! Page 8
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JANUARY...
SHANTYTOWN... Where No Light Shines On Misery
I
Johannesburg.
T seems unlikely that
I shail quickly forget Day 1954: Boxing
For I spent much of be
I visiting what must
ane
of the most squalid places the world of today
CAN
offer the
sprawling
series of Shantytowna aume
miles to the wont of this
suspicious
natione-frumn the white suburb of Westdene.
The first
of a searchlight
series by
The whites have been steadily pushing
from outwarda Johannesburg towards Sophia- town, And so Hendrik Vervoerd --the 13-year-old Doctor Philosophy who is Minister for most Native Affairs and the fanaticni of all the Nationalist that decreet Cabinet has Sophiatown inust disappear.
ol
burstingly rich city of Rene MacColl
Johannesburg which houses,
if that is the word I want,
A
H
quarter of million sum, sprawling in the mocking Negroes.
runelilne, their
of
In the tiny hovels, tin roofs held in place fu 30 years of reporting by boulders, and the general air all over the map I have had
tawdry degradation. a look at some pretty sor- Beats for this sad design for But for sheer living? From £1 15. to £2 175. }{! $«r*thus,
menth. misery men stomach turning
What
parts of Shantytown, South Africa, go right up there near the head of the list.
'Only coons'
morning paper had head Men die. 220
does that entitle you com- HOW
to? The privilege of mural cold water spigot and again in the street.
F
Bright spots
surprising Bind
In
is really rather
the residents Thut the time DI the leisure stabbed in elty riots."
But white South Africans to tend thei: lit le plots for, thanks WhDITI
I spoke strugged this off, to a woeful shortage of pubile thousands of them "Ob. thud doesn't count transport,
only 00136," they're
explained une.
have to get up every working day as early as 4 a.m. to queue So off I set to see what bock- for the too few buses which take ground could be producing this them to, their 8 o'clock jobs in
casually ot
accepted Johannesburg—and then queue at the again for hours more
いよ
violence.
Whites are not supposed today's end, to get home, perhaps,
enter the Negro gheito without hard on midnight.
special
R
police permit, but Father Trevor Huddleston,
4172
Englishman of impressive per- sonality
Is the Provincial who
Missionary of the Anglican Community of the Resurrection here, accompanied me.
Let me make this clear:
part,
low
ሰ decent
0
of Shantytown lay international standards. Occasionally 1 BOW rows of little concrete prefabs.
Here the Negre occupants had reacted to the better conditions with nourishing gardens
and dahlias brigh ly blocming oltander.
Decasionni
Mud shacks
BUT, check
by jowl with these newer estates sprawì.
Bright facilities
else
spotat
fut
or
Hospital Bays
In this wilderness
of
Its inhabitants will be cleared out and the solid brick homes Ized. Probably in mid-March. You can see the explosive of that situation. possibilitler Some extremists are saying that it will be "a bus and bulldozer Job
that one fine Meaning morning a fleet of buses will
will turn up, the people londed into them, and the bull- dozers will follow right along.
"
One
he
I hope that Dr Vervoerd will contrive
handling of a way
ore tactfully. matters a uttle
more Moanwhile, I think I want to
tribute pay
» the dogged courage of the human spirit- that manages,
among the Alth and unhappiness of Shanty- town, to know those flowers.
1955.
A day's work
■IVING with a genius is
cult
supposed to "be: dimm« Bring his wile . supposed to be impossible. Whether you or 1 thIDA George Subenon France'a great writer of paychological. thrillers a genius or not le not the point
H wife is mura ne ia, abe sola me so at the Wort End hotel where the and her nus band to paying London ►
Visit
But what a nice, tractable. sidy (and top-money earning! RUDEL .0 is 10 Date around the house.
The time is 0.30 a.m. in an old (1740) gracious colonial style bouse in gazeville. Cod necticut in the foothills of the Berkshire Sounds of ariol splashing in the bathroom and the genius goes to his sound. .endy proof room where "Blicking of the typegtet 18 1D for two and a half kop hours.
AL ).am, ne merges to start his leisurely day having done about 1-72na part of his year's work before brennfant me. (B)menon averages a chapter Adag 12-14 chapters a book: six books a wear
No more work foulwa taut day unless he is "revising which takes three or four days at the end of each book.
