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A CHANCE FOR MR. STEAD.
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THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
writer of modern novels. Of course the lyric is beautiful beyond words, and to all but a perversely prurient reader cannot cause offence, as less artistic translations of Oriental imagery so easily do; but we doubt the propriety of its selection for stage presentation in London.
NOISES.
we
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{April 27, 1.908,
to persons of their condition. It is quite curious what a difference the point of view (Daily Press, 17th April.)
-or point of hearing- -can make in this At the same time that the orthodox can be
matter of noises. A business concern had a numbered more easily than the sands of the
neighbour on each side of it. One neigh- { seashore, we are all becoming exegetes.
bour's night work made a noise which was The book that was worshipped rather than
objected to and stopped. The other neigh- studied by the majority is now less revered
bour's business makes nois's all night, and
rend. more
Sir Hia Excellency
disturbing the peace and tranquility of the FREDERICK LUGARD not long ago was
neighbourhood, and there is no objection. pointing out with eclectic enthusiasm such
(Daily Press, April 20th.)
A director of the concern is also a director of its charms as appealed to him. We do The perfect peace enjoyed during the just of the neighbouring concern that is not And so on throughout not think it can suffer by popular handling expired holiday turned our thoughts to the interfered with. and lay discussion. What is lost to it of noises of Hongkong, and the partial activity the whole affair. Everyone knows that bibliolatrous reverence will be assuredly of the police in fighting for "the peace and the neighbour's children make more noise
The than their own. restored to it in intelligent respect, as it tranquility of the neighbourhood.
To the gramophone at our becomes better understo d. Its universality rustling of palm leaves, the wind in the friend's house, though we privately detest of appeal cannot be denied by the most China pine, the plaintive voices of seabirds, its lucubrations, we listen with affected rabid materialist; its "infinite variety the osculation of waves on the remote beach, pleasure and polite admiration; but we commends it to the studious. To-day the all these were certainly noises, but they beat a devilish tattoo on the party-wall as a Spinozas are as numerous as sincere, and were not such as MILTON wrote of, "noises hint to the strangers next door that we have the world has grown too wise to beed the loud and ruinous." In spite of them, had more than enough of their ululant intolerant clamour of the narrow few whose perhaps even because of them, the sensation outrage. Every year a too indulgent Go- imperfect faith cannot cast out their fear of of" peace and trauquility" was there. The vernment allows the Chinese-and such enquiry. So Mr. NUGENT MONCK, talking locality affected by a current polic prosoulless foreigners as share their barbaric to a representative of the Daily Chronicle, cution conveys an element of rude sarcasm love of mere noise-to make a few nights. nced not have been alarmed because of the into the phraseology of the charge-sheet. hideous, al frming, and insomnious with fire- "susceptibilities " of such people, when he The modern brick and mortar substitutes works, that are absolutely needless as well informed that popular newspaper of the for the ancient groves of Ishtar are not to as noisome; and at other times it will latest enterprise of the English Drama be thought of in connection with tranquility, allow somebody's means of livelihood to Society. It was going to produce "The and it seems a waste of energy for the police be hinderell and crippled in deference to the Song of Solomon as a play, and ignore the to fuss over features that any informed complaint of some touchy person who cannot ecclesiastical interpretation of the rubric. persou would expect to find there. The distinguish between what ought to be The There were
to be only six characters, advocats for the defence spoke of the police endured and what is unendurable. Solomon, the Shulamite" heroine, her intervention as "petty persecution, un-average person rather likes noise, so long as shepherd lover, and three concubines, The warranted by any complaints from neigh- he makes it himself, and there is not une costumes
were to be
appropriately bours, and when think of other who cannot grow calous to it once he is splendid " as possible, but there was to be no ways in which they might usefully earn persuaded that it cannot be helped. Behold, attempt at scenery. Solomon's litter was to their wages, we find it in our heart to agree. further, how an assumed music-loving crowd be left out. Mr. MoNck could not see that There are noises and noises, and there are will punctuate passages of harmony with the spoken word should be less inspired complainants and complainants. There are most inharmonious ebullitions of foot- a] raucous than the printed page, or an acted drama necessary noises, and noises unnecessary. stamping, hand-clapping, less so than an imagined one. Although he There are irritable protestants, and there applause. How, also, so many people itch to noted