POCKET CARTOON

by OSBERT LANCASTER

**Really, darling, you must

try to remember that

witch-hunt is only a witch-

hunt until it's supported by

the Astore then it becomes a crusade."'

PARADE

HOOVER Herbert Hoover has all but been forgo- PLAN

ten by the outside world. But in the United States he is still a power to be reckon od with,

When he was ousted from the presidency by Roosevelt in 1932, ho all but gave up party politics. But,

behind the scones, he has been busy ever since on projects connected with the cumbersome machinery of American govern- ment,

This week he came up with a revolutionary plan to streamline the presidency.

He calculated that there are $2 departments,

and ugencies organisations which are directly responsible to the President and

A British Crossword Puzzle

15

16

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, "DECEMBER 31, 1955.

A COLUMN OF THE UNUSUAL ABOUT

PEOPLE AND PLACES AND THINGS

which must report directly to him and to no one else,

If the President spent just one hour a week listening to each of them it would take up almost all his waking life.

Øver.

Obviously he can't do it. And the result is an worked. President and sometimes administrative chaos,

So Hoover suggested the creation of an Administrative Vice-President.

The ew administrator would be appointed by the Prealdent not elected--and would ulti- motely be responsible to him.

But he could take over many of the organisations which now bog down the President.

The men, who had eagerly awaited the bath's opening, pro- tested.

produce the keys. The costs of The management refused to the pit, said a spokermán, were rot going to be increased fill the men had proved that they were going to work properly.

The men, piqued at having to blacken- go home to their wives

each day, re- and dusty ferred the incident of the bath to union headquarters in South

ed

Waics.

Union ofcials are silli dis. cursing the next step. But the management has discovered one thing. British miners nowadays demand a daily bath.

BOOKS · BOOKS

BOOKS ◆ BOOKS

BOOKS

THE AUTHOR LEAPED OUT OF BED

THACKERAY: The Unes of

Adversity, 1811-1846. By with a strange cry on his lips.

Gordon N. Ray. Oxford

University Press, London: William Makepeace Thackeray

Cambridge. 35%.

pages.

539

had

printing machines.

In 1840, when he woke in the Ship Inn, Brighton, Thackeray was 35, an overworked, success- ful journalist, conscious of talents he had not yet exploited,

all changed that

criticism of anything than

named his masterpiece Vanity Fair's

society

By GEORGE MALCOLM THOMSON he had done before. It contained

his greatest character. In Besky Sharp

thought he a bad woman; In of fact, he

foreseeing the

was hackeray

N the Ship Inn on the front at Brighton, a young man woke up, jumped out of bed and ran round his bedroom uttering a strange name, recalled able. It was ungentlemanly. To talent a carver in journalism. carocr woman. As for good from Pilgrim's Progress, make it still worse, the venture "Nothing but a thorough women, he could not draw one

his falled. Twenty years later, a going blackguard ought to without turning her

It was worse than disreput desperate throw of the man

Was

into "the

the GIFT Members of Parliament, which had perched on Jealous hock could hurt- him attempt the daily press," was whimpering Hittle goddess whom

Some of them are very curious -Abe Arlington Memorial Amphitheatre Commission, the Panama Canal Company, Natural Science Commission, the Commission on Fine Arts and the Indian Claims Commission, for instance.

no

There were, doubt, his- Morical reasons for putting these the direct control items under

of the President. But they could easily be passed on to someone else if only there were the official machinery to permit it.

He had found the title for with a sneer at "that admired the opinion of Sir Walter Scott. ho delfies in every novel" (as o

to LOAF accustomed getting sleeping brain,

odd queries requests, advice and taunts from his new book. And some-

querulous constituents, found how it sounded as If the lasty loaf of bread each one would soon be famous, coccived 4 marked variation.

would soon if people They could at least eat it.

Mr talking

The loaves, baked by

C. 1. Clarke, of Oxford, were * | Fair.” novelly also,

about

old nơte-shaver, Thackeray.”

Thackeray altempted it, found disgusted critic complained). The From a mish life in London he could do it better than most. whimpering little goddesses it he fled to a gay one in Paris, "You must not alarm your wept and blushed but" never as among other English expatriates, selt about my infinite struggles, camo alive.

thele hardships and labours," he told gentlemen fleeing from

CONQUEST debts, ladies escaping from their bis mother. "Every one of them "Vanity

reputations. "There

the do good." One day he dined with is on

"Vanity Fair" made a face

Bwift the earth, Thackeray his wife at the Trafalgar Tavern conquest of Victorian England. of In the first half of his life, observed, "no scamp like our in Greenwich. He was "as poor Even the leadership, of Dickens They were the first in recent with which Gordon Ray is con- English one, no blackguard He spent 17a. on the meat, "I

rat," with £1 in the world, was challenged.

