Odd Methods of Keeping Body And
Soul Together Have Been Related From Time To Time One of the Oddest Is
A
NEW profession has risen în Los Angeles for men and women; they have become pro- fessional listeners.
Their fee is three dollars an hour, or two dollars a half-hour. The idea comes from New York,
where a young woman with no suçe future.
arrived From her
girlhood days she had listened-
her brother, a about the various ways in which she could earn money, and hit on the sur-
sympathetically;
doctor, was talking
prising idea of getting his sister to turn her sympathetic ears and heart into dollars.
So she rented the back room of a friend's apartment, which had
T
confessors, who, do great good to many troubled people who just off their want to "get it all chests."
One woman is a graduate. Like
LISTENING
a fireplace, got two really com- fortable chairs, put an advertise- ment into the newspapers: "Tell your troubles and problems to a sympathetic listener," gave her
ISRAEL ZANGWILL telephone number, and waited.
1
Speeches, Articles, and
Letters
of Israel Zangwill. Selected and The Edited by Maurice Simon. Soncino Press. Pp. xii. 357. 108. 6d.
of Israel Zangwill was a genius the Ghetto, interpreting the Jew for the Gentile world; but he was also a man of action, aspiring to a part in political movements both for his own people and the larger public. This book contains a selec- tion of his speeches and articles published in various periodicals over a period of thirty-five years. They are all of Jewish interest, and nearly all were written or addressed to Jews. Some are concerned with modern Judaism, others with Zionism, others with the offshoot from Zionism, which he led and call-
OT ed, ITO (Jewish Territorial ganisation). All are marked by that sparkling paradox and word-
· cleverness which made Zangwill famous in his generation.
MIDDLE-AGED CLIENTS
She did not have to wait long; her first visitor was a man on the Stock Exchange, who came on his
He way to business.
thought that two dollars' worth would be enough, but he stayed an hour.
Her clients are mostly middle- aged; many of them are mothers- in-law, who live with a 'married son or daughter, and
evidently
have not too much opportunity for talk at table and in the living room. Exasperated wives ap- pear, who rave for half-an-hour against their husbands, and then announce they feel better, are going home to make it most men, as they leave, thank her for "not interrupting.”
and
up;
THE "PSYCHOLOGISTS”
Naturally, the idea arrived in
Los wood
Thusooles
quickly, and Holly-
he contrasts the new Jew, "who is vulgar in his defiant assertion of equality,' with the old Jew, who "never `claimed equality with
but the Christian
claim- ed superiority.”. "The Jews are not the people of the Book; the Bible is the Book of the People" The project for a settlement of Jews in Cyrenaica (now Libya) broke down because "it literally would not hold water."
Los Angeles are the greatest centre for pro-
fessional listeners.
the lady who had the first ides of... the profession, all her life she has been a good listener; it ap- pears that her dolls told her their troubles, and that she just listen- ed, and make few comments. THREE-DOLLAR FEE
Another listener is a teacher,
daughter; it took "all uv three dollara bifore Ah gat it out uv ma system, but my! Ah did sleep. gud that night.”
His advice was excellent-just what her mistress had given her for nothing; but he advised her to read poetry, so now at her meals and in her spare time she has always "a book uv pomes" handy, borrowed from her mis- tress. “AnTM Ah sure do feel ́soothed.”
Of course there are, there must be, some listeners who -áre ́ - not sympathetic; just as there must
be
many who talk "an infinite deal of nothing.". But lack of sympathy shows at once, and the
FOR A LIVING
who was superintendent of schools in the State of Washing- ton; the servant of a friend of mine went to him with a tangled tale of the matrimonial difficul- ties of her two sons and her
THE
ON
sympathetic listeners will soon be discovered.
"It must be a tiring job; and to make it a suċċess sincerity must be its mainspring. The Art of Listening is a fine one.
WORLD GOES BY By "ULYSSES"
[
22
These listeners are going father in Yorkshire. He was a real this for a matter of a few pence.