that the so-called song is in dramatic are reasonable objectors. As we write, now break the silences of Nature's unfrequente form-lyrical dialogue-he did not seem and every day, there is a must distracting spaces with laughter, loud conversation, or to know that it was undoubtedly a uproar within a few yards of us. The other vocal efforts. Really, it would seem play, with a cast set forth very much in the "exhaust pipe" of a gas engine-we hope that at bottom we are afraid of silence, of tve love the "fierce and modern play-bill way, with far more cha- We are technically correct-is exploding tranquility; racters and supers" thau the English more than sixty times a minute, in an ear- clemeutal strife," and dread the brooding Does n Drama Society proposed to give it. In the racking manner. It has what is humorously peace that is liker death than lif., original cast there were, in addition to called a silencer" attached, but we fear it temporary silence overcome a company of a the principals, concubines, eunuchs, bath- must be out of order. Sometimes for a certain social level, one men.ber of it is 'Quakers' attendants, and other slaves. The black second or two the explosious stop, and that sure to giggle, and ejaculate but comely
Peace and tranquility are heroine, a new acquisition to is worse than the constant beat upon the meeting.' the Oriental potentate's harem, was (if we tympanum. Were a magistrate or a judge caviare to the general, and we have not may trust to our recollection of one learned to sit for an hour with us, wo know what sufficient faith in the aesthetic temperament literal translation) described as daughter of would happen very soon, especially when of our police to feel sure that anything more one VARHRES. Unfortunately, like the too we recall the incident of a judge insisting than officiousness prompts some prosecu candid love stories of China and Japan, the on the postal servants desisting from tions. We suspect that it is less peace- details of this little drama will not hear stamping letters while he delivered judg loving
professional.
could scrutiny by Western eyes, and we are leftment. We suppose, however, that this understand a prosecution on account of to wonder in some trepidation how the per- torture is unavoidable. It comes from a zundry hideous noises habitually made formance in South Kensington "went off." business neighbour, and bearing in mind the in the otherwise p-aceful and tranquil Even with the revised version of the lyric, injunction to live and let livo, we abandon Public Gardens, but to prosecute in a it would need a very obtuse audience to any idea of another sort of injunction. The pandemonium, where only the demoniac much misdirected miss its epithalamic character. The 'cha- tranquility of a mind philosophie cannot go or stay, seems so riot" of Solomon that was "paved with be disturbed by untranquil external pheno- enthusiasm. love" was, of course, the nuptial couch, meua. But if we had beeu Police instead adorned with emblems that explain the of Press! We remember a case in which absence from the stage of the "litter." some thoroughly respectable people had the Mrs. GRUNDY, much as she likes being misfortune to reside near to a Hongkong shocked, could not have endured the crudi police station, or barracks. To them about ties that passed for poetry in Babylon, and eleven o'clock one night, while a dis- that still pass, in Chinese form, in Canton tinguished company, including a Consul, to-day. The lowdlerized rendering bearing was being regaled with really classic music the imprimatur of the pious King JAMES, from an excellent pianoforte superiorly with which we all ought to be familiar, is played, came a Policeman, with a peremp. quite sufficiently indicative to any but those tory order, not too politely expressed, to who read on the run, ORIGEN's marginal stop that row." It was annoying the nstructions notwithstanding. It is im- tranquility of some uniformed gentleman possible to miss the fact that different who stretched the Ordinance of 1874 to people are reciting, even if we overlook the cover his own unmusical and tetchy nature,
aside "
in the first verse of the fifth The occupants were "foreigners," to be chapter, in which the wedding guests are hectored by any policeman; had they been bidden to fall to. Immediately thereafter white," like himself, they would have the reader encounters a detailed description been approached, if at all, with the ob that would put to the blush even a feminine sequiousness that Robert generally shows
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SIBERIAN DEVELOPMENT.
(Daily Press, April 21st.) Perhaps the most wholesome sign for Russia in Asia that bas as yet appeared is a recent announcement that immigrants have been at last beginning to flow in increasing numbers into Eastern Manchuria, and the country about the lower Amur. The fact has never been sufficiently understood by other nations that in Primorsk Russia possesses one of the most fertile districts on the face of the earth, while Russia of the past, with her head high up in the air looking out for real to overrun with her uncivilised armies, has been too busily occupied playing soldiers, to turn a thought to home development. It need be scarcely pointed out that the colonisation of these
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