THE CHINA MAIL, APRIL 8, 1937.
artistic
Down with the n-tray
and the trick ash-tray and all ash-trays that aren't ash-trays
No
A
Pare 11
Smoking or Else-
spittoon.
and But now the spittoon
a
else
of the pool is the tray and is rounded fact, reform leagues overlook, the coal scuttle, or if he smoked a and this rage took possession
re- the ladies where they were weakest out evidently for the penguin and is that every vice carries cigar in public; he flicked the
or in the aesthetic spot. It was not for the ashes, and the whole with it the means of its own defeat. mains into a bright cuspidor
about the time that there was much contraption has the balance of Smoking, one ugly vice that lifts its
mash the talk of interior decorating and ap- neurotic woman and if you head in our day, promises to meet
out your cigarette the penguin, a sad end, not through well meaning cuspidor have gone the way of the propriate knickknacks.
The dire result is that the ash- just for spite, turns over the tray. propaganda showing how it gives wagon-yard, and in the place of
Closely allied are the utensil you the hives, pellagra, athlete's them we find the ash-tray, a bas- trays of the day have been purchas-
They are built upon the heart, and psoriasis, but-take a tard descendant, which is to be en- ed by women, with the exception of trays. · deep breath and inhale
homes, a few notable receptacles which re- lofty theory that an ash tray, in or- this countered in all the better thought through ash-trays. whether father smokes or daughter pose on office desks, and even thèse, der to be an ash-tray, must, with-
Ash-trays are camp followers of doesn't. It is considered part of all for the most part, have been bought out fail, resemble everything
in the house. The objects resembl- the cigarette in its madcap triumph. respectable house furnishings. In- by secretaries out to lunch.
Pa deed, there came about a dozen In the main, then, the lot is built ed include one of those old-fashion- There didn't use to be any. knocked the ashes of his pipe into years or so ago, a rage of ash-trays, on rakish lines, and they constitute ed black kettles used for the family one of the greatest deterrents to wash in an earlier day, but shap- enjoyable smoking. Roughly, they ed in toward the top to devil the fall, when they are not falling on smokers; a pin tray, and a box like the floor, in the following well de- sister used for her extra hair: fined and maddening categories: swan-neck vases (these are general- First, the statuesque. The best ly regarded as particularly happy example of this genus is to be found in thought, for you've no idea, my in my den-or was, until I managed dear, how they help to furnish one day, quite unintentionally, to room); ice tea coasters, highly Moscow IN THE MAKING. By Sir than is, it seems, possible here. The catch the sleeve of my smoking jac- prized because they have no groove
of E. D. Simon, Lady Simon, W. third is that the heavy hand
ket in it. It was a work of art, for the cigarette and enable one to. A. Bobson, and J. Jewkes. Long- ultra vires does not descend upon and I feel the vandal for not at let it roll around and then off onto
municipal mans. Pp. xii. 253. 78. 6d.
experimentation. The least mourning it.
Here is how it the floor, stinking up the room and fourth is the undoubted fact that
was set up. The base was, about forming designs on the furniture TH
THIS book is worthy of the great
work of Mr. and Mrs. Wehh new and richer incentives to effort two and a half by four inches. From suck as mother used to get with are called into play-especially at each of the four corners of it rose pyrography; milk bottles; gravy to which it owes its inspiration, It the base of the productive pyramid the protesting legs of a noble char- bowls, dime savings banks in the is a careful and illuminating study than is the case with ourselves. ger. On the charger was perched form of elephants, pigs, and of the municipal government of Finally, there is absent from the a knight in armour and, as if the rels all_with_imperceptible slita in Moscow by four people who are all whole effort that omnipresent fear horse's legs did not afford enough the back. expert. in the problems of English of the ratepayer's condemnation protection, the good rider's legs Among the local administration. It not only which in all local life in England is stuck down into stirrups and cut only the pristine. Thgee gives us a complete picture it also a blight upon the direction and level off approach from either side. This quisitely designed, those made of enables a judgment to be made, a of municipal achievement. .To still left two possible entries for onyx, and bronze, and glazed chintz,
A Careful Study Of Moscow
comparison to be attempted, of the transcend the relations of a class highest value. No student either of society is undoubtedly to open new Russia or of local government can perspectives of creative achieve-. afford to neglect its fascinating ment.
There are, however,
pages.
weaknesses
少
a
bar-
main genremain
by Charles W. Ferguson
pearance of an unlighted candle, or a box of store-bought candy. They
But, hold! The breast defy use. You feel that if you care-
.