`Hos parfoet
break- The genius shater (asta potter round the garden
ses in eithe of his two trout With the streams playe ahlidren and goes for walka And generally behaves like any husband on a holiday at nommé Ia the world's lending exploiter of denk sea milz and ntaj enzy low-life in C porta pensant man to have around the house?
He la Hon perfecti
He writes al of that atdo
before
breakfast
TIMI,- 6.50
备瞰。
'splashing in the keikro
Brlet
Then the genius goes to his soundproof room,
by Anos Sharpley
of nim swAJ (NN 1938 ĐOOKS,” BRYS Mme Buenon
Only a light and strange change of character lakes place during the six well separated fortnights 1 when Simenon is writing
Simenon the gas roly-poly Utti Belgia, with the pointed nose and email oright ayes "goes quiz do mos hu Danda Put most of them unfor tunately and not producing best-sellerni
on
I can see a book coming
Like the do
SAYS Mmo His eyes look Blmenon. inward instead of sparkling The first day of a book sets the pattern for the Initaw highs
"Whatever he does the first day he must do every day following It's not auperstor
i..
our time
It's to keep that tremendous power of concentration gOING.
“After lunch and his 20- minute nap we always Dave together without even the sittdren 1. disfurb us Dan or go for a walk. per- hap ir then we lived in Arizona would ride. But whatever it is we have to do the tame thing
And what is the wife of the Derfect genius ilke ?
are i wonderfully esim. Her face in gale and without make-up Her clothes Are beste her voice soft and even her charm bracelet gives a more mboned tingle,
Her are W 14 and she s Simen fell in love. ~at üret aight when she met him at a New York tinchem eETRES- ment in 1943 She was Denve UKŁAWA # Quimet from
short Prench Canadisp. short-haired, and thin-the very is thing he thought of ass beautifal woman,
Jealous?
Denver this business-mina, his proof-reader, nis mémary (51 year old Gimenon tre quently forget the titles of tus 200 or so books 151 only of which are under his own aame)
Bo 1 Ehe ai bis wife. saked her if the 'ever Tolt jealous when Simenon with an irrepressible Continental eve for feminine beauty, com mented on the pretty girls be met on their post-novel spreca in New York.
-1.am never jealous of bim in that waY she said.
"As when ne goes down to his typewriter for the fret
It is then day of OOK have a catch in my throat bevat have when he notices = Oretty girl "
AN ENCYCLOPAEDIA
W
OF MISINFORMATION
HAT is an encyclo-
paedia? According to my
dictionary
and my understanding it is
on a variety
who
rule
talist
By DENNIS BARDENS
in
An
actuat
to be
books.
A girl at large in a man's world WHERE ARE THOSE OXFORD ORGIES?
asks Sarah Rothschild, who is 20, eldest of the four daughters of the fourth Lord Rothschild. She is at St Hilda's, and is Woman's Editor of the university magazine Cherwell.
0
ŠILDOERS.
drinking.
Ink- at in
XFORD is pa uhex- cunce of the fourth form in ploded myth, a myth pistolis, she stands a chance of that the town is a
But it is difficult for her to hotbed of wine, women and avoid being seen in unglamor song, and odd young men in s situations: bleary-eyed at leopardskin trousers.
The truth is less exciting. Gone are the days when bril. undergraduates, were liant and witty, not merely clover.
Gone are the days when graduates think that the colleges should be undergraduates were wild women's
ning o'clock lectures; *tained,
coffee eleven: cooking crumpota her digs at ten-time; dashing back to collogo in the evening to avoid being fined.
No All mystery is gone, wonder that so many under-
and extravagant, instead of converted into domestic science rich or "smart.'
Gone, too, are the days when
future. Prime Minis- tors and writers dazzled the university with their versation or
really eccentric....one kept a live
were
con-
python in his room.. another instead of taking
his final exams, went to the dogs and won £5,000.... PALELY LOITERING
under
In the
Now? The typical graduato can be seen: mornings reruffy and unghaven, scribbling notes at a lectura; in the afternoon flushed, we ing, dressed in shorts, doing a praclico run; in the evening wwigging beer with his pals in
• pub.
aels
shools.
