HONG KONG DAILY PRESS, FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 1934.
THE SPIRIT OF BURNS
Scots Honour Memory
Of National Poet
SIR WILLIAM HORNELL'S LIVELY ADDRESS
The local Scottish community hold their annual din ner last night in memory of their national post, Robert Burns. The Hong Kong Hotel Roof Garden was the scene of much merriment and good cheer almost as if the spirit of the poet him self, so full of bonhominie and good fellowship, was in attendance.
Sir William Hornell, Vice-Chancellor of the Univer sity, was the principal speaker of the evening while Dr. Kenneth Mackenzie, also of the University, proposed the toast of "The Lassies," to which Mr. R. R. Campbell, yet another member of the University, replied.
TOAST TO THE · LASSIES
In a few well-chosen words, the ing stili, Chieftain, Mr. A. L. Shields, in-breather. troduced the speaker of the even- Ing. Sir William Hornell,
said:-
moment Mo
for
poem a random
а Take "Scotch Drink" who
This is a Scottish occasion though a few allens have been admitted. I have to propose the toast of the evening. I am grate- ful for the compliment but fear- ful of the pitfalls.
The two poems which I should. French Revolution. became violent
tragic. choose as the best examples of † arid
the surge of e Burns', triumphant humour are demented people, when it ceased to be à doctrinaire essay at "Death and Dr. Hornbrook," which
became a drama, was written in 1785 when Burna reform and was settling in at. Mauchline, then It' began really to stir him. and "Tam-O-Shanter." I should The Tree of Liberty”, „ is not like to go over these poems with poem of meditation rich you but I am proposing a toast Wordsworth might have written." and not giving a lecture.
It is a popular song to be sung marching to its by a crowd rhythm.
A
But don't go away with the idea that Burns was merely a humor- ous writer.. with an amazing gift of seeing the comic side of life. He had also the gift of seeing its beauty. He could, and did, some- times disentangle the refinements of life from the commonplace and ugly. He was not insensible to the artistic, so that, for all that he was a mighty caricaturist, he was also at times an artist. ·
"Her hair was like the links
o'gowd.
Her teeth were like the Ivorie, Her cheeks, like les dipt in
wine,
The lass that made the bed to
mel"
Her bosom was the driven maw, Twa drifted heaps sae fair to
see;
Her limbs the polish'd marble
stane.
The lass that made the bed to
mel"
23
"But vicious falk ay hate to see The course. o' Virtue. thrive,
In an.
The courtly vermin's banned
the tree.
And grat to see it thrive, man. King Louis thought to cut it
down,
When it was unco sma, man; For this the watchman crack'd
his, crown,
W!
Cut off his head and a', man." A verse like this might have been sung by the crowd returning from the execution" of Louis XVI.
And Burns was sensitive. Write ing to Mrs. Dunlop after a short visit to Edinburgh from Ellisland he describes with disgust the bus- tle and self-sumciency of the place:
MYSTERIOUS
DEATH OF BIRD DEALER
Enquiry Into Suspected Murder
The mysterious death of a Chinesa bird dealer, Chai Wan Tai who was found fatalls-wounded in the head in the cockloft of his shop at 115, De Voeux Road Central on the morning of December 21 was the subject of Coroner's enquiry at Contral Magis tracy yesterday. Mr. C. F. Balfour sab as Coroner, assisted by a jury. (foreman), A da Silva and AM.
comprised of Mesars, D. Basta Addressing the jury at the outset, the said that the enquiry was into the death of a Chinese, aged 56, who was found dead,with a fractured akull. The wounds were believed to have been inflicted with a blunt in- strument."
in
Dr. R. S. Begbie, medical officer charge of the Victoria Mortuary, told the Court that at 8.15 am, on Deceni- ber 91 he went to a bird shop at 115, Des Voeux Road where he found the deceased lying on a trussle bed inside
cubicle in the cockloft of the shop covered by a beary quilt. There was a wound on the left side of the head "When I must silk into and from this wound there had been corner, lest the rattling equippage considerable profusion of blood, spurt of some gaping blockhead shoulding along the wall on to the bed an mangle me in the mire, I am the floor below. tempted to exclaim-What meris at
has he had, or what demerits have I had, in some state of pre- existence, that he is, ushered Into this state of being with the sceptre of rule, and the key of riches in his puny tist, and I am kicked in- to the world, the sport of folly. or the victim of pride?"
