10
THE ELDERLY
BLACKCOAT
ROME three years ago an article by
the writer was published in newspaper regarding the conditions of unemployed "Backcoats," pro- fessional and business men who have been displaced in the slump of 1929- 1932 and who were existing in parlous circumstances-in most cases unknown even to thels immediate neighbours and with little prospect of re-employment.
Many changes have tuken place since then, There had been n' grent commerce, rovival of industry and largely, indeed, in Southern England, but to some considerable extent in Scotland also. .Employment In inereased general hos subatantlolly
and unemployment, though to lesser degree, has been consliterably the reduced, Yei the problem of "Blackcoat," or at least of the older 11- tlicin, Among
remains
men
changed.
of ilien, One important section from an Edinburgh point of view, Is employed that of men previously upon tea and rubber plantations, In copper and in tin mines in the For Edin- East, where the influence of
burgh Investment companies had the natural result of staffing their pro- pertles very largely with Edinburgh
men.
During the period. of drastically Arins wero reduced prices these
large compelled to dispense with a proportion of their European staff, and men with a life-lime's experience of this work-and of little else-
thrown
their own .were
upon
thefr resources Zenic returned to native elty, prepared to tighten the belts and to wait, for a year or two If necessary, unt efrcumstances should improve.
Young Substitutes
Circumstances have improved--but not for them. Prices hove doubled and trebled and the properties are paying base, once more upoa
beenuse of Jurgely,
n pro-
Hait
true.
arucial restrictions
it is
duction,
which naturally the Atta required for their
Iraz. are
whtela was
operation. Running costs because the machinery created by the former staff is able to Binc: almost function for a long
without European assistance,
The European staff cannot, how- ever, be permanently dispensed with, and it has been gradunity replaced, not with the highly-paid men who gave their lives to the building up
THE
HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER
FIND the LADY, or
5,
1937.
-TRAIN the WIFE?
T is still quite a problem -despite Our vaunted Progress-for a man
to
And a wife who will sult him perfectly.
Women. I belleve, have a almi- lar dificulty; but, as I um deal- Ing exclusively with the mascu- line point of view, I must ask them to forgive me for not pur- suing their side of the question.
The paint is that recently was celebrated the anniversary of the death, in 1709, of a temarkable Man who set out to produce the Perfect Wife by his own eduen- tional methods.
This man was Thomas Day, and I have been wondering how profitably wo men could now follow his example of deter- mination.
We could not very well use his methods, for they were applied to
a particular end, and at a parti- cular time, and Mr. Day was, any- how, a lovable eccentric: but we might be encouraged again to assert our notorious superiority over women and mould them. for their own good, into Ideal Mates for Men. We might, mightn't we?
Y
OU begin by smiling at Mr. Day: you end by
dabbing your eyes in sentimental sympathy with his alma. These were based on his belief Inspired by Rousseau that Man is naturally good, becom- ing bad only through his social contacts, and were to evolve an | ascetic nobility of character which would despite the fleshpots" and frivolities of the world.
He had bad luck when young. A saucy young woman played the diekens with his earnest affec- tions, and finally said." No, thank You,"
This confirmed him in a. poor opinion of the feminine character as evinced in fashionable nociety. So he decided to show society what could be done when a mind like ha own was directed to the tusk of improvement.
And, in his twenty-second year, he undertook the completely virtu- ous guardianship of two amall
of the properties, but by younggirls, one of whom was to become
men, fresh from the University, who are prepared to go to the Far East upon a salary of three, hundred a year. They are busy learning that three hundred in Singapore is not the same thing as a similar figure in Edinburgh.
were
The men who made the properties; the men who earned the dividends in the days when fat dividends the rule and not the exception; these living. men remain in Edinburgh, heaven knows how, in a world which has nothing to offer diem, and Lu which they are too proud to reveal their circuristanees,"
They may be met, by those who where varlous, lounts know, in entertainment or instruction may be obtained without the expenditure of money. Their clothes may have lost their former freshness and their shoes may be a trife shabby, but a well-failored sult can Inst, with and, care, for many a long year, with spotless linen, they look to- day the gentlemen which they are. Or is it the shadow of what they used to be?
