ab
15
Page I
I
DID IT
G HAPPEN
DON'T know when
I first saw Joe Lewis. But it will certainly have been in the garden.
as much He was part of the garden as the shrubbery down at the end" and the big beech tree with
a seat round it.
2
At the time when I first remember him
I don't
THE
THE CHINA MAIL, THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1955.
Phantom
Gardener
Another in OUR series of stories by famous people- tales that could be fact
fiction. Can YOU spot which are FACT and which are FICTION?
think he can possibly have then, and getting rather deaf, been more than 50. But he so there was nothing unreason- able about it. But, even so, I
the
order. The ground was dug over. Seeds were planted at the nor- The mal time.
fawer beds were cleaned out and tidfed-h fact, everything was done that from one might have expected.
a good man working a couple of days a week. Moreover, there
very was something
familiar about the way the work, was done.
'I'm finished
seemed old to me, and 1 re- was startled when he came to that pe paused and looked in the village and tackled him
member being told as child that he had gardened for my grandfather and father for 35 years,
me one day and said in his gruff way, "Shan't be coming no more after this week" and after that, nothing I could say male any difference,
He must have been à hand- scme" man when he was young. By the time.I knew him he was lent already beginning to be from much digging and weed Ing. But
he had the typical downsman's eyes unusually
1p. cold blue eyes bright, rather
seemed always
on something
that
focused
way away.
In the course of the next few weeks he told different people at least four stories about why To me, it was that he had left his wife thought he should give After all, there was enough be moner coming in from the two at home, boys who were still and it he worked there some complication about his old age pension.
to
a long
Busy seasoIN
One evening when I was look- ing at it rather dismally, I saw
This had been going on for old Joe coming along the lane weeks when, I met Joe one day
top of the garden. Не
I said, "Lock his over the hedge. I was too far it.
Is It it for nothing. What you fuss- away to see his face, but know- Joe, somebody's been doing my
the garden while I'm away. ing Joe I could imagine
You?"
He looked at me with ing about?" And he turned and I gave him. grim satisfaction
the distant, rather sullen glue trudged away without another and how he would go home and
"Doir yer word. and said, eyes "Rare kind o mess up say,
gi:den? Why shod I I left didn't I?"
there now, since I packed up."
Mystified
He stood there for a long time with his queer heavy, went of trudging walk.
Drawing
Koolmin
By the time I knew him he was already beginning to be bent,from much digging and vrediog.
After Bandung: CHOU PLAYS HIS ACE
By James Wickenden
HOU En-laf's agree 009 Chinese, forming only 17 ment that Indonesia's percent of the population)..
Most leeni-born Chiness Chinese must choose families came from South Chine between Indonesian and in the latter half of the last Chinese citizenship poses century, at the invitation of vital questions in the capi- Malay, Sumatran and Javanese
princes, to
to open up the wealth tals, junks and shop-houses of the jungl
ngle mainly in of Southeast Asia.-
They organised themselves on clan lines and defended their under "Capitans,"
bandits and re-
Is it a genuine peace move? Or is it a step to stockades build a fifth column out of often in alliance with the loont
people, the 12,000,000 Chinese- in bellous princelings, the area? Or an attempt to forestall Formosa's wooing of these people? ·
have
the
Their merchants kept several homes one in Singapore, an
other in Sumatra and a third in either Bangkok or Hongkong. They answered to no one - but their head men and, through them, the local rulers.
1
On The Fence
The transition from this ade venturous Hfe to modern politics digest the change, the
They
All Asian leaders been trying for months to
Peking settle with status of Chinese expatriate communities, from India's Nehru to Burma's U Nu. So Chou's agreement ap- After that, it was difficult to lers, that hold about two drinks pears to follow the middle has been hard. To
Overseas Chinaso see what io do about it. My The following week-end the "Yes, but I thought you phantom gardener continued to bottie was empty. I had found line of "co-existence" he have sat on the fence." Now
they have to get off-quickly, mightn't have liked to see if in look after the place all that the phantom's Achilles heel trod at Bandung.
are already being such a mess, and-"
year. I was glad to see that when I left for London I Alled" It also faces facts. For when the crops came along he the little bottle again; and I
citizens instead of clansmen by quan- Joe shook his head and said helped himself to small
Chinese in Indonesia have the development of nationalisa But if there was an end for nearly a year. do nobody's garden any more, gewen,
already applied for Indo in Southeast Asia.