Whether Scotland
But the purely artistic, sense of Burns is perhaps · seen Its a highest in the short poem about
Bessie at the spinning wheel.
"On ka hand the burnles trot, And meet below my theekit cot, The scented birk and hawthorn
white
"Let other poets raise a fracas
Bout vines. an' wine's
drucken Bacchus
An' crabbit names an' stories
wrack us.
An grate our lug:
I sing the Juice Scotch bear
can mak us..
In glass or jug."
John Barleycorn, the King of Grain, whether he jinks "thro' wimpiin worms" or richly brown." foams over the still. He feeds Scotland with "souple scones, the wale o food." I
"The life of Burns" wrote Sir Walter Raleigh full as it was of Joy and generous impulse; full also of error, disappointment and fallure, makes a perfectly devised trap for a superior person" for a Sassenach Vice-Chancellor of a local University for example. have recently been reading over again Henley's essay on Burns and I agree with Sir Walter in thinking that it is a piece of noble English and a brave coun- terblast to the Presbyterian apologists, but that it is far too simple and clean cut in its judg- ments. To cail Burns a "lewd, cmazing. peasant of genlus" is to apply epithets which do not make sympathetic intimacy or
for
understanding. And I do protest at being invited to share with Henley in his wonder that Burns should ever have existed and in his social and moral censures For I feel with Sir Walter that "those who love Burns best do not wonder at him at all; that be seems to them as obvious and natural as breathing; that they think and feel what he thinks and feels. though he says more than they are in the habit of saying and says it brilliantly; that he is the voice of a million inarticulate consciences, who, if it occurred to them, would cheerfully sign all he saya and in so doing would be signing nothing that they do not understand and believe."
2
a
Scotch broth is nothing without him. "Food fills the wame, an keeps us living" but what is the use of living in pain and grief-let John Barley- rem but oll the wheels of life and down hill they, go scrlevin wi rattlin' glee!**
Then scene after scene tumbles over each other--fairs, and rants, godly men at their prayer meet- ings sneaking of for drinks and coming back "doubly Ar'd" harvesters bringing home the grain-old women "clattering" at a connement-the "howdie" who never gets a tip from "fumbling cuifs, who slight their dearies"-- neighbours suing each other at law. but cementing their quarrel over & Flass of "barley-brie"-the blacksmith draining "th" lugget caup."
"Nae mercy. then, for an or
steel:
The brawrile. bainle, ploughman
chiel.
Brings hard owrehip, wi' sturdy
..wheel.
The strong forehammer. Till block an' studdle ring an'
reel,
W dinsome clamour.”
"Nae mair by Babel's streams
we'll weep
To think upon our. Zion;
sleep
|
i
|
Across the pool their armis
unite.
Alike to screen the birdie's nest And little Ashes' caller rest, The Sun blinks kindly in the
biel,
Where
my
blythe I turn spinnin' wheel" French admirer of Burns com- pares this poem to one of the domestic scenes of Feter de, Hooch, painter the 17th century Dutch
ot interiors.
man
of
On examining the body at the Victoria Mortuary about an hour later, he found there was a large irregular wound on the left side of the head, The skull was fractured under this wound and the brain exposed.
a.m. on the 21st..
