lucas Malet wrote nearly a acore of novels, and one of the arrived at. That is what Strachey most popular, "The wages of Sia,” coutinuously and conveniently for was turned into a film, with Kenelm got, and what Mr. Wortham consis-Foss in one of the leading parts. tently remembers.
. "A.B.” By Pauline Smith. (Cape,
38. 6d.)
Her last book was published only four months ago. It was unfinish- ed when she died, and was com- pleted by Miss Vallings.
(Hutchinson, 78. Gd.) Miss Jacob is best known for her novels about the Gollantz family, Some of these men were travel those substantial and admirable lere firal and botanists second, Jews who would have got on no some, like Mr. Beebe, the great well with the Forsyten. “Grop- traveller in birds, were naturalists ing" is not so good as any of those
Miss Smith met “A.B." just after first and travellers by accident, books, but it confirms one's im he had written "The Old Wives' No one perhaps has worked on so pression that the writer has more Tale." It was in Switzerland, and story of a High Court judge who large a scale as Mr. Kingdon-than the usual capacity for creating] Bennett was to be found pursuing presides at an Old Bailey murder Ward; and his monument of suces-human beings.
the art of water-colour painting-trial resembling, the Mrs. Thomp-
It is called "The Private Life of Mr. Justice Syme," and tells the
but
Own
Her birthplace Was
Charles
Singapore.
COMMENCING WEDNESDAY,
1 MARCH.
BILE FOLLOWS
IN THIS
Modernity Of City Amazes OF MAGIC
Novelist.
"NO LAWS FOR WRITING"
seaport. It speaks volumes for the co-operation and good- will of the races concerned." Naturally, when a world famous novelist begins to make tours in the romantic East, one of the first questions everyone wants to ask him is "are you getting local colour for the next book?"
under
on-
One of England's premier adventure novelists and play. wrights has passed through Singapore on an adventure of his own-seeing parts of the world which before he had only heard about. He is Mr. A. E. W. Mason who arrived in Penang on board the Nal- dera recently. He had booked Mr. Mason was very emphatic through to Singapore, but the on the point. "I am not," he re- northern settlement attracted plied. "I never make a journey him, and he stopped off there, with that object in view. But that and began to tour the Federat- doesn't necessarily mean I shan't ed States.
make use of material I gather in By way of Taiping, Kuala Kang- the course of the trip."
Mr. Mason had his own com- other places, and then Port Swet-ments to make on the depression. tenham, he found his way down to The new generation, he found had
the Singapore at the week-end, and lost confidence has spout a few days with his old | slaught of world economic condi- friend Colonel M. J. T. Reilly) tione, and he thought it was be- while seeing something of what cause the generation before them. western Influence has made of who should be bearing the brunt
The Gateway of the East.”
of it, had been wiped out in the Mr. Mason wished to "escape | Great War. the English winter," and he also "But," he said "I do not think specially wished to see Malaya, so you can fail to realise that the he did both. Before he has only English are on top of the whole been East as far as Rangoon; now, world. The people in America talk having started, he is going to Aus- as if they are down and out, but 1 tralia before he returns to Port do not think you will find that in Said to undertake a tour in the any English possession. You can- not run around like this without So Modern!"
feeling every confidence in the Interviewed by the Free Press destiny of the English race. There of co-operation and before sailing in the Nieuw Hoi- is plenty land, Mr. Mason expressed his de- every-one is working with a good light with his stay in Malaya and will to get things right. Singapore.
U.S. Comparison "If the Americans knew enough
ses in botany-the blue meconopsis The central figure, Marcus Stern, "sitting down to this determinedly son and Bywaters trial, the point and Primula Florindae are in them-is unfortunate: in his name, which in riding-breeches and black bow being that the judge's own wife.
is, at this very time, to some ear and Kuala Lumpur, among! selves success enough-must not makes one think of Marcus Stone on a camp stool in the snow." obscure his wider quality and per- (and what could be worse than It was some time later that he tent entangled with a lover.