In their own way, they have. for sign of a I've got enough coming in
I never saw a shortage in any direc
phantom my
nesian citizenship... what I want, and I'm finished "tion that thing was never gardener at work. But going as
touched,
It was a poorish year usual to the potting shed one Indonesia's point of view it not done as badly as the Com dicate. (Total Chinese Com-
hardcore
Siam, I said, "Well, whoever it is, The phantom gardener took London, I found Joe Lewis lying rest chose Chinese status, munist
and Indonesia is be it's very good of him. But nene. At length I felt that en
15-20,000 out of the total with before. don't like to have the work done could not go on any longer with some straw in a corner; as for all Indonesia's Chinese Malaya
him 30 had often seen
30 years
of 8,000,000 I thought
Chinese In those ought he was asleep represent only three percent teen out trying to say "Thank you" and not pay for it."
states). in some form, so one week-end
the They have allied with you at last." But he was not Mebbe he's a millionaire and I wrote a note, saying and said: "Hullo, Joe caught of its large population. Its to asleep, it,
απά
Malays to form the strongest I
had not caught pro-Communist regime could
Malay political party
on the sarcastically. "Anyways, it was gether with five pounds, in the him. I think the last thing that accept another colony
mainland-the shed, merely
MCA-UMNO addressed he had
done was to clean his Communist citizens. Concen
aillance. They have begun to time chough somebody did it potting shed:
it May
spade. It was lying beside him,
raise the Nanyang from what I see the other day. To Whom
The
following week-end Rare old mess it was,"
was looking. and then turned and curtly, "I don't have no call to tities of the vegetables he had continued to fill it every week! nearly half the 2,000,000 hastened along the road to bel
any
From
And then an odd thing hap with gardening`like I told you strawberries, for example, evening, when I arrived from would matter little if the ts among them would in“.
pened, It was in the early. spring, and the vital thing was to get the garden dug.
for
The
This was probably the real But to somebody else Prason. At that time Joe's garden he said that he had left because mean our garden-seemed to be my dog bad dug up a row about the size of Hyde Park. In seedlings to another that had
criticised something
he had fael it wasn't really, very big
done:
and anally, to yet an But it was not for one man to
ularly if it was to other that I had not paid his handle, par.
wages. All of these, of course, be kept as Joe liked to keep N, except the first, were complete found. To my surprise, I don't want yer money," said Jos grateful I was and left
destruc- the against
combited Live "efforts of my:cif..
and I doubt if he my nonsense
believe to anyone even expected brother and siste, the digs. the
It was just that, being. cats, the jays, invading rabbit's them.
Joe, he could not give up his and other pests.
jeb, even at 80, without having
grouse about something.
Іп
the busy seasons Jce
from usually worked
seven o'cle in the
about
12
At the week-end "I travelled down from London to the house, the garden and went out into with a
that a sizable plot in the vegetable garder. had been dug already and recently. Some body had put in at least a couple of
hard work in my days'
absence, I. W2:3 complitely, mystified, because even if one of the local men had had time to Joe's rather sudden departure spare, he would hardly warning
have left me in a difficult position. A
come and started work without asking me
9 it was dark. SIX days
week. Perhaps it
was not surpris-
ing that in the
years thut
http
him
never saw Joe in
2. really
good
tempor. He je!*
variet
between
being Arumpy and being very
Cross-
a
was my father's do- of him, and he www
one of the proudest and mast obstinate human beings I have ever met.
When my father died, and inherited the place and Joe, I had plans for rome small changes in the garden. They were never made,
It was not that fee refused to make them. It was simply that In some odd way the proper · time to begin them never arrived. It was too early in the season. and then suddenly i was 100. Inte
by NIGEL BALCHIN
Business
executive? partholo
Industrial gist? Back-room “baffin”! Author. Nigel Balchin in all of these. The extent al his interests is shown in his novels The Small Back Room, Mine Own Execu. tloner, Sundry Creditors. and many others. Twice married, he lives in Sussex,
decent gardener is a. rare bird nowadays in our distpet, Mare- over. I was now living mainly in London, and only coming to the house at week-ends.
