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A lesson you must never forget
By
THE CHINA MAIL, JUNE 19, 1937.
!X?! Cyril ??!X!
James
"LANGUAGE
furned sharply. My elbow familiar.
“!" And "Blast the!" I said. My friend giggled, The waiter
sniffed.
PLEASE"
Yet it may be more crushing to ing the last war.
There will always be sermons
I wonder can they do any good? Nobody wants to swear in church.
"WHAT'S that said, and scalded or indignant are painfully "the goddams." And "goddamn
was. bawled out after the English against swearing. struck-a cup, and the hot coffee Oh, I know I oughtn't to do it. officers who walked through Paris splashed over a new pair of gre The best reproof I have read is when the Battle of Waterloo had flannels.
the one delivered in chaste John- been won. sonian prose.
Nor did the tradition suffer dur- And 90 per cent. of the people who let drop a cussword do it simply on The British sergeant-major saw the impulse of the moment.
But there was one parson who argued that swearing would con- Church con- It's all very wrong, but it is a tinue as long as the on
fact that when a British expedition demned it. arrived at the Sandwich Islands, a
he Praise swearing as a virtue, leading native greeted them with said, and there would be less swear- this address:
ing!
"Please," he said in pained tone, and glanced round the cafe
* *
**
I jumped în the car. aboard?" I asked cheerfully.
"Yup," said the driver. He slammed the door shut. finger was in the way.
"Why, you!”
say:
"Sir, have the intelligence to use to that. the eyes God gave you before dea positing your ungainly carcase "All the chair where I had deposited my
new hat."
Or:
My
"Hey," he said, “steady!” "Steady!" I repeated, shaking my hand frenziedly, “why the can't you-"
"Is there any need, sir, to ride your bicycle directly across the path of my car, causing me to pull up and bruise my knee against the dashboard?”
But somehow nobody things.
"Very glad see you.. Damn your That certainly might have con- eyes! Me like English very much. soled the American clergyman who Devilish hot, sir. Goddam!"
travelled from Virginia to White- Though this is hardly surprising hall to beg for some money to save says these when one remembers Sir Thomas the souls of his parishioners.
Maitland, High Commissioner for
But I'm sure I needn't continue. The sad truth is we are a nation the Ionian Islands, at the start of
the last century. Prelude, to a cascade of curses, of hard swearers. and the inevitable
"Language, The English archers
who shot
please!" from the fellow who was their shafts at Agincourt and Har- n't hurt or damaged or stung or deur were known to the French as
·THE
པ་
SO
WORLD GOES BY
By "ULYSSES"
1OME few weeks ago this column was filled for a few days with a most exciting story of a murder in the British Foreign Office and other world-shaking events whose significance even now cannot, be estimated. In response to popular -appeal, consisting of the crime re- lips over porter (who licks his every murder) and myself, I am go- ing to reveal further episodes in this drama of the political under- world which, as everyone knows,
has its centre in Whitehall.
The characters in this little story are still alive, contrary to earlier reports that most of them had been "bumped off" as the saying goes in gangster circles. Here they are:
The Senate gathered in a hall and awaited the High Commissioner.
*
*
#
"Souls!". shouted King William's Attorney-General,TMTMTM "Damn your
souls!
Make tobacco!” But I think it is true to say that He entered in a much-too-short side by side with this centuries-old shirt, a red nightcap and slippers. torrent of British swearing has He glared around and bawled to been the deep conviction that there his secretary:
is one place in which to swear and "Damn them. Tell them all to go 999 in which to keep quiet. to hell!"
D
men.
un-
St. Paul's Cathedral, it is said, was built without a single swear- How: stands the modern swearer word passing the lips of the work- then?
Very badly compared with the And if you know how a stone- come into the story at all.