No Grumbling
If one asks how they are. getting on, one will receive a cheerful reply, "Very well, all things considered," and with not a hint that they have not eaten a decent meal for weeks, that their shoes are worn through, and that they have not a penny in which to pay for repairs. Not. A word concerning the landlord who threatens to throw them out on the streets if the rent is not paid by the end of the week.
One lives, incomprehensible as it may seem, but still one lives. By all logical calculations permanent living upon this basis of perpetunk insecurity Is Imposible, but things seldom come to a really logical gon- clusion in this world, and something always turns up to avoid the ultimate employment disaster. One secures occasionally only for a week or two, it is true, just to replace some mad on holiday, or in sorte tempor- ary emergency, but what a godsend to receive even three or four pounds for two weeks ruming!
The major portion of Chem con- philosophie tinue to exist with A
circumstances, acceptance of their They realise that the insecurlly of present-day commerce has little use for men of fifty, who would, it given a subordinate position, by their very
·uge and experience, form a very real threat to the position of young men already placed in positions of greater authority.
A Crievous Waste
Their own friends, men of pro
standing. fessional and commercial realise this, and dare not attempt to place them with their own firas. They are not eligible for Government
Весливе or other official posts superannuation regulations, and have ilttio hope of temporary posts for the same reason which holda in com- merce.
of
The world to-day has little use for the elder "Blackcoat," but, a class, they keep a bold front to the
Mrs.
DAY, when sumclently
moulded,
He took one from orption asylum in Shrewsbury, and called
Sabrina her Sabrina:
was R blonde. ravishing
The other. whom he called Lucretia, came
the from
London Foundling Iospital. Lucretia was a brunette,
T
HUS, with An Initial clarity of mind which must evoke our admira- tion, be divided women into their two fundamental classes.
He whisked them off to France," where they simultaneously caught small-pox. They would allow no foreigner near them, and he was practically chained to the alck- rooni.
They screamed because they
HERE COMES THE BRIDE
Claudette Colbert-looking her radiant best-as every woman
docs, or should, on her wedding day.
were 1, and they screamed if he made an effort to escape. Their
ness, and convalescence was one long ceream, and no praise can be too high for Mr. Day, who success- fully nursed them back to health.
Soon Sabrina proved his favour- Ite-one must admit that there is something about a blonde-und they all returned to England, where Mr. Day apprenticed Lucre- tla to a milliner. He settled near Lichfield with Babrina, whom he subjected to the full force of his educational theories.
She had to have a taste for literature and science, to despise the distinctions of birth and the advantages of wealth.
At this point I invite my 'male readers to consider carefully the qualifications on which Mr. Day Insisted. She must be content to share his Spartan retirement, and assist him in bringing up the fruits of their union in stubborn virtue and unfailing exertion.
Her dress and manners must be ́
Common Sense and the Adolescent
By Ethel Mannin (Jarrolds, 75. Gd,}
I Chose Teaching
By Ronald Gurner (Dent, 203. Gd.)
Education as a Social Factor
M
By M. L. Jacks
ISS MANNIN, successful popular novelist, has two grave defects as a writer of
a serious psychological work, She In an altogether too Juvenite desire to try to shock the bourgeoisle and an interest in eex go all-absorbing that she finds it almost impossible to believe that a small child has any other Instinct. Even sliding down the banisters has a Freudian signißennce for her.
As a consequence, her book contains an immense amount of turgid, non- sense and, for a practised writer, a deplorable almost of repetition- which, surprisingly from Miza Man. nin, makes the book excruciatingly dull in parta. Nevertheless, anyone who has the patience to struggle though the fog of her early chupters will Ond quite a lot of good sense here" and there.