Wilderness
For of..
a
*
After a few years I gave it up, and for the remainder
practically
year I the 12 years or so that Jae suffered from a distressing pro- worked for me, everything was cession of unsupervised "job- done in the proper place and bing gardeners." They stayed on sequence, as it had been done the average two montas, and for my grandfather and father. then wandered away to lean on But he was a very good gar-
gar- their spades elsewhere. dener, and I remember that I always thought his spode was At length, about a year after made of silver, beautifully clean and polished, dried
and I was left
Four stories
+
up,
gardinctless.
But at the next week-end the mystery deepened, and tinued to deepen thereafter. For every time I visited the place my phantom gardener had been at work. There was never any- thing to indicate who had been there, but gradually the place came back into some sort of
Poorish year
་
I hesitated and said, "You come back, wouldn't like to would you? It needn't be full time unless you like. You could just put in an hour or two when you felt like it**
note and money were still there, very bright and silvery. but somebody had sprayed the tomato plants and trimmed the hedge. For a while I had to admit defeat.
And then, as the autumn came and the days grew colder, I had-
I remembered an idea.
the legend of Robin Goodfellow-
the housewife's work for her at the fairy, Puck, who would do
night, "What come back
I bow long as she left him a after
of cream BS a reward. Not me. Without comment, I placed on give in my notice? Tell you I'm Anished with gar- the potting shed table a minia- dening. Anyways, you don't ture of whisky-ane of those. want me. You got a chap does little bottles, made for travel-
THIS LAS
WORLD COPYRIGHT RESERVED
DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?
י,'
YES
NO
• Put your tick in the space obore and keep this panel by you patil tomorrow wire the onswar will be giren with another story in this sarims by ...
ANITA LESLIE
#And yesterday's talem The Demon with the Long Fingernail, by Elspeth Razloy. Did it actually happen? NO.
VEGAS IS A
RIP-ROARING TOWNSHIP
see an atomic ex-
Nevada, Tuesday. crder. Some come for sunshine; AS VEGAS obviously I came to believes that there's, plosion.
no substitute for Las Vegas, with a population quantity. Everywhere in of 45,000, is now the biggest city this city of splendid sin in the whole sprawling State there are quantities of dyed of Nevada and undoubtedly the blondes, quantities of richest. rhinestone - decked, matrons
Dual Loyalty
of
University
overseas Aslar
in Singapore, a feat unequalled
other But most of the Chinese who by any
Indonesian community. have taken out
Those smooth
whose papers hoped only to
the
been relations
with busincas
Indonesian racially-conscious
did Government. They
not
imagine they would lose their ties with China
the 1909" Peking law, By a tradition was maintained that could expatriates Chinese become citizens of another coun-
try. Chou's move will end this dual loyalty.
His step also may become a solution to the greatest problem of.
multi-racial states-the loyalty of immigrants-which
freedom has most cramped among the Overseas
are the Chinese
白鲸
younger generation. Communism In China has cut them of from unblased home-schooling, for
were sent which many sons back to China before the war.
Only from Indonesia is free travel to China and back per-
year but some home every mitted. About 5,000 boys sall return as agents of unrest and sabotage.
Main Targets
Delhi must view with distaste' The Overseas Chinese hays. and Pretoria with pleasure. For been the main targets of
it will be a lesson for Indians propaganda war between Pekingi in Africa.
and Talpei, Both capitals have So Chou's diplomatic ace may been set aside seats in thetr create as much trouble as
constitutional assemblies fow settles. It may clear up the Overseas Chinese, doubt on which side the Over- Pressed from all sides, the scas Chinese stand. But, if car. Overseas Chinese have moved ried into other questions, it will with slow, traditional skibborn- raise another question what rees. Every political view can will the Chines do after now be und among them- making their choice?
to Communism
those wis The possibility of thousands believe Britain should send the explosivos 20 miles from here in Investigators say: "Gangsters
Windsor to rule 1991 Las Vegas has doubled its are, jamming Las Vegas like of Chinese declaring in favour Duke of
of Chinese citizenship and t710] size, trebled
Its income, and Bics in a sugar bowl" and while returning to China is remote. accelerated its pleasure pace to the local chamber of commerce They have too much at stake Malaya and Indonesia are in a At the crucial moment when jet speed.