The internal examination revealed that the scalp had been bruised. There was a large area of skull frac tured, part of which impinged in the the aristocracy
brain. There was no evidence of other of the eighteenth
cenjujuries and the internal organa were tury really deserved such scorn I healthy. The ennditions found were can't say. Theré were
feudal cumpatible to death having taken lords whom Burns both admired place between 10 p.m. on the 20th and and liked. The English landed gentry of that period were cer- tainly in spite of many solid vir- tues, arrogant and perhaps brutal. Squire Western was clearly meant to be an exception. I don't think that anyone who has read Fielding and Thackeray would condeinn Caesar as a libellous old dog when he said to his friend Luath;-
The cause of death was compound fracture of the skull and laceration of the brain. It was probable that de ceased was struck by some heavy blunt weapon while lying on the right side where the body was found. In his opinion it was probable that more The than one blow were struck. skull was of average thickness" and the blow or blows must therefore have been of considerable violence.
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a Man Amongst Mer"
ROBERT BURNS of
Browning makes the the people in his lament for "The Lost Leader" invoke Burns:
"Shakespeare was of us, Milton
קט:
Halth, lad, ye little ken about
It:..
For Britain's guid! guld faith!
I doubt it.
rather, gaun as Premiers lead him.
Say
An' saying aye or no's-they bid
him:
At operas an plays, parading, Mortgaglog, gambling. mas-
querading.
was for us, Burns, Shelley were with us.—.
from they watch
their graves."* Cowper whose inspiration was almost entirely religious and who looked forward to the day, when, God would come down to earth in His chariot and inaugurate an eternity of perfect peace and joy published "The Task" in 1785. Wordsworth was then 13, Southey 11, Walter Scott 14, Coleridge 13, and Walter Savage Landor 10. This generation took
the Liberty Movement where Cowper had left it. Their young souls were haunted with visions chaotic but marvellous. They longed for infinite progress, for liberty, for the downfall of tyranny, and for the ending of all inflcted suffering. They car- ried about with them the sure and certain hope of a better age - an age of gold, an age which was not to come from divine inter- vention but was to be the work of humanity, a triumph of justice. because Justice was reasonable.
the French
And Revolution
man-
burst upon Europe. The Bastille
Evidence to the finding of the body was then given by Kwok Yee, a pantry boy and cook employed on the 8. Sai- sang.
Witness said he knew the de-. ceased 107 or 8 years and had business dealing with him in regard to the selling and buying of birds. At the time of deceased's death wit ness owed him about 81,000.
On December 20, the day before the tragedy, witness arrived in Hongkong at about 6 pm, and went to deceased's shop an hour later. Witness BAW docensed and hart a business talk with hina. Deceased then handed witness a note from a friend asking him to
go and see him. Witness then left the
Or maybe, in a frolic daft, · To Hague or Calais taks a wait; To mak a tour an' tak a whirl, To learn bon ton, an' see the
worl'. There at Vienna and Versailles, He rives his father's auld en-shop and went to see his friend at
tails:
Wanchai. He returned to the shop at about nine o'clock and saked one of the fokis if Kwok Lin, his friend, had called there. The shop had been closed at that time and on being in- formed that Kwok Lin had been there and left, witness then went to the Luen Shin Kwok Boarding House where he found Kwok Lin,
Or by Madrid he taks the rout, To thrum guitars an' fecht wi'
nowt;
Or down Italian vista startles, Whore-hunting among groves of
myrtles Then bowses drumlie German
water,
fatter
clear SOTTOWS
the
consequential
He told Kwok Lin to meet him later To mak himsel look fair and at the deceased's shop. Witness then The Scottish people I am told Think of that other blacksmith"
returned to the deceased's shop where feel
who had large, and sinewy hands, Then sort of instinctive dislike
he asked one of the fokis, Tam Kwai for the blographers of Burns. I and a daughter who sang in the