Even so, if she succeeds in convincing even a few parents that they enn best Cervo their children by giving them peace to develop freely along their own lines and to grow by their own expert ences, her book will have been well worth writing-though it would have been better a quarter the length.
With all its faults, it would do Mr. Curner good to read it-be perhaps it wouldn't. I fear he is too sure that the whole object of education is to mould
the character into
strict pallem of the Public School Code
public. Every now and again one;
(Kepan Paul, Sr.)
to listen to Miss Mannin or anyone else.
He belleves tant a teacher should "preach the doctrine of work as if i were itself a gospel," that compulsory games are moral agencies-but that Rugger is a fuer character-forming agency than Soccer-that a big boy learns, responsibility from eaning smaller boys, and thint British rule th India provides the final Justßcation for the Public School system.
It is a relief to turn from Mr. Gurner
to Mr. Jacka. You may not agree with Mr. Jacks all the time, but you know li would be possible to discuss education Intelligently with him.
He knows that to live in harmony with a environment is a very email and a negative contribution for the in- dividual to make to society," and thin it is part of a teacher's business to educate rebels at school, non-confarm- Ista to the complacently-accepted abuses of the time."
at
Iariicularly valuable, in the light of A recent appointment as Director, of the Department of Education Oxford University, are his chapter on the training of teachers and his pro pomis for the reform of school curr). culum.
Even those who cannot go all the way with him in his view of the rell- Kious bans of education will find the book a stimulus to thought.
JESSIE M. WILLIAMS.
Thero is some
entertainment
in
of them ands an opening and steps toughlug at the tragic waste of it all. back into that world from which be They are searching the dumps for came. Some, Indeed, alip down, and iron scrap, but never think of the
simple, and fearlessness must radiate from the depths of her clear and Anshing eyes.
that We are told, however, Sabrina screamed when he dropped hot scaling wax on her arm to test her Stoic qualities. She shrieked when, to fortify her mind against danger, he fired at she akirt a pistol which her thought was fully loaded.
Ho confided protended secrets to her, but found that she passed In the them au on to the servants.
end sho destroyed any chance of becoming Mrs, Day by wearing thin sleeves because she thought they were pretty, and not because her arms were cold.
N
TOW let us think this over. Men will generally agree, I think, that thera is little wrong with Mr. Day's Ideals. On the other hand, in the intervening century and a half, women have grown so increasingly independent and so decreasingly
Odol
ODOL
TOOTH PASTE
by
F. G. H. Salusbury
ready for discipline that we have a pretty poor hope of moulding them.
I seem to remember Mr. Anthony Ludovicl deploring somewhere the comparative degeneracy of modern They destroy the rough, men, tough bloom of their manly hides by excessive bathing.
They sap their virility by ex- cessive smoking. I recall another writer's account of two hearts. golong females bursting into a smoking compartment one winter day. flinging open the windows search of oxygen, and nearly killing the cowering mala passengers.
In
SQ
HAVE soon for myself a sweet slip of a thing "plungo gafly into a prac- tically arctic sea, who her boy tho blue friend whimpered on boach.
The contemporary problem, then, for us men is not so much how to mould, women as to touch their hearts. We should go to work, not intellectually, but sentl- mentally. And la this connection. I do see a glimmer of hope.
Once a girl took mo for a long walk, most of which lay up the side of a mountain. Half-way up there was a kindly seat, and my tall, as it wore; wagged plaintively
at the sight of it. But
was not going to give in before girl, and this girl was swinging along and up at a steady five miles an hour
Nevertheless, she saw my plight out of the corner of her eye, and sank on the seat in well-affected exhaustion, saying, "I know you could go on for ever, but I'm so tired. Do you mind if we rest for a bit?"
NCE we could not reason because with women they were blatantly such "little women," such poor, defenceless females": LOW WO have no better luck because they can reason better than we can,
And they are tougher. So I recommend an appeal to their mothering instinct, pity, their They will mother us like anything. if we approach them with proper
the cunning: and
more they mother us-such is woman's darl- ing perversity--the more they will convince themselves that we are Fine Bir Strong Men, the more will be like wax in our hands. they
So choose a girl whose looks you like, and throw yourself on her mercy.