For long it had seemed that Just how tough ly from Britain's wheat Belds. fascinating biographical volume, He had precious liiida money; wanted to nerve and excite my could not make up his mind vigorous, hard-living, And they were sent to Mem-young

William

Makepeace lived for a month on five pounds self up to welting." hem to show

what could be Thackeray had known plenty of and bought a waistcoat out of His was vigorous, daring whether he was a satirist done ta cut dollar imports of ups and downs. He had not it; married and had still toss temperament that produced moro novelist. Now he had wheat from Canada,

scaled the heights. He was well money. There was nothing for it and better work under the spur triumphantly that, once at least Behind the idea was Mr J.known in London's Bohemia; he but a return to London and—last of need, amid the clatter of in his life, he could be both. Nickerson, selenite grower was not famous.

limes that had stemmed entire cornod in this detailed and one of these half-gentlemen.”

11

12

IT'S THAT MAN AGAIN

collector's life anyhow? Socintist M.P. Rem ginald Sorensen is worried.

He will ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when partament TOCONVENES "How талу in- cidents have been reported of

Lax

born

the

15

18

ACROSS

21

DOWN

2 Speak (5).

1 Abstains from food (5).

3 Majestic (7),

Eminent (8)

4 Expressions (5)

7 Apart (8).

A Dump (5).

Withdraw from (8)

1 Bounty (7)

13 Looka uver (7).

18 Fool (5).

21 PO worker (0).

4 Quivering (0).

5 Reserved (8).

Critielses (B).

10 Veneto (8).

12 Attacks (7)

13 Glistene (0).

14 Stretch (0).

it Stage player (6).

17 Sweet stuff (5).

YESTERDAY'S CROSSWORD.-A cro: | Aria, 4 Decayed. U Peel, Step 10 Failure 1 Abel. 12 Oral. 14 Restore, 17 Verne, to Serge Ledgers 20 Lean, 21 lite, 28 Debated 29 Colt, 30 Seut, 31 Amserla.

2 Rettre, 3 Appals, 4 Defer. 5. Eisted. # Allat. 1 Error DRAWI Sana Oval, 13 And, 18 Ogre, 16 Even, 13 Arrest 20 Elects. 21 Ewers, 24 Grace. 25 Siden

15 Standing (0)

10 In being (8).

20 Rate (5).

22

22

12

Ciation. 23

physical attacks by taxpayers

who experiments with little plots of com in East Anglia.

strain

AT WEIMAR

who had not уст

Afwr sebool (Charterhouse) His problem was to produce and university (Cambridge) he

What would match the

had gone out into the world, a Jard Canadian types now mixed young man with some money-u with British-produced wheat to

young man answers will be make the popular white lour. lost his money. Life began at

Weimar, a

montally stufty and pality, morally relaxed.

R collectors during past five years?” Finding the one of Mr Harold Macmilion's first tasks in his new job. No official statistics are published.

CLEAN When the tough Welsh

This year he

found

lho

0115wer--Koga Two, clean, hard grain, which he claims wil do away with the rhetor spending $10,000,000 every year

The

little German prinel-

Grand Duke Karl re- viewed the local

army (400 strong); exercised a stem censor- ship over the local theatre. Next year, he hopes, hundreds Thackeray found that to outer needed a uniform. of British farmers will be grow. society one

coalminers at Glam in Canada. MEN

organshire's East Pit were small, their mothers drove them, protesting, Intu tin tubs for their weekly baths,

Last week the pit's manage- ment devised a last-resort penal- ty to discourage those miners from slacking.

They locked the doors of the gleaming, new £40,000 pit-head bath against them.

And

the

coal-gruned

men.

to

after the day's stint, had trudge home to sit unwillingly in the tin tubs they had dodged as boys,

The management had not picked the penalty irresponsibly, Output of coal at the pit was too low, they told the men. And the bath would remain lockeda Ul more came up. Nationails- tion of the coal industry did not mean one long holiday,

VIGNETTES OF LIFE

THE SCREWED-ON OR PRESERVED-FOR-POSTERITY SMILE.

·

as a

able,

showed

BUT WHY, SAID THE DUKE, SHOULD

ANYONE

WANT A NAPKIN RING?

FIFTY TUMULTUOUS YEARS. By the Rt. Hon. Earl Winterton, P.C. (Hutchinson, 21s.).

Winterfon † ORD

Parliament us the "baby" of

BY ROBERT BLAKE

For example, Lord Winterton "Good God!" exclaimed the

with describes how the eighth Duke this dreadful revelation of the

**taboos.**

and Duke, profoundly shocked by of Devonshire,

then a Liberal, way in which the middle-classes once took high tea with lived.

Lord Winterton records bla own youthful dismay, when his

па on- mother,

Д measure economy to reduce the laundry bila, decided to use napkin rings. Lord Winterton is of course a Conservative. Indeed,

from some

WAB of

the

entered prominent nonconformist sup-

The Duke portor. Ing it alongside the country's He became, by post, a commet in

somnolent disposition and traditional "soft" wheat, with the Devon Yeomanry; in its pink the House in 1804. When he re-versation Bagged.