to go and purchase some fruits and share this dislike. After all, the village choiri
fell. Then came the Terror. But
Love-gifts of Carnival signoras." | opium for him. Together with Tam most frank and unsparing judg- Then let us take "The "Ordina- the enthusiasm of these votarles .But Burns went beyond mere Kwai, witness went up the cockleft. merito passed on Burns were tion" the poem written on Mr. did not fail. What Marat and invective. He went to the very The deceased was near the stairs
falled passed by himself. I am not go- | M'Kinley being called to Kilmar Robespierre had
to do, root of the question. Ec asked washing his feet. In the cockloft; ing to touch to-night on the life nock." He was jovial fellow, Napoleon would accomplish. Then, why labourer should work more Tam Kwai took out the opitin limp
and i was pips
in :the of Burns. I am merely going to
fond of the "fair Kulie Dardes Napoleon dominated Europe and for the profit of others than him- and read to
thousands of from you
passage
England's too fond for his reputation as a threatened
human set of cleaning them when witness national self; why Raleigh's Essay on Robert Burns
minister-
existente. The Idea of universal beings should spend their lives in stopped him and asked him to go and which was printed in W. Lee
liberty was dropped. Wordsworth a desperate, and futile struggle, make the purchases. There was a Scott's edition of Lockhart's Life
light in the cockloft at the time. and Coleridge came back to the that a few might live in lux The deceased came up about ten of. Robert Burns, which was
national ideal. They became and idleness. He raged · against published in 1914.
And hing our Addles up to English once more. Wordsworth what we now call the exploitation minutes later. He sek witness if turned to Nature for solace and of men. He belonged to an old he had brought back any money. Witness informed him that he had a new inspiration.
farming stock richly doured with only acid 892 of the goods entrusted Burns was largely untouched by self-respect, attached to the soil, to him by the deceased, but with that all this. Some critics would not severe in its standards and fixed
sum of money he had purchased other abmit Browning's claim for Burna, in its habits. And had he not goods for him. He showed the bill to They' persist in seeing in Burns seen the brave, but ineffectual the deceased who kept it. Deceased not so much an inspiration for struggle of his honest, God-fear- then rotire to his cubicle. Shortly freedom as temperamental ring father succumb in the end to afterwards Tam Kwai returned with ritability against the unfairness misery and want? The strength the purchases. At about 10 o'clock and inequalities of life. Gilbert and passion of his poetry came Kwok Lin called and together they Burns speaking of his brother's from his intimacy with human early days says "He had always society as he knew it a particular Jealousy of people who were richer than himself or had more consequence in life." His enthusiasm for Liberty was real enough but he did not seem at first to be able to give its forin or life. The "Ode for General Washington's Birthday" is stilted and uncertain. "But in sending It to Mrs. Dunlop he wrote "I
Like Baby-clouts a-dryin' Come, screw the pegs w tune-
ful cheep And o'er the thairms be tryin' O., rare; to see our elbucks
wheep, And a' like lamb-tails flyin
Fu' fast this day!
Do you remember the naughty lady in the "Jolly Beggars" and how the "greedy gab" which she held up, to be kissed is likened to an "aumous dish" (an plate), and how each kiss sound- ed like the crack of a Dedler's whip?".
1.
alms
Do you remember little Adam Armour who for all that he was uncoqueer, was "scarce- as. lang 's a guid kail-whittle?"
And then the humour of the
"The sun that overhangs yon
Moors,
Out-spreading. far and wide," Where hundreds labour to sup-
port
A haughty lording's pride: I've seen 'yon weary winter-sun Twice forty times return: C And e'vry time has added proots That man Was made to
'mourn"
amoked opiam. Later the deceased told them that he was going to sleep. and asked them to put out the light
12
An Historic Record by THE PRIME MINISTER 3-RAMSÁY MACDONALD.M.R Columbia
The Right Hon.
"ROBERT BURNS
(A MAN AMONGST MEN)
Columbia Record No. 9779
The Anderson Music Co., Ltd.
Ice House Strøet.