The story resumes at the Imperial beaux (and belles) who rapped out mason feels when he hits his thumb Conference, during which a ghast- resounding oaths in the great crus- instead of the stone you may ly murder was committed. Mr. Reu- ing age, which in Britain was at derstand how terrified the workmen with unusual carelessness, the end of the reign of George II. must have been of Sir Christopher ter,
cable a report of the You'll never hear even the hard- Wren's anti-swearing rules. failed to crime, news of which,reached Hong est eusser to-day burst out with: But to-day we are deluged with "Zounds! S'light! Lud! La! Bodi- a monotonous flow of swear-words. Kong by devious ways.
kins! S'lid! God's nigs! By
Gone are the brave old oaths, the father's skin!
By my fay! Gog's high-sounding maledictions. soul! By Gis!"
But they all caused raised eye- Even innocent words are being brows, blushing cheeks, arguments dragged on the black list-and have and the current equivalent of "Lan- been.
were
The delegates of the Common- wealth had just sung "Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here," and preparing to give the Conference yell under Cheer Leader Baldwin when the Belgravian Ambassador, Bruno Ivanitch, disguised as one of the British delegation, clutched at his collar, choked and slumped to the floor. Yes, you've guessed it, he was dead.
For a minute pandemonium reign- Mr. Percival Fitz-Allan, His Ma- jesty's Principal Secretary of State, ed. Then one of the distinguished statesmen, who had read Edgar Wal- lace and was fully qualified to deal with an emergency such as this, or dered the corpse not to be touched and telephoned Scotland Yard.
later
valet to Bill Smith, ; later still Chief of the British. Secret Service. Now Minister for Agricul ture and Fisheries..
Bruno Ivanitch, Belgravian Am bassador to the Court of St. James.. Still Belgravian Ambassador to the Court of St. James.
La Carioca, most glamorous spy- in Europe.
La Roxana, second most glamor ous spy in Europe.
La Rhumba, third most glamorous spy in Europe,
La Hocha, fourth most glamor ous spy in Europe.
Fernando Gomez. de la Espinosa ("Chimp" to intimates). A daring Secret Service agent.
Lord Stamford Bridge, an im- pecunious Peer. Still an impecuni- ous Peer.
,་
on
guage, please!"
*
*
my
And most of them were punished swearing. pretty smartly.
Scotland set the pace in punish- ing swearers.
* *
When Shakespeare wrote of "The bloody house of life” he wasn't
When Shaw wrote "Note bloody likely" in "Pygmalion," he was.
But it's the same word. What is YOUR attitude to the
But soon, in England, a Duke who swore in a royal palace had to pay taboo which attaches itself to cer-
amount astain words? A.. 40s-almost the same
Mine is fairly simple.. the fine a magistrate will impose upon you for swearing in the street. If I get stung by a wasp I swear
at the wasp.
After the usual delay of two or to-day.
duty, A lord, then, paid 20s.; a squire, three hours the officer after saying "So what?" revealed 10s.; a yeoman, 3s. 4d-and a page that before the matter could be at- got a whipping. tended to, Metropolitan Police Form A145-67 had to be filled in under the Registration of Aliens These Ordinance, Paragraph 17.
details attended to, the form was sent to the Yard and the Big Three
(reduced by one since the earlier instalments were written through written through one of the Yard chiefs having spoken back to his wife, who had the best of the subsequent argu ment) arrived on the scene in an sarmoured car, escorted by two Squadrons of R.A.F. bombers from Martlesham and three seaplanes of the Fleet Air Arm. A mixed brigade of all arms kept back thr
crowd outside.
Bill Smith of Clapham, former Master of Ceremonies in a smart Parisian night club, later first-Com- munist Premier of England. Now keeper of a whelk stall at Southend. Elmer 'T. Checkers, former American Minister to Lativa. Now With unusual thoughtfulness I "American Minister to Luxembourg. will break off for the week-end, to Dr. Bughaus (Devil Take Him) give you a chance to repair your
Pogranitchnaya, who doesn't shattered nerves.
It doesn't do me any good. It does the wasp no harm.
But I swear.
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