Pago 24
*
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C...K.
Des Voeux
C., H.K.
Ru..
381 & 372 Nathon d.. Kowloom.
VIGNETTES OF LIFE
'TWAS THE NIGHT
BEFORE CHRISTMAS ***)
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1957.
Oh B
The passionate convict
up in a bank vault
HILE brokers and top-
to
hatted messengers hurtied to and fro below, the author led me up A great marble staircase the scene of his discovery, Near us was a boardroom the size of a small cathedral. We were at the power centre of one of Britain's biggest brrika.
But our purpose in the City lind nothing to do with the Bank rate or the dollar reserves. We had come to see the pince where the bank manager first met the passinante convict.
Lel me explain. The brok manager is Mr W, S. Hill-Reid, When he retired frm his West End branch he was usked 10 research into banking history. Ho was given an office just by the huge boardroom. He began working through dusty bills and ledgers from the vaults,
And suddenly, one day, In that office near the boardroom come across the convlet,
243
As we climbed the marble. staircase Mr Hull-Reid told me how It happened:
"An old chest was brought up from the vaults: I don't suppose it had been opened for mote than a century. Then, as 1 turned over the old papers Incide it, I saw two bundles quite different from the rest, They were strange pencil- wliten diary."
pops
ROBERT book PITMAN'S page
SEASONAL CHEER
&
Demented, he discharged a barrel into the seat of the solicitor's breeches.
cought out the man and offere him a choice of pistola, When the solicitor ran discharged a barrel into the seat away Grant of his breeches.
WIS
only
sent to
On landing the educated Grant did well. The wife of a
was allowed to work for kindly judge found blm charming. Ho
free-settlers. He became the lover of a genteel little Irish-
Grant sent love Blais
women.
Assiduously details of all his
Chelsea.
For Hill-Reid intense excite ment followed. As he worked over those crumbling pages he John Gran's journey had began to see the passlonute begun. YOUDE
man who had written thema
who man
The ammunition was sentenced to transportation for Luckshot. But he was ' coll» luc in 1803. The man had be- demned to death. Later, after home to his widowed mother in run his diary in the dark hold a reprieve, he of a convict ship; he had con- Australia instead, tinued it in cells in Australla,
And now in JOHN GIANT'S JOURNEY, by W. S. Hill-Rekt (Heinemann, 21a), tho convict's amazing story has been told by the bank manager who found his diary 150 years later.
You will see why I soy amazing.
Take the beginning of the convict's story,
In 1800 young John Grant was a respectable City clerk. Then he fell in love with a peer's daughter. The girl responded, But her family did not. In particular John Grant's advances were folled by the family solicitor.
WOR
Now turn to Grant's voyage in the convict ship.
He himself fared well, He could play the violin and his musle amused the ship's' officers, But in his diary he records the horrors of life below decks.
One officer, drunk after dinner, went below for the pleasure of chasing prisoners with a knolled rope. When he feshed out at one woman, 'n huge one-armed Irish convict felled the ofiteer with a blow of his one fiat. For his offence the convict was publicly fogged and kept in solitary confinement for the rest of the long voyage. Thien came Grant's Arat Grant pleasant months in Australia.
In o frenzy of love John Grant challenged the solleitor to a duel The challenge was declined, Demented,
It's Here Again
COPË. 1955 IT GENERAL FEATURES.
COAP.TM/WORLD RIGHTS RESERVED.
But for Grant the pain was still to come.
Everywhere Grant noted the WIONKS Infileted on his less- fortunate comrades. Ho sav men fogged. He saw women forced to wear gruesome weighted halters locked round their necks
as a punishment, John Grant bombarded authorities with protests,
Then the authorities stranic back.
Grunt was sent to a penal colony on a distant island. Ife was forced to wear shackles night and day. But his courage did not falter, With shackled hands he played the violin to the family of settlers. which employed him. And he st wrote his denunciations of the men above.
At last Grant was brought in his chains before the officer in
charge of the island. After politely discursing the question of legal rights with him, the officer suddenly hissed: "I'll prove to you, John Grant, that. I can have you whipped."
A few hours Inter, as Grant Jay half-dend from 26 lashes, his cell was opened. But it was not
doctor. It was the black- smith bringing back his chains.
Such were the sufferings of John Grani. Yet he won the right to return to Britain after only eight years in Australia. And the name of the official who worked for his release is a Furprise. It was Admiral Bligh, formerly of "The Bounty."
DX
KE ER ►
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Yet how do we know all this │DOM PERIGNON BRUT IMPERIAL
today?
Grant sent his journals back
Sherries & Parts MARQUES del
to a friend, a banker, in Eng PINK 1949 Vintage tand in the hope that they would be published to expose affuira in Australia. Later, his friend's rm failed; t wba inken over by one of the major banks. It was left to Mr Hill- Reid to bring it out of the vaults of the big bank a century and a half later,
BY HARRY WEINERT
WHO SAID CHRISTMAS IS THE
CHILDREN'S SEASON ?
AND GIBLET GRAVY.
THERE ARE ALWAYS A FEW TOYS THAT ARE GOING TO GET LOST - BUT. FAST.
LAND- A MERRY CHRISTMAS
то ALLE
BABY SURROUNDED
BY A, FLOCK OF NEW TOYS,
{ SPENDS THE DAY
PLAYING WITH AN OLD. SHOETREE.
MERITO Gin
OLD PENSIONER Taylor's London Dry AQUAVIT
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Bourbon whisky. OLD CHARTER JAMES E PEPPER
Canadian rye. MACNAUGHTON
CANADIAN MELROSE
TIA MARIA Coffee liqueur. and
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