Asia. heatedly denies this it cannot Southeast
They
and year of vital elections refute the facts that the big claim to be wealthier than the political building, Chou may money thugs have muscled Into Peking exchequer, these pastures (Lag Vegas means The Meadows).
Las Vegas and its admirers pretend to be nonchalant about its atom suburb.
Money flows
Local Ties
Singapore.
%།
step in. I declares that alf Overseas Chinese should choose which side they are on, he will put an awkward question to
his emigrant countrymen.
But it will be worse for the new Southeast Asian states. For
In fact, speaking to many Chinese in Southeast Asia only confirms that few want to make such a chofce at all. The plo
tial fifth columnists either for without local loyalty? Accept an being a bloc of 12,000,000 poten- Overseas Chiese who say they
Chiang OT Chou-is erroneous.
а My friend Lucius Beebe, It is the undisputed gambling frequent visitor, writes:
"In an he kept it so Joe left, even this sorry supply handing over $100 bills and capital of the world, with gc suffering from cosmic jitters sometimes raking in $1,000 $5,000,000,000 wagered cvery unprecedented in the record of winnings, quantities of men year. hovering round the gaming hind and Monte Carlo belongs vastly reassuring
Reno has been left be- human folly, there is something "THERE is so much money ture of the. Overseas Chine what will they do with those time Joe Lewis's tables and bars, and quan- to the past according to Las Vegas's reaction to the elemen- change hands over a throw of about-Cadillacs sometimes already beginning to get out of tities of bright sunshine Vegas, Publicity men keep tal forces set in motion almost the dice that not long ago Las hand, and after a couple of and oxygen-laden air... telling me. "Got Reno beat in its backyard."
Vegas gamblers raised $250,000 in one pass of the hat to in- fluence a local election.
It was just after the was that
Joe left me, and to this day I have never been quite sure why. He
was'
By this beautifully kept garden was
months without any attention it
was on the way to becoming a
at least 80 by wilderness.
OASIS Air Drier stops moisture damage
• Removes moisture by electrical refrigeration. Takes up to 3 gallons
of water a day from humid air.
2
• Costs only a few cents
a day to operate,
Small in size,
only 124" wide,
164" high, 18" long.
OASIS Air Drier.
the finest in the world
from
GILMANS
am leading a double life here, and it is a strain. . Half my days and nights are spent on "The Strip" where the plush hotels and motels are strewn, and for the other half I am an atomic observer" trekking out is Yueen Flat in the lonely desert to the atomic testing grounds.
DON
IDDON'S
Each day since I got here I have been up at 7 a.m., sharp,
have read the excellent Les hasn't Vegas Sun, and taken the lift teat." to the hotel lobby, which is de- corated with orchids and a huge horseshoe of artificial flowers.
I
about
Three rings
Las
Nevada is a State with few laws some say a lawless State WAS having a drink at the and the hoodlums can get in bar in the Flamingo, one of with little trouble. You do not several score
pleasure. need a licence to carry a gun,
and all forms dromes when a man began to
slot talk to me...
craps, roulette, twenty-one, keno, and occasion- as ally rare recognised "Just made seven legitimate
means of making G's--not bad, eb, seven grand? money and raising revenue. “... You English? You know what "G's are, what grand means?”* The gaming houses and bars it? Gat everywhere, I translated: "A G
never close, and the worst sort is $1,000,
of taste is sometimes a grand is $1,000."
tenanced, I have seen
about the lobbies with weave The man, who was conserva- drinks in their hands at odd and
DIARY
From my hotel. window I can see an enormous
He said!
cou
Forden
sign which tively dressed (only three even hours of the day and night, says, "Visit the First Methodist diamond rings an his fingers) The local boosters
"Right Dollar That's "Gambling is good fun and good what the British need and what business. It may be for the we've been giving them. How operators, but not for the State. come you're here?"
It is my ambition to find the Church" Searchlights probe the said casin, which occupies toost of sky, which is red with neon, the ground floor of this gaudy The traffic below-mostly con- atl deserted and the bar vertibles and sports cars-is a abandoned. They never are.