Lucas Malet
was not only hapa deeper interest. He is a tra- that?); in his parents, who were announced that "the time had now
in her veller, a geographer who reads the skinflat little traders; in.his son, come for him to turn his attention famous
right, was the daughter world not from the "flower in the who is the rottenest bit of cheese to the production of paintings in
of Kingsley. author crannied wall," but from the big- I
recent the style of the old masters." Miss Charles
of have encountered in
"Hereward the gest mountains and rivers that fiction. Marcus is 1
more Smith knew Bennett from then till "Westward Ho!" Europe and Asia afford.
For less successful dramatist; his death. She was privileged to Wake," and "The Water Babies."
She was related to Froude, the In his previous book, primarily and the people he meets in that know such intimate things as that, concerned with plants, the purple capacity-Sir Isidore Lewison, at Fontainebleau, it was his custom historian, fax Muller, the great passages
Berners, to spread out his trousers to press philologist. Lord Grenfell, and were evoked by the the Jewish actor, "edge of the world," not by "plant the Jewish theatrical agent,
and beneath the mattress. She has Lord Desborough. hunting." The Brahmaputra was Dottridge, the dwarf comedian-given in this small book à charm- a stronger Inspiration than the are all finely seen and portrayed ing picture of a loyal and lovely Kingsley's vicarage at Eversley, rhododendron. In this latest es by the author. say plants and no mention at all;
She married her father's curate, As much cannot be said of Leah, Bennett is left ineffaceably in the and the geography is mostly in Marcus's second wife, and the epi- mind as an amiable and mellow who became rector of Clovelly, the terms of seas and mountain ranges. sode in which Marcus believes his Mentor, sharing the great richness North Devon beauty spot, and it The peoples and their politics are son's boast that Leah has been hial of his experience with this earnest was at Clovelly that she wrote one or two of her books. Her husband's directed by geographic compulsion, mistress is not credible. Marcus young disciple.
name was Harrison, and he was a though the relative importance, knew the boy as a lifelong liar, ond way, of hill and ses vary with man's would not so readily have swallow-
brother of Clifford Harrison, the mechanical inventions.
ed, without inquiry, a slander that Britain's Lost Trade.
Her Greatest Book affected his own happiness sa near-i The little book appeals to the ly. This is flawed work, 'but the
Lucas Malet's most discussed higher imagination and springs flaws are in
the honest material sub-title of this book, which out book was "The History of Richard amazement," he said, "at the great about management they would be from a constructive imagination. that Miss Jacob's readers have lines a profit-sharing scheme evolv-Calmady." It is the life-story of growth of civilisation in the penin- all right. But they have half the
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friendship.
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"Ark." By N. St. Barbe Sladen. (Williams and Norgate, 25. Gd.) "A new industrial era” is the
Hampshire.
reciter.
£40,000 a year and a dreadfully deformed body, heir to The tragedy of deformity is its a baronetcy
theme.
Sinai Peninsula.
"My chief reaction is one of
CHANDU
THE MAGICIAN
EDMUND LOWE
· Bein LUGOSI Irene Ware
Henry B. Wallhail Frees the radio drasse by Houry
Earnshaw, Ven M. Oldhama and R. R. Morgan. Directed by
Marcel Varmel and William C. Mersties
rox Picture
of his own. Once he was a Church of England lecturer, and during the War he was a secret service agent, He was in Spain part of the time. and enjoyed many a thrilling esca- pade. He is a keen mountaineer, and also enjoys yachting. He is a
a dwarf, with a handsome face but aula in the comparatively short world's gold and they keep it stor-member of the Royal Yacht Squa-
It is ed In the cellars. There is only dron at Cowes.
cellars, and that one thing that should be kept in Mr. Mason has no objection to is mushrooms. talking about writing, but he is not When the control of the world's dogmatic about it. "There are gold-was in the hands of England laws for writing?!! he declared, it never stayed in the cellars, and "and it is a foolish man who the world was better off for that." tempts to lay any down. He will Mr. Mason is one of the few surely find that the next genera writers of adventure fiction who tion of writers completely, tramples has really experienced adventures them down and sets up its own.”