RED PYJAMAS.
dress
under-
badly.
Bluo stopkings are no myth, In spite of various crusades and
campaigns, graduates süll And at this time of 60 completely burscrte.
Undergraduettes seem to be suffering from ons of two illusions: either that they, are
Christmas cracker,
R
at
the year
parties
ct the fairy ph top of the tree. In both cases their eyes shine Hlvo candles and thair noses like beacons.
time In my
Oxford, ed good stories. There has been parties have sometimes provid-
at
satin pyjamas and sat in a bath part where the host wore red stroking a plastar dove...thero has been a perty where every- ane dressed up in garb quitable for the Napoleonic age...there has been a pyjama party in aid of brighter breakfasto.
But there for these milan explanation. One always Parties Oxford meets the same people, 80 something has to be done to break the monotony. Something often degenerates into anything.
eccentricities. At
TOO LAZY
CO-
he is eccentric he may be found alone and palely loitering with intent in any milk bar in town. He expects girls to give him everything "mummy" for- got to put in his trunk or tuck excellent, are
"The Thaw," is shortly
box: toffees, scorves, glove.... Father Huddleston. In two bl
Fumetimes be expects creature and modern hospitals the people
published in England. and no
which will do more In Soviet Russia, on the other comforts are well looked after,
for his circulation than winter woman.
the GoveTTLEMENT hand, where polsured
woo!llos. whetifer penniless or not
the import and nced
A spectacular example of te bo tree, authors must be able monopoliser
What about the girls? suffer neglect if they fall
an authoritative work of the deliberate falsification to deal with life and certain as- translation of foreign books, they
It's a common belief that We passed Amusements?
when an undergraduotto
Oxford today has the slightly of of the fact is to be found in pacts of human mature as they are so scarce that there is a municipal beer hall, drab and reference
exist, not simply as we would flourishing black market in those
Paddington station bored atmosphere of repellent-looking Rice nearly all subjects. The job of an the Large Soviet Encyclopae like them to be.
which are permitted. According
after three years up at Oxford, educational school run on the to Evening Moscow of February bus to censorship
ther chase for a porter is the principle of give mile, tako humans, made of battered, red-encyclopaedia is to give ac- din,
"Books curate and detailed informa- painted corrugated bron,
Capitalist exists in the USSR, eventually 17, 1954, this is because only
first time who has had toʻrun
ila Countries.
In the dots
after a man. According to this an inch. It cannot live up to more harm than good. 773 copies of Faust, for instance, A mob of men milled aroundtion to the honest sceker
reputation. The clever are women are Untory, Oxford "while
afraid that all work and no ether and a squad of Negro police after truth.
U.S.A., as in other capis There, a book has to be censor were sent to Moscow's 70 book-
ed four times over at successive shops,
either chased or chaste.
TULEL mike. them "dult kept a surly vigil at the gates.
To the men
which countries,
lle untouched on their the
ha production: and
boys," Yei in spite of the notorious Finy Calamitous
blages in
c-this which controls Oxford D many months, are Soviet Russia,
number of pornographic specimen coples submitted to shelves for however,
The non-workers are too lazy" republished THERE is some
life-that there are six men to to make Oxford unacademically sort of radio works of reference, like any books. and
different so-called ave
Government annually
of thousands of
every one woman-few under worth while. The results are diffusion service available at other publications, have a
'comics-tales of of man- departments before it is allowed hundreds
coples."
vraducttes take for granted the tiny tragedies and triumphs to the public. be issued ratc. monthly
function. They ner of adventures and to
Anybody found in possession their proverblik half-dozen. rather different
As Malen What is the result?
of the term: storms in teacups the programmes are
by low- koy
of books banned by the authort- himself adraltted at the accompanied
and mountainous molahills. selective, us you might suppose, must be media for Com-
ties is liable to receive a prison FLEETING GLANCE www again the locals | munist propaganda and con- quality and now and
illustrations-is 1982 Congress of the Soviet
centence of at least six months but uravall-
Party- remark wistfully,
"many increasing. So-called popu. Communist
If there were aggravating cir anti- mediocre and dull works, and cumstances such as using ingly, that they would prefer to form strictly to the current
lar editions and Party line.