Your brought it out after dinner and ad- of those people who o
one
S
•
All
them
an occasion once long ago I kindly provide a clean glass, my went to stay with my grand- grandson will drink one more.” old-fashioned early Victorian grand- There is a local point to this little spoke the wheels of the countless father, who kept the whisky decan- history, or it would not have been locked sideboard, and narrated. It is told for the benefit send or come "psychologists" of the "Arise, Myter in a Friend, Be Conscious of Heritage" class; sufferers are be-ministered it as if it were a sacra- with small pars for the China Mail, ment. He used to refer to "the dear and always ask for the busiest man ginning to tire of sending dollar, with seven questions, and Prince Consort," and to say that the on the staff, whose pidjin it is not. getting “helpful spiritual advice" drains at Windsor Castle must have The potman will attend to by return post. The worst of been responsible for his "untimely quite efficiently. You do not (we If trust) ask for the Postmaster-Gen- these "psychologists" is that they and deplorable fatal sickness.”
and that
that doesn't portray the old boy suf- eral when you want a stamp, or the use such long words their books are full of dizzyficiently for you, let me add that Bank Manager when you want to phrases about the "cosmic mind" he was a typical squire, whom all the change a dollar and a half into five and "the apparent constructive village respectfully saluted in public, thousand roubles, or francs, or some- and destructive laws of nature." and; in private described as a mean thing. Then, fatheads, why ask for
these
old faggot. He never disbursed the editor or sub-editor of the Some years ago, when
were
silver where copper seemed enough. China Mail when you have a job for at the
re- an understrapper? Only Governors "psychologists”
On the occasion of this height of their success, their lu-
and Colonial Secretaries and such xurious
is waiting and interview flecting that one
on the do that, and even they are some- rooms were filled all
relative sizes of a pint of beer and times turned down. 3 grandpaternal peg of whisky,” I confessed to a partiality for good Manners but I will take you where it may "I do not keep it in the house,
be got," said the old
Zangwill had a passion for action, because, perhaps, he was essentially a man of letters. He would be a seccond Disraeli, the youthful Dis- raeli who sought to lead his people back to a home. At first he was the witty advocate of the Zionist : movement; but when the Jews of Eastern Europe rejected the offer by the British Government of home in East Africa he formed a rival organisation. For years he followed the elusive will-o-the-wisp of an autonomous Jewish country, He was eloquent about terrtoria- lism, but could not bring it to earth. And in the end he had to recognise blithely for a couple of inter-Donning his hat, gloves
a
were hop- ing for "a radiant future"; their fees were amazingly high, and in the thrilling "before the depres sion" days many a "society wo- man"
would pay 500 dollars
wa wager women; way longmake a drink, an
ale.
not
There is an old story, attributed gentleman. to various people, of a gentleman'a 1 stick, reproof to a snob. Let us choose to in- the Benjamin Franklin version. A
that the "ITO will in reality appeal views, to head her towards her and ringing the bell in not Negro took off his hat to Ben. Ben
only to that was which is without relatives or kinsmen in New York." When the Balfour Declaration about -Palestine was issued in 1917 he abandoned his separate enterprise in confidence that Palestine would be the territory he sought. "But Mount Zion in labour must produce a lion, the Lion of Judah.” In his last years he was disillusioned
Na again - and embittered. The 1 tional Home as it grew up was not the Jewish land of his dreams. He was set on the political rather than the spiritual solution of the Jewish problem, and his final message was a regret for the aban- donment of his territorialism. He felt that he had bartered away his child for a mess of pottage.
radiant future..
NO ADVICE
In all probability a good many of these women are now paying their modest fees to have a chance of telling all about their "frustrated hopes," their many disappointments, and their ra- diant futures that fizzled out so miserably,
form the maid that we
be absent for more than an hour, removed his. “What?” said a snob, he walked me about two miles to one bish bystander, “do you doff your of the two village pubs. There was hat to a nigger?" "“Sure," said Ben. a potman there, but he asked for “Would you have me outdone in A gent the landlord. The potman went out politeness by a nigger?” and brought the landlord, probably shows good manners not necessarily from some important job. "Ah, because the party of the other part good evening, Smethurst," he said, deserves them, but because he is a "I have brought my grandson here, gentleman. The manners shown by who is from foreign parts, to taste many in Hong Kong must be deplor- your best ale, which I have assured ed, in fact, they are uncouth. There The sympathetic listeners are him is reputed to be good. The is probably money awaiting some honest folk, middle-aged, glad of landlord himself drew a glassful, qualified person who will a chance of making a little money, stood by and watched the embarrass- private class for "instruction on There it all right, "How to be a Gentleman.” and listening seems an easy way ed Ulysses drink.
“Yes, air. It is very are many passing as such in the to do so. They have one rule; grandson ?”
"Could you drink another Colony who have no right to the they do not give advice. To be- ¡good." gin with, they are not competent one?” The answer was in the affirm title, in spite of a cultivated drawł to do so. They are lay father ative, “Then landlord, if you will and weirdly striped Old Boys' ties,
Open