The volume opens with a careful revealed. The first of these is and instructive picture of Moscow what Mr. and Mrs. Webb have well | ashes--between the noble steed's and sapphire. They have the ap- municipal institutions by Dr. W. A termed the disease of orthodoxy. This hind legs and between his Robson. This could hardly have limits in a grave way both experi- legs., been better done. It is clear; it ment and effective criticism. Linked flopped down like 'loose is incisive, and Dr. Robson brings with it is a wide ignorance of for strings in front and behind, the lessly knocked a few ashes into out suggestively exactly the things eign experience where this might ingenious craftsman who moulded them you would be committing an English student would wish to have supplied horizons now lack the thing had managed to give a a blunder like serving tomato juice know Professor Jewkes follows ing. On the evidence here given us droop and at the same time a swoop instead of a tomato juice cocktail with a valuable account of Moscow housing is still definitely bad; to the horse's tail, so that about the before dinner, or wearing tennis industry and finance; and his very education has not yet reached the only way you could deposit ashes shoes with an evening dress. doubt of the criteria by which the standards of a city like Manches-was to stand off across the room. You see men accepting a cigarette adequacy of planning is to be judg- ter; and the problems of transport and blow them in, or go snooping in the excitement of arriving. Then ed gives a special value to the ques- are still far from solved. But, all around with your head down
and you
u see them look around and their tions it is important to answer. this is largely to say that Mossoviet reach under as if you were fasten- colour mounts, and they begin to be Lady" Simon contributes a good and has not in twenty years surpassed ing the steed's bellyband,
preoccupied and not to pay any at- solid paper on education. She at the English achievement of a cen- Nor was this all. The crowning tention to what is going on, and you
She ad- tury. once admires and doubts.
Given the conditions, that is touch is that the knight, not to be think they need either to wash their mires the very size and energy of not surprising. But, given the con- outdone by the horse, stuck up hands or make a phone call. They the experiment; she doubts the uni- ditions also, it is not difficult to be-erect like a club in a public riot. just can't bring themselves to use formity and, as she thinks, the un- lieve that the two big issues which Hence, if you so much as reached one of those ash-trays. If there is derlying principle which subjects confront the Soviet system are, for a cigarette in his general vicine a fireplace they back up to it and individual personality to a collec first, to move away from the illu-jity, he gave battle and came at you seem to be warming their hands tive end. Her paper is succeeded sion which equates bigness with full tilt. It is true that he ended behind them. If there is no fire- by seven chapters, in all almost grandeur; and, secondly, to recognise by being unhorsed, but you never place they git about and finally half the book, in which Sir Ernest that in ultimate things as well as got your cigarette without going swing their arms in what appears Simon deals with housing and build- in minor matters essential priori-over his dead body. It needs only to to be broad gesture, and the ashes ing, the Moscow ten-year plan, and ties cannot effectively be established be added that the Christian Tem- go on the floor. This accounts for the democracy and efficiency of Mossoviet.
phasise his will without fear of any ing to that knight of the new day good for rugs. real importance, because t
they are kind. Granted all that the party had seen to it that the whole sur- There is little solution as long as the work of a man whose own train- has done, there is still a danger of face was polished and glazed and ash-trays must blend with the fin- ing had taught what to look for if bureaucratiam if, at a certain point, made so slick that a cigarette could gernails or be a part of the scenery, effective judgment was to be made. criticism is made to seem uninvit not possibly be made to rest on any But some of the better bachelors What is the upshot of it all? ing. No stress can ever fully com- part of it: and if you stuck it un- are going to begin bringing the old There are certain obvious advant pensate for decisions which have ceremoniously between the legs of brass cuspidor back, if the ladies ages in the Moscow scheme over something sacred about them; the horse the compound of which don't watch out. Come to think of anything we know in this country. citizen is bound to become l'adminis- the tray was made smelled like the it, they would do a lot for the room, The first is the fact that the ab- tre. Mossoviet has potentialities so burning of Rome,
my dear. The lines are really not sence of vested interests makes pos- great, achievements so remarkable to So much for the statuesque. Ex- bad- If the cigarette companies șible planning on a big scale and its credit that it needs, on an ever- amples need not be multiplied, take my advice they will assist the relative swiftness of execution. The increasing scale, to recognise the Doubtless you have before you now, spittoon movement before the wild second is the ability of the system immense reserve of power it can one of those magnificently conceiv- assortment of unusable ash-trays in to enlist the direct civic interest of have when it seeks to deal with ed creations where a penguin stands our day and time defeat the whole
far, wider number. of people really free minds.
pensively looking into a pool, and impulse to smoke.
His chapters are unless the consumer is able to emperance designer who had given be- the genteel myth that ashes
"
.
are