1937-04-30

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH.

FRIDAY, APRIL 30, 1937.

THIS WEEK IN THE PAST

Here's a hobby THE SIEGE OF KUT

you can make

money out of-

If you'd kept the stamps

kept the you collected when you were young you might be rich now

HIS envelope with stamp of the first

aerial post to Austra- lia went the other day in the auction room for £32. Stamps on envelopes brought to Hongkong this week by the Hongkong Clip- per may be equally valuable, There's money in stamps.

The small collector who invests a few shillings a week can make a lot of money if he uses common sense and foresight.

Silver Jubilee set of 249 stamps, all those specially issued in the Empire, for instance, Colonies and complete with Dominions, started at 21 4s, and is now worth about £19 10s. Old stamps

are costly

FIRST

AERIAL

RECEIVED

26FEB 1920

BRITAIN TOAL

MATE

This envelope is worth £32

now

The stamp is of the first air mail to Australia.

++|||~||~||~|----

AERIAL

Courtesy, Harmer, Rooke and Co., Lid

and a surcharge authorised by the French Consul General.

FOR the rich collector old Adolphe Menjou. And so through all

stamps, rare stamps, go in stages of society down to Macaulay's Commemorative

Memories Of Twenty-one Years Ago

By E. H. KEELING, low state when the end came. In the

M.C.

To-day is the 21st anniversary of the surrender to the Turks, by Major-General (later Sir Charles) Townshend, of Kut-el- Amara after a siege of five months. This account is written by an oficer of the garrison.

hospitals (so-called) the shortage of drugs and equipment was appalling. A sepoy sent to hospital from my regiment returned a week later with the dressing which had been applied to his wound in the trenches.

•

Al this time the British forces downstream were making most gol- lant efforts to break throughi, “but they were handicapped by doods, THE SMALL Arab town of Kut, or lack of transport, occasionally mis-

handling

and of troops the left bank of the Tigris, show bad luck. They had 23,000 casualties. consistently 10-day few traces of the siege. During the unavailing defence of Kut remains collection of squalid houses, Interspersed with groves of and the fruitless effort to raise the dale palms and surrounded by a flat the whole South African War.

alege more men were killed than in and almost trecless landscape,

VIA

HON BY EMPRESSP

CANADA, U.S.A., & EUROPE

EMPRESS OF CANADA

EMPRESS OF RUSSIA EMPRESS OF JAPAN

Jat Noon May 14th

...May 29th ......June 11th

Air-conditioned equipment carried on Trans-Continental Trains. Frequent Canadian Pacifo Atlantio sailings from Montreal and Quebec,,

Telephone 20732.

The siege was the result of an at- A final desperate attempt to pro- | down the smooth St. Lawrence Seaway, in Europe, tempt to take Baghdad with an in-long the defence was made by a adequate force. After winning the steamer laden with food. Manned battle of Ctesiphon, only 16 miles by the Royal Navy, she got within from 110 objective, in November, six miles of us, but she came under 1915, Major-General Townshend was terrifle fire, and was stopped by a the river. Her com- forced by very heavy casualties and cable across

Towthumously.

WOS

her

who

second-in-

by the arrival of fresh Turkish divi- mander, Lieut. Firman, R.N.,

killed, and rious to fall back upon Kut, 50 miles was away, where he decided to stand command, Licut,-Commander

Cow reinforcements could reach him. ley, R.N.V.R., who died in Turkish The gar

garrison mustered 7,500 bayonets hunds, were awarded the Victoria (including 8,000 Indian ircops) and Cross 43 guns.

now ordered to But Three Umes during the first ten make the best terms he could. days the Turks, who numbered about the Turks insisted on unconditional 12,000 attacked in force, and

In the opportunity of surrender: Christmas Day they penetrated our parading through their dominions front line, but after heavy fighting great numbers of British and Indian with bayonet and hand grenade they troops-sick, starved, and tattered- bad д political too valuable

asset were driven out. For the rest of the they slege, though they shelled us daily unconditionally, to an enemy he had forgo. So Townshend capitulated, bombed us from the air, and kept up di ceaseless rifle fire, they made no be asked why he made no attempt to

no Invariably defeated in battle. If serious attempt to capture the town, be and part of them moved down cut his way out, the answer stream to oppose the army that was by the time, relief was seen to be doubtful we were too weak to murch, trying to relieve us.

to say nothing of fighting an action on the way; and even if we had been At to make a sortie there were hartés capable of drawing guns and

we abandoned a

Kreat

ammunition.