Control her behaviour by hint- ing subtly at your own weakness In that respect-at your extrava- gances, your luxuriousness, your Jaziness, your inability to be punc- tual and to think sensibly, your habit of chatting incessantly about nothing, your forgetfulness where sewing buttons on shirts and darning socks is concerned, your selfishness, your failure to throw yourself always into her moods.
OONER or later you will have the Perfect Wife,
Si
She will obey you im plicitly, and take the blame for all your faults. And she will-or should thoroughly enjoy her role, Mr. I have only one warning. Day was killed by a kick from a filly which he was training on a method dependent on the essen- tial nobility and affectionate sym- pathy of the equine mind.
It is possible-it is just possible
polishes the teeth that the high-handed way is to a pearly whiteness
Ezema
bent.
But you must be a very strong man indeed for that..
PO-It is pleasant to know that- the disappointed Mr. Day even- tually found perfect happiness with a woman who shared all his stern Idealz.
She was willing to live for ever with him Requestered in some
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become not only Anancial, but social social waste of leaving this valuable ABSORBINE dérellets. Upon these we look as professional and commercial skill casualties, just as we looked upon buried in the human refuge heap of our comrades who went west during unemployment. the war.
Blackcost,
·For years has relieved norm muselas, zadu. lar schon, bravesa, cho, sprašno, abrasione. Sales Arento: Muller, Maclean & Co. Ine,
tury way of saying that they took up farming.
Sho
her harpsichord bo- up considered she had no right to any luxury. She wont for walks through the know, at his request, to harden hier constitution. I add this merely in a vein of general optimism concerning the harmony of souls.
To-day's Thought THE best or worst thing to
man, for this life,
Is good or it choosing his
good or fil wife.
—JOHN HEYWOOD,
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16
ACROSS
10
It means the sack, but the girl goes on undisturbed, and, what's more, comes back again in the end.
5 Cloud has promotion to a high
rank.
May describe a lunatle, or an amphora.
10 A beetle the monarch found in
Surrey,
11 To And a real the which is satisfying is, I suppose, the rea- son of the rush inside (hidden).. 12 What you may be when bulls
turn Bolable.
13 The clean side of the character. 16 Hussy who accompanies travel- 17 Ornamental foot-warmers. 18 Tune to cast it.
lers.
20 Famous junction.
22 It's only right that I should be
fr remote surroundings.
23 In this county men wear
24 Hidden in Clue 11.
124
125
5 Hidden in Clue 11.
I suppose these phrases original once.
were
7 Right loam is required here.
The sound of the bagpipes issues from the aplary.
14 This pillor supporta
weight.
a trifling
15 Hundreds, girl, hundreds, lady. 10 A bird monopolising the hedge
will make you jump.
18 More than half this mountalu
is just a side-allp..
| 10 Lolls about in hotels.
20 Dainties which don't
satisfy the she-cnt.
21 Take care of the partner. 25 Take an end and pay.out. 20 Hidden in Ciuo, 11. 27 Red Indlan" tribe.
quite
Yesterday's Solution PHOTOGRAPHERS BABABABZAININ
MANGLESO ARTOON pink.PODEJMOBÁRMI
ROVED FEL MABE ADEGFATTI OFEUI ORAIDS-- O1BUM SON
28 One is not friendly with this
acquaintance.
20 Brown, Smith, or Jones, for
example.
30 Péddies.
31 "Well, I'm honged," was this
M.P.'s comment.
DOWN
1 Ornaments for boats.
2 Garnish (anog.).
3 Black, but, goodness knows, it
might well be red.
4 Filly counters in stockings `are
not appreciated,
1, N.8.1 DERFORUM. D O`M TERKAVE NU
A BRAMZ NOORAI BIOONCHINI A
LIGHTER INDRAWN SEMINTENANCE I PA
OLEOMABGABINE