At last con- tired in 1951 he had been each

its Duke broke a prolonged silence grain helping to narrow and sky-blue uniform he

"father" for the last eight years. by quered a German heart or two. the dollar gap.

After Weimar come London Readers will recall his lively asking to a napkin ring and

amusing reminiscences too much drinking, far too much

"What is that? I've never seen of his observations in the Hous gambling, some women

published a year or two ago anything like it before." DRIVE-IN The city

Drink brought self-disgust, under the title Orders of the

of Commons, one might have "That, Your Grace," said his been tempted to describe him as Camden, South gambling brought GAOL

ruin, women Day.

hostess, "'s #

the a "stern and unbending Tory." ring for Carolina, is bulld-

Now comes a second brought troubles of another kind.

volume serviette.” ing what must be the world's Time and again Thackeray swore

But this would be unfair. Ho covering the

other aspects of first drive-in prison.

that

does not belong to that depress- had visited the gambling Lord he had

Winterton's full and

ing category of elderly gentle- to open hells of Regent's Quadrant "for varied life.

men who sit in London cluba "But why," said the Duke with denouncing in ever louder tones

The gaol, scheduled for "business"

of

It is a most enjoyable book,

HIS DISMAY

the

deat

will allow poly next year, the last thue, so help me God."

cars to drive Even when he had squandered agreeably rambling, and Just a firmness which would please (for the benefit of their down a ramp and deposit pri- his fortune, the urge remained. what is needed for Christmas that great

export upon One incident of his youth re- reading. There is no soners right at their cell doors.

upper contemporaries)

steady need to class usage, Miss Nancy Milford, decline of the Reason for the "drive-in": mained a source of

of shome to Iollow the orthodox practice of "do you

modern world, want city officials felt it was

ring for un him at through life. He went beginning at the beginning and napkin?"

the contrary, he is urbane, alghtly for policemen to struggle into

realistic, which discounted ending at the end. You can dip

sensible and fair- a firm upstairs

"Well, you see," she replied, minded. And

The Into the book anywhere, and you "it is to see that no one at the along corridors bills at 40 or 50 percent.

For with protesting drunks

example, is Britain suffer- and future author of "Vanity Fair are almost sure to And ·some- next meal criminals.

thing good.

uses someone else's ing from a progressive mural rot became a UGUTET.

napkin by mistake."

as a result of the diminishing hold of urganised religion upon the ordinary mad?

THE FORCED SMILE AS YOU LISTEN TO DADDY RELATE JUNIOR'S BRAINY CRACKS.

THE SUPERIOR

SMILE

OF THE EVOLUTED

BRANCH OF THE

·FAMILY.

THE

POSSESSIVE OR SHE'S -ALL-MINE

SMILE.

WEINTR

COPA INS ET GENERAL FRATURES

DORF, DLWORLD RIGHTS RESERVED.

Smiles

27

THE

MONA LISA

OR

MYSTERY SMILE – DESIGNED

TO SLAY THE BOYS:

BY HARRY WEINERT

THE I-TOLD-YOU-SO SMILE PARTICULARLY. SICKENING WHEN YOU HAVE GONE FIFTEEN MILES

IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.

THE SELF-SATISFIED

·SMILE OF THE MORNING- COLD-SHOWER

ADDICT.

1

Lord Winterton, recalling the brutalities and squalor of the lives of the poor in his own younger daya and the com- placency with which this state of affairs was accepted, is by no means sure. Again, divorce have

Increased,

may but that does not prove that sexual morality has become worse. It may merely be that people are less hypocritical. At all events there Is no means of deciding such a question with

HIS DOUST'S

Was Eton in Lord Winterton's youth the ideal seminary for educating the Bona of the governing class? Lord Winter- ton has his doubts.

"Though I am glad I was at Eton and

school I

I have for it.

not at any other not the enthusiasm

by most Old

Etoniansssessed

It is Oxford Univer- sity and the House of Commons which produce in me a nostalgia at once sweet and painful, when- over I revisit either.

However, he gently rebukes the late Sir Desmond McCarthy for painting an unduly Jurid picture of the amount of vice prevalent in their old school at that time.

booka

and

Is the modern addiction to the cinema and television acroen a sign, of intellectual decadence? Winterton, thinks. not, Naturally as a writer, and a Journalist

want people to rend newspapers," ho obscrves. "But I am not con- vinced that to sea a good film or hear an Instructivo talk maust of cecessity be of less intel- lectual value than reading a good book."

Telling Tales

SATURDAY EVENING POST STORIES (Elek・・ Books, Ltd. 156.).

HOW much can be said about

A collection of Saturday Evening Post stories? If one cared to analyse

of the 20

actected by the wand pred

sented to British

Drst time, then theory for the.

would be

4. grout deal of space takon up with needless superatives,

On the other

other hand, how little man be written and, at the

do Justion to them?

Omitirea ell, the superlatives the

result, in my opinion, is that tha mere fact they have appeared in that world-famous journal should ausfcient for rooder Min search of good matter.

"long""""short

the short

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