werk

Is that

our lines like vultures.

tlons dier became, and the sepoy the river all

Keep us but as

the B

ກາ

Оп

two

tim-

horsy we lived mainly on our us were sent to Northern Mesopo-

Canadian Pacific

Triestina

Lloyd

During January torrential rain fell. and we had to work day and night to stem the Bloods caused by this rain and later by the melted snow which. came down the Tigris. They drove the enemy out of his front line; ceased, and the Turks squatted out- unct During the negotiations Bring part of our Own frant trenches. The troops side were often up to their knees in water, April 29, 1910, the last scraps of food drenched to the skin and frozen at were

rallons, and Issued as night, when the thermometer fell as enemy battalions marched in to take

Fahrenheit. low as 21 degrees

When

Our wireless signalled possession. the weather got warmer a pest of "good-bye" and was then destroyed. Alles began. But the worse condi- Much to the Turkish General's dis- the more cheerful the rust we also broke up or threw into They were surcharged 10 francs to

guns, rifles, and Brillsh pay fee un covers (envelopes), carniso displayed wonderful fortitude. munition. ried by hydroplane to French shore

How long would our food inst? The garrison which surrendered from vessel e de France sailing we from New York.

were on full rations for the first numbered about 3,000 Dritish officers seven weeks, to us fit for heavy and men and 10,000 Indians, Includ- fighting and

as the ling followers. About 1,500 (almost months wore

the on

Fenlo was exclusively Indian) were exchanged

for Turkish prisoners, and the reat gradually cut down. From the end

pray equally hurd for a grand scoop

and mules, and there was also tamta and Asia Minor. As we were Mauritius worth several thou-

THE other three groups are

150 led ilke u

an issue of bread,

·lèss exclusive:—

I through the streels of Baghdad a made chiefly

the Ger barley found in the town.

German But

"What remarked: sands, or a simple little speelman to complete some set,

like a small boy's

4 Has the new and commemorative horses and mules consumed barley, extraordinary people you English issues, such as the Silver Jubilee too, and a nice problem presented are! You marched through the town series of cigarette cards.

And the Sierra Leone set issued in itself to Hundreds who never collected

Townshend. How many as if you had captured it." It was animals should he keep alive until hard to maintain this attitude in the In the early days of stamps, before began with the Silver Jublics 1833 to commemorate the abolition of

slavery and the death naturally there weren't so

of William they were required to feed us; how two-and-a-half years that followed, many issue. Hundreds morc will begin Wilberforce. At first cost £2 now collectors. (We started the racket with the Coronation.

many should he kill to save the grain when 71 per cent. of the British rank is worth £15.

and file died In Turkish Part of the fascination is the un- on May 6, 1040, and, characteristic

hands. Commemorative the more valuable which they would eat?

the two decades which have ally, have never put the name of our staling, infinite variety-and the con- country on a single issue, is they do inulty. There's always bound to be in this group, as they are generally

About 400 were lefed and buried, passed since that pitiful and trailed allowed only a few months' currency In other places all over the world; something new.

and then the remainder is burned, and the rest were fed partly on horse northwards to a captivity from which "let them fearn English, we say;)- Stamps divide-roughly-into-fix-

-groups for collecting. The first three whereas new Issues go the rounds asoup,This canulbol diet seemed to only three in ten were to return, the long as the Sovereign or Government sult them, and the poor brutes went! world has had much to learn and to are more exclusive and expensive, they represent.

one better by gnawing one another's forget. Those who to-day recall the talla. Most of the Indians, grounds sentments against our captors, which tragic story find that the angry re- on religious sieadily refused on to touch either horse or mule. Dis oneg burned fiercely, are now dying. pensallons were obtained by wireless or dead. But the hero'sm, the com from the echins would sanke the for endurance shown by the British ecclesiastical nuthorities in radeship, and the infinite capacity India, Erpos, until towards the end of the and Indian private soldier during the siege, when nearly all became horse- defence of Kut and its chastly sequel

will not quickly fade.

a big way into thousands of pounds. know-all-"every schoolboy."

You may start collecting with an Once you've got the craze you may issues valuable eye to the main chance. Ten to one before long your eye will be taken by something else, and you'll be bil- ten by the for Itself of stamp collecting philatellat.

become 4

Biggest collectors are doctors

Now

true

TOW there's the best part of a million collectors in this

the last three more attainable for you and me.

First three Include:-

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