sometimes simply potbolls... banned book for propaganda electric light,
artistic best sellers, re- The
life of Soviet society nctionary in their ideo portrayed in
a spiritless logical trends and pseudo- bering manner." scientific in their content, fill the book market in the
As long
as people are free to write End publish what they enpitalist countries . . .
please there is bound
to be confiscation of books,
bub the prosecutions, arrest of
appetite for good reading than flow of serious,
sound books is tremendous. In progressive authors, ban- Britain and the United States. ning of the import of In Britain more books are 1951, in the USA over 9,000
thao
ever entirely new books were pub- books from the Soviet being published
a glance at such lished. These included before, and
1,329 Union
have become publications
дэ The
n
and
ed the horror of massed shacks made of corrugated iron aried mud, the whole thing sur- wire rounded by high barbed fences.
The sanitation was of the most primitive sort and, at the time, the stench was almost more than could take.
Towering above the scene was the huge Johannesburg power *tation, the biggest In the Southern Hemisphere.
But it stood there ilke some which Kardonle practical Joke would have caused
Amusement among my Russian friends, for no power or light from it i ever spared for the ghetto-
addr circumstance which
the formidable crime rate.
to
the
in
small
has rough
But
Orlando we went, and Jab: vu and and Pimville past a spot of frightening aspect named Kliptown, and Moroko and Dube.
Finally, we wound up
na
Ideological Purity
The Moscow literary re- place which contains the seeds view, New World, said in of calamitous situation. September 1964: "The Com-
This is Sophiatown (popula-munist Party keeps a close
70,000), tion
ulties of the watch on the ideological Negro ghettoes. fringes the district made famous by Alan purity, the Marxist-Leninist Paton's novel "Cry The Beloved strictness of our newspapers, periodicals and publications, Country
discovering in good time and resolutely correcting any being solidly bullt of brick. deviations from the line of But unfortunately Sophia- the Party." That is to say. town is separated by only facts printed must either fit narrow No Man's Land-very Communist theory or be like the barren frontier zones
separate mutually suppressed or distorted.
I
by
In contrast to the homes had seen everywhere else, many of its houses startle you
I walked down some of the
while alleyways tiny children CLANC running friendly amazement at the while visitant and most of the man swept off their hats at the right of
Father Huddleston's habit.
Hogarth and Rowlandson would have found far too much to draw in this huge, stinking which
HOTEL
MIRAMAR
Come to the GOLD ROOM TO-NIGHT
& listen to our SOPRANO STAR TINA LAINE
who will very soon be leaving
for England
Music by
ANTONIO AREVALO..
G. HIS BAND.
DINNER DANCE NIGHTLY
NATHAN & KIMBERLEY ROADS, KLN. TEL: 53011""". Ext, 68,′′
$5.
Order your copy now-
1954 GILES ANNUAL
stock will be limited.
Bookings, acce
SOUTH: CHINA MORNING POST.
HONG KONG C
More Published
1s
a
and purposes he could be shot.
Lange Soviet Encyclopae- dia's
can
E against Ameri
Bro ludicrous.
DC
Few countries have a greater some rubbish about socly and
Times new works
of Action, 882 now
in the USA, just as typical Literary Supplement will show books for juvelles, 181 reilgious. events as they were in the enormous diversify of worka, 122
to go
Penguin.
- werd
on science," 039
Completely "False
I should not have thought
of
USA. in 1953,
Hitlerite Germany. All reading andoyed In Britain last biographies and 487 new works
18,000 books over a of poetry.. this is simply a particular year
thousand more than the manifestation of.. the
figure of 1087-were publi deterioration and debase- The
famous ment of bourgeois cul- moderate in price and many of ture."
them classics of other lando, in- cluding Russia, söld, more than This extrnet from Volume 21, 750,000 copies. Botween January that nearby 500 now poetry passed for publication on June and Oclober 1954, no fewer boots or the vast sales at the 13, 1953, shows the lengths to than 10,019. books were Revised Standard Version of the which Communists are willing published, of which less than Bible (between. September, 1982
to dective. their people
and June 30, 1954, nearly three the a quarter were reprints, about the non-Communist world. remainder being entirely new million copies were sold) were
And symptoms of decadence. They imply that there is little dules. serious roading in the USA and
paper-back As for bestsellers, more than over 250 million the West, that the bulk of the three million Bibite have been ateb proportion were classics:
books sold in the books published are rubbish, and
#high that people may not write and sold in Britain during the last Over 500,000 populer editions of two years. An enormous range Plato's Dialogues alone were sold publish what they think.