At its worst the thought is stimu-jcome to expect.
ed by an'industrialist who remulos lating. It is a weakness that he
anonymous.
Mr. P. J. Hannon, M.P., who con- often deserts travel for mere poll- "Local Colour." By Rosemary tics and seems to presuppose that! Recs. (Chapman and Hall, tributes a foreword, feels that ou the impulse to expand polemically
stacles lie before the scheme, but!. 78. 3d.) and politically is an immutable] Hetty Price
at the same time he thinks "there! won £1,000 in force of the West, as the desire to newspaper competition.
is something more tangible and but while it was generally regard- The story is beautifully written, She thereupon ceased to be a practical in the Ark scheme thaned as her greatest and most artis sleep is a necessity for the East.
Britain must compensate for lost clerks in a London lawyer's office in any of those that have preceded, tic success, it roused some people! trade on the Yangtse by opening and went off to a cottage by
the it."
The essence of the scheme is barded with abusive, anonymous to fury, and Lucas Malet was bom- back door to a part of China re- sen, secking "local colour" which, mote from Japan. She will use she was convinced, was all she need-that, the factors of industry being letters. the Indian Ocean as Japan uses the ed to make her a novelist. This financial, intellectual and manual, Pacific. This thesis brings him to book shows how completely that inordinate part of the world taken that idea was. where he looked down on rhudoden- drous that had climbed the highestį trees. His imagination leaps to the theme, "The strip of country which separates the Brahmaputta of India from the Yangtae of China
"Wrath of the Shadca." By C. A. Nicholson, (Methuen, 78. Gd.) "Mental murder" is the focus round which this book is disposed.
The year before the award of a
mis- each of these three should share Kensington, but in her old age she For years Lucas Malet lived in the profits equally all round pro retired to Tenby in Pembrokeshire, rata to the value of the aervices and she died there at the age of rendered. That means that if
a seventy-nine. workman was getting a wage of £300 a year, that £300 would be Civil List pension to her made it regarded as his investment in the clear that she was not too well off. company. If the company declar Now her will shows that all she is at one point only three hundred There are some people who per-
ed a 10 per cent. dividend, the work had left was £150, and fifty miles wide; but it is for suade themselves that the thing is a would receive 10 per cent. on its size, the most obstinate country posible to will so intensely the hie 300 in addition to the £300 in the world, unparalleled any death of a person at
itself. The same would apply to a distance where except possibly in the moon."that that person dies!
When Elan "intellectual worker." An Ideal Route.
frida was in bed at Hammersmith Though the book has a wide fling she directed her malevolent will borations are clearly set out in this and sweeps superbly over the im- against her sister Agnes, boarding interesting little book.
mensity of China, India, Russia, its a train in the Brompton-road, and real contribution to geographic and Agnes died.
That is the essence, The cia-
"Mandoa, Mandon! By Winifred
Holtby (Collins, 78. éd.)
SHAKESPEARE CRITICISM.
Professor Pillai, of the Presiden- cy College, Madras, has written a study of "Shakespeare 'Criticism from the Beginnings to 1766,” when Dr. Johnson brought out that long-
A novel about an. English travel promised edition which for the
political thought lies in the ela- Mrs. Nicholson docs not use this boration of his ideal route round dimeult theme sensationally. She the great mountains, and round, at made me at least shudder with agency which exploited an African time stemmed the tide of rash tex- well as across, the great rivers that aversion in the presence of the territory. It is very careful and fual emendation. "buffet their way, within hail of beautiful, enow-cold Elfrida- & painstaking, full of good things The book, based on a course one another, yet completely sever- grand piece of drawing of a re- that would be even better if redun-of lectures delivered under the aus- ed by terrific ranges," through the pellent character. But the book on dancies were pruned away. pices of the University of Madras, corridor that leads down from his the whole ls high-strung and edgy. Much humbug is exposed to ridi-is designed to illustrate the intel- "roof of the world" to the coastal leaving one with the feeling of hav-cule, much cant is cut af by satire: lectual life of England throughout plains by Burma.
ing spent too long with neurotics what Miss Holtby needs is to clear the period under review, as well as over- a space in order to make her sword- to trace the evolution of Shakes- play more effective. But the pearian criticism in ita exrlier swordplay is there; you cannot misstages. It is promised for imme- take its authentic gleam.
diate publication by Blackle and Bon.