Witness and Kwok Lin stayed there Here is a very
for about half an hour after which they went with Tam Kwai to a restaurant about few shops away wɔ
where the
they had supper. Her to the shop at about is o'clock Witrem walked straight
They to the lavatory in the kitchen with Kwok Lin bebind while Tam Kwai shed on his torch to see if there were suy rate eating the birds Later witness borrowed, the torch from Tam Kwai and the three of them went out to the back yard to have a look at the kangaroos While so doing, Tan Kwai pointed out a ladder which was lying sunar the wall, and which he said was
rather unusual,
"In the old debate between youth and age, between pleasure and prudence, he was on both sides. But he did not deceive himself," nor, edit the facts in his own defence. He was al- ways wise to know He knew that the price of life is danger; he knew also that those who bid recklessly for all that life proffers are mortgaging their peace to pay for their raptures, The only just comment on his life is the story of it, if the story could be told truly, with none of the, delights omitted. It is a poignant drama, in some sort even a tragedy, but it- can- not be handled by the moralist. who, caring nothing for faded and forgotten pleasures, Ands the staple of his discourse in the miseries that followed. Yet man! He did not pliory vices or am just going to "trouble your those Inded and forgotten | absurdities, he had no moral pre-critical patience with the first But pleasures are the very stuff of text, no sermon "to prach. He sketch of a stanza I have been that wonderful poetry. which was as indifferent as Steme. He | framing as I passed along the raised Burns on high and make was simply amused by what he road. The subject is "Liberty" him visible to the moralists. saw, Hls, bumour is almost that You know, my honoured friend, For their sake he was killed all of an artist,--not an artist with how dear the theme is to me.” the day long."
a moral purpose like Hogarth, but Another poem "inspired by What And what stuff!
an artist who merely aimed at Liberty is the piece which begins starts to read Burns, one's first the picturesque, like the Flem- "As I stood by yon roofleas tower" sensation is of life strong, eager, mish painter, David Tenlers. He The plece is supremely poetic turbulent, a life of noise and had only to see something which but as an expression of sentiment action; and as one reads on, the tickled him and laughing he be for a cause it is weak and vague they passed the night. The next the bed inside the cubicle with blood sensation grows. His poems bear gan to tell the tale. Indeed the The truth is that Burns was not the hall-mark of real experience. great majority of his humorous happy among abstractions. He morning at about 6 o'clock witness all over Tamn Kwai shouted out to them that the marter has bean They glow with living emotion; poems are accounts of meetings, had neither the time nor the returned to his ship.
Questioned by the jury, witness said murdered. Tam Kwai then tried to --meetings," · preachings, rides, adventures, such a story as he temperament to make a scientific quarrels, village orgies, fairs the would tell at the fireside of an study of history. He wasnt that he was on good terms with the run downstairs but witness stopped
deceased.
A him and asked him to wait for him sad whole business of country lifelinn or in the market place. You really touched by anything which in apsirer to the Coroner, withew Kwok Lin. The three of them then Men and women talk sing gesti- can ace him ditting, there in a did not come within range of his said that the reason why he returned went downstairs where Tam Kysi culate. The subjects are handled circle of scarlet swollen faces, personal experience and feeling to the shop after upper was that he questioned two of the fokig sa to the dramatically but it is not that bursting with laughter. Then you Justice and Kindness attracted usally slept there when he was opening and closing of the door alone which makes them so vital, hear the laughter rising and him not so much as abstract ashore, f It is the crowded action and the swelling Litll it bursts in a spate virtues: but as qualities embodied The case was then adjourned until bustle of life; there is no stand of irresistible gaiety,:;
in deeds and words; When the 1 this afternoon.
one
"A prince can maka belted
knight
A marquia, duke an' a' that But an honest man's aboon his
might
Guld faith, he mauna fa' that
(Continued on Page 10).
They then went up to the cockloft. Kwok Lin switched on the light while Tam Kwai.continued flashing his torch. In swinging his torch, round, Tam Kyai saw the deceased lying on
Witness and Kwok Ln Ister went to house A: Wing Wo Street, where (Continued On previous column.);
Tel. 21899.
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