of titles deal with poetry, ind in 1953.
tho politicscience, cconomics
Were the compilers of the Large
Encyclopaedia Soviet incidentally, no There is,
unaware of these facts? The As regards pornography, the restraint whatever on the sale USSR hae observers and em- Communist literature, whe basics in the West and lows .of deliberate exploitation other imported from abroad or quite well that the picture decency for commercial ends is
One well-drawn of literature there is-com- @ legni effence. Far from en printed in Britain.
known bookshop with several pletely false. But it seems to couraging such a thing, countrka branches, deals almost entirely prefer to take the facts even in prosecute in current publications. from what is supposed to be one of offenders. But these prosecu the USSR, its satellites and the most serious and authorita tions. aro comparatively ¦ in-, China.“ Ehrenburg latest novel dive Soviet works of reference, frequent, because if berature is
such
More Harm
Britain
JOHNNY HAZARD
I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER THAN TO TURN MY BACK, ON -
YOU, CONTESSA?
OUR FIRTY-FIFTY, SPLIT:: FOR THE EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND IS ON AGAIN, BEH, BANJOY THERE'S A PLANE LEAVING PORE S THE STATES IN AN HOURE:
HOW DO I KNOW YOU'LL VE TELL YOU WHAT KEEP YOUR END ON THIS FAME HAZARD HAB! DEALT YOU MIGHT TURN: NO PAGERENT AT HAZARD LOOSIETHENT= PWERE WOULD 1
Pack and stumble, wo our suitcases to leave; wo Ninety percent of under- say that Oxford has had its waste of time gradueites, I estimate,
never cay, that it i ace a man except for a fleeting why do we stay? plenos at lectures. The other In spite of it all, Oxford has
undefinable, ten percent, girls of even aver, seme hing
moderate thing inexplodable. I have two Dgs good looks or Intelligence, rule the roost. Be more years to ro. Surprisingly cho the ex-hockey captain in a enough, I'm still looking for converted gym tunic,, or ex- ward to them.
Gonie-
BRITISH GUIANA URANIUM RICH
THIS
"
By Paul Johnson`
Georgetown, British Guiana, TIRIS
little-known : British colony (88,000 sq. miles) probably has a future as one of the West's most vital possessions,
For it has alum plenty
search of the colony for strategic metals. That meant almost the whole arca. Listening in were Dr. W.D. Johnson, chief of the United
States' foreign branch of geological surveys: Johna Flude, president of the U.S. off-shore exploration
geophy While primitive Indians in sicists, The Wilson 101
Michel, senior remote parts of the colony live geologist for the US. Reynolds.
they have for centuries, Metal Company; Alfred Woodke,
of it
**
bunting, fishing, growing their of the US. Steel CRE}}}+
of the US.
simple crops, elsewhere Gulans and Professor GIA is welcoming to its new world of Maryland University, importance for its strategic There was no hiding the fact metals mens power,
that the United States was really Already from its vast mines interested. For carller, Senator come manganese, gold, diamonds, George Malone, chairman of the bauxite,mies, columble and Minerala, Materials
and Fuels uranium.
el And this week, a geological Regato andre had. conference announced, big, plas And were on the way for the further in Georgetown, for talks
of the mines. Be-, studying development
strategie minerals hind the telke were big-name possibilities
metal rich Unibad States geologists who Venezuela. had come along to study the Seid Malone: "There are tre- colony's possibilities,
mendous prospects for 'tho' The talks followed a United United States to develop strate Kingdon decision to moaice un gle ideerals in the Gulangs and 80,000 square mile tooth-comb
enezuela.
Frank Robbins
– BỒN YOU TAKE THE "ONE"
HE HAS ON HIM NOW! YOU'LL
HAVE YOURE AND HIS IN YOUR
| POCKETWMEANING HAZA
Miguel