Very suggestive things are said and psycho-analysts in an incidentally, as, that "what En heated consulting-room. glishmen call the East, really is) the South" or "It is a parody worth pondering that with the improve-
ment of communications....it hasi
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Bex "Beyond Control." By
Beach. (Hutchinson, 78. Ed.)
If Mrs. Nicholson erra on the} Became even more difficult to rule alde of complexity of emotion, Mr. from a distance;" but less politics Beach, at any rate, may be depend and more straight geography would have improved the worked on to keep emotion beautifully
traveller wastes time and himself
simple.
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"Sympathy." By Peter Quennell (Faber and Faber, 7s. 6d.)
·
He elected to go on, with В There are five stories in the book, month's voyage ahead before land and the jacket promises "a brief was reached. The book tells of critical foreword, explaining how that month's voyage and of the pro-
the
Such a thoughtful and observant- This is a tale of one of those big, the stories came to be written, and found disturbance which the wo In threading the jungle of more case-who go through the regula- design.".
simple souls an airman in this emphasising the similarity of their man's presence - wrought on Immediate politics."
officers and crew. It is difficult |tion 300 pages of regulation heroic, This foreword does not appear not to feel that it is all rather doeds and win in the end the love in my copy. In any case, I am not overdone. The captain - made a of a dear, sweet girl. As old assure that it is not taking a few tales mystery of the woman by patting the hills, and just as green.
COASTWISE
by
"ALGIE" BENNETT, An interesting book of Cartoons depicting "Happenings" on the China Coast,
PRICE $1.00.
at
Now on sale BREWERS WHITEAWAY, LAIDLAW EXCELSIOR BOOK STORE.
and at the Publiskers
The Newspaper Enterprise Ltd. ** Chián Mall Building:
"Gordon." By H, E. Wortham.
(Harrap, 12s. 6d.)
with overmuch gravity when it her in a room and forbidding her comes to writing an fptroduction to to leave it. If she had been put out tell us what they are all about, Mr. in the daylight to wash the sal Quannell's stories are not every-tors' shirts instead of having them This is a solid, sedative biogra- one's fare. They are allusive and furtively competing for the honour phy, which General Gordon's ad rarified, existing like a Wilson of washing hers, things might have mirera will welcome after Lytton Sfeer water-colour, rather by im boen diferent Strachey's Jubilant firs. And, plication than statement, I can't after all, one feels there was rather give them higher praise than that, more to Gordon than could be cover- ed. by Strachey's narrow fumula: "Here's a reputation. Let's throw bricks at it?
We have little enough time to
"Pacific" By Robert Carss.
(Barker, 78: 68.)/
The ship sailed: at night from South American port. In the found
day for the sort of Christian buay, morning the roman bodiness that Gordon so perfect stowed away, Parlay
ly exemplified; but a picturs should in opld have pHLY
be looked at in the frame of He own dumpa bar at once, some of
epoch if a just judgment is to be crew thought so-
But Mr. Carse works the rather over-played “mystery" of woman, to some effect.
Upland Rambles in Surrey and By Hardid Shelton
time since the Federation. has not been here before to find really surprising to anyone who
It so modern and well developed.
“As for Singapore, the city must strike a man as one of the the great marvels of world. From a deserted green island it has been deve loped into a great city and
—
A GOOD THING
BACKED
BY A REPUTATION OF
HALF A CENTURY
CAPSTAN
CIGARETTE
at-