TAT
Early starters
Tseven in the moring the place is packed with tipplers and gamblers, at lunch-time the crowd overflows, and at mid- night the throng is so dence that people fight their way to
tables, the roulette
the truit "one-arm-ba 'machines
dits''), and the big flossy bar,
20)
tangle.
After five days Las Vegas still leaves me rather stunned. It
I told him. He said: “Ther should blow the damn things off some place else.
Bad for
is
A disfigurementem o in
Empty
coffers
..
are henceforth Chinese citizens,"
At least a third of them have open fifth column like the pro- strong local ties, but they retain Communist regime of Indonesiaz
In Or deport them? a love of their motherland. Malaya, 20
Whichever way, the peoples of percent
the Chinese (total 3,000,000, half and governments react, they will the population) are "Baba" or lace a rift of loyalty dangerous
with
That 19 half-Malay to their new states. lccal-born,
of Chou's apparent ancestry. The same blood to the effect exists in Thailand (with 3,000,- magranimity.
MONKEY BAN MAY
HIT CHILDREN
By Chapman Pincher
London... It was originally planned to NUMMER, Is Coming: : it will vaccinate many thousands of bring an outbreak of infantile children against poliomyelitis paralysis. But Britain's efforts the official name for infantile to produce a new and highly paralysis-so that the power of effective vaccine are almost at the new
could vaccine
ba a“standstill--because of a short-
assessed.
Now only a few hundred children will be vacc show whether the
build-up
age of monkeys.
The vaccine has been pioneer
to
vaccine
of protectiva of Pittsburgh: and monkey tissue "anti-bodies" in the blood, me Is required to produce it.
business. You know, some guys DRAINED of its aliver, with
out Industry, and with a a hard place to make up one's had their windows smashed with mind about.
ed in America by Dr Jonas Salk, the them explosions. Scares people total population of only 160,000, to death and interferes with Nevada tries to justify its free their fun. Why don't they blow wheeling, wide-open attitude to
the "Mid West or quickie
divorces cist-rate
the Medical Research. and untrammelled
But the Indian Government triat get enough vaccine for th some place?"
but the treastry is has refused monkeys to British Counell has been forced to research workers since 394 of borrow from a South African COMETIMES (most times) - I This town, which is being almost as bare today as when
suffocated at think the town dis- called the new offspring of the gambling was legales in 1931 the animals were accidentally Institute
London
After examining the results of Airport figurement on the Lace of past a rip-roaring city worthy to solve the financial dilemma.
four months ago,
the US, trials organised by America, an inflamed cabuncle, of the heroic American era
So, it has been revealed the Dr Salle, British experts aro Medical Research Council haa Eatisfied that pollo is far from Bands play olmost all the but now and again I forgive its often resents the activities of All the fancy time, the dice roll perpetually, excluses because of its dread the Atomic Energy Commission, which range in architecture
did nearness to the stom-hand I am not so sure that is relishes from early wagon wheel to sents plea to India on urgent beaten. The vaccine, which and the wheels always whirl,"
at least 50 percent pro- humanitarian grounds for a gives at Buy Government representative
modern,"
haven't rocket ship testing site.
steady
supply-of-monkeys. -
tection against pollo is a great erot a rest
needs mach bocites the Arrangements have been made advance but de This assignment is
*~1 am not "libeling v-Les- Yes and operate them. It would be. Parhaps the reason for the when I tell you
you that several
provement cure. But, then people do not come to Las Vegas, the desert wid speaking, the extravazent the casinos, the hotels, and tanical st/4be Atomic Energy ], they are needed pendant is belleves that the final answer resort which has bloomed in the guzzling, and the over-ripe mo
motaku have been built with Commission, with its test wites waste land, to rest:
fury is the fact that destetic tainted money, The gangster and experiments, and expanding tion is so close by. It is a fact has moved in on the pickings projects. Here, succeeded where that since the Atomic Energy here, and some reporters fore all the gambling and divorce that Commisia began setting
Gloucester Arcade.
Tel 31146.
Most of them come for dollars, drick
Chave failed.
casino inns,
to farm them out to zoos
The thortage of
The Medical Research Cound
mainly responsible for a decision will be a different kind of by the Medical Research Cour vaccine, which can be grown o cil to reduce the scale of tests her's eggs instead of monkey, on children this summer,
tissue,