10
THE HONGKONG
TELEGRAPH. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1937.
Hints For A woman who will find freedom through the new Divorce Act asks:
Winter Reading
TOW that summer-time has gone
Now
ond the dark nights suggest pleasant books, our thoughts turn to the library shelves, and we ask the question, "What shall my reading be this winter?"
Of course, we wish to tackle rome of the outstanding new books, novels which take the reviewers and read- ing public by storm, biographies of the great, which introduce us to men of mark we have lille chance of meeting in any other way, or re- cords of travel and adventure which are far more thrilling (besides being true) than the very latest detective Betion.
But along with those, let us not forget those "classics" (prohibitive name) which have stood the test of years and emerged triumphant. And as we enjoy during the summer months Our annual hollday. why should we not during winter have those "reside travels" which, on the mugle carpet of imagination, trans- port us across the world, and with- out the expense of rallway, steam. boat, or aeroplane, open up to us all the countries of the world?
Here, then, are a few hints for winter reading which will launch us on a voyage of exploration compara- ble to that of the fearless navigatora of Elizabethan days,
Lure of the Near East
As a beginning, here is a book ni Eastern travel published as long ago as 1844, which still keeps place as one of the finest books of its kind writ- ever written. It is "Eothen,"
ten by Kinglake, the historian of the Crimean War, and it is an readable 10-day at it was when published nearly a century since, The
chap- ter headings are most appetising;- Turkish Travelling, Constantinople, Infidel Smyrna, Greek Mariners, Cyprus, Lady Hester Stanhope, Galilee, Damascus, and so on, and the whole book is written in a mas- terly style.
time.
Here we have the point of view of 1814, long before we were born; but what of the twentieth century and the present day? To discover that we must follow up the trail. Chop: ter seven is headed "Cyprus," and in W. H. Mallock's "In un Enchanted Island" we have one of the most de- lightful travel-books of our "New Republle" has recently been reprinted, but this little book on Cyprus, which may be had in Nel- son's shilling series, will fascinate every reader by its fine, descriptive This passages and charm of style. Ancient tsland, with its memories of Richard and the Cruanders, Turks, Genoese, Venetians; its fantastle ruined castles and beautiful derelict churches rugged mountain-peaks and crystal clear air, transports us to a new world, while the various characters met are set before us with clarity and humour.
Then one might follow
this up. lime permitting. with Lawrence's "Revolt in the Desert," Doughty's "Arabla Deseria," und Gertrude Bell's "Syria: the Desert and the Sown." As a climax to give us the most up to date vlewa of less eminent writers we might read II. V. Mor- ton's "In the Steps of the Master" -and-“St-Paul,”-and-John Gibbon's "Road to Nazereth," which we might call travel by the man in the street. Farthest South
Here
But enough of the East. What of the South, even the Antarctle? ugain we are fortunate, for Captain Scott's "Voyage of the Discovery" is published in the same Nelson series in two volumes; and even more won- derful, we may now have for shilling in two volumes in the Pen- guln Series that magalicent story, "The Worst Journey in the World"
ย
Insanity, cruelty, or desertion may have wrecked her marriage, vet chained her. Now she can be set free. The Divorce Courts re-open to-day,
HAVE Just been to Bec Anne. For the first time since I have known her (and I have known Anne for six years now) I found her really cheerful.
She certainly has not had much to cheer her till now. Bobby, her husband, has never been normal since a motor smash in which he was involved In 1928. In fact, ever since then he has been and still is, in an asylum.
When Anne goes to see him he does not know her. It must be Erim to be tied to a husband who does not know you, to lead her strangely empty life without a real
home.
Yet there are 32,000 husbands and wlyes who are placed as Anne 13.
And now the new Divorce Act is going to set her free. At last slic will be able to get a divorce from him, She will be free to marry again, to have sane, healthy chil- dren and a real home.
"Is it very wicked of me to feel happy? "she asked.
There is one other blot on that happiness, besides her concern for Bobby,
Anno in a sincere member of the Church of England. She has been to her parish church ever since she sat on the benches at the three o'clock Sunday children's servicu.
She was baptised there, con-
· To-day's" Thought EVERYONE--has a-right-to-
happiness and we must not tolerate any law tohich trics to prevent that right being attained.
-D'ARBLAY..
O
firmed there, hopes to be buried thete. Only under the new Act she will not be able to get married there.
That is new provision, and Anne thinks it a very hard one.
And I could not help thinking about Marjorie.
Her husband is not in an asylum, like Anne's. Poor thing. I daresay she sometimes withes he were,
M
ARJORIE'S husband is La confirmed and hope- less drunkard, and there is no divorce for the wives or the hus- bands of drunkards under the new Matrimonial Causes Act.
, that is an ungracious way to look at it. Up and down the country there are tens of thou- sands of men and women like Anné who look to the New Year and the Divorce Act with an eagerness comparable only to that with which some of us, twenty years ago, were looking forward to the coming of Peace.
Men, ignored and neglected by wives, and women, beaten and abandoned by husbands, can look forward to the future.
Men and women whose wives or husbands have left them, but who were condemned to be the con- sorts of those they never wished to see again, will be given a new chance to obtain happiness.
There
are 150,000 people in
MY WORK
WORK IN
mistake and must now bear the Pole), by Apsley Cherry-Garrard. consequences. I was five years old! This is an epic story worthy to take when I started earning my living. Ita place beside, the tales of the and since then I have had no re- world's greatest explorations.
and spite from work. Yet life should be about men everyone of whom war a joyful, and the bhject of work is to hero.
make it so.
(Scott's last expedition to the South EARLY in my life I made a smuil
But
"Is it WICKED
of me
to feel
HAPPY?'
England and Wales who, Judicially geparated for cruelty or desertion én que side or the other, are not free to be married again because they have not been divorced.
They have twenty thousand children, born of a second union. who are not lawful.
Now many of them, by showing their separation deed, will be able to have it automatically converted into a decree absolute of divorce- ment.
They will be free to marry, And many thousands of children will hold their heads more proudly.
But not all those 150,000 separa- ilons can be made into divorces. Not all thosa 20,000 children will be able to see their parents married.
A barrister friend has just been to see me. I suppose ho handles more divorce cases than any man of his age in the Temple.
Only, as they are nearly all poor persons' cases, he never gets paid
penny for it.
4
There are lawyera Ike that, though the public scarcely seems aware of 1. He is worried, and when he gets worried about a divorce problem you can be sure there is something in it to worry about — not a legal point, but A human one.
"My client got his separa- ton in 1928," he explained. "His wife ran away, and she wanted to earn her own
law, there was never any question
of three years' desertion, so they can't get a divorce now.
"It seems an odd way to treat people, and rather an invidious one.'
*They can't have meant that," L Inslated.
'Good heavenst If we had to work out what the law meant to any we should all go off our heads. I'm concerned with what it does say. I shall have to tell him he has no case."
"But if he'd waited another twelve months in 1920-tin 1920 that is he would be able to get a divorco now and free to marry again,"
"Exactly."
WHILE that barrister was
with me I asked him about the provision in the Act that has been so much discussed, pre- venling any divorce from taking place within the first three years of marriage.
He did not seem to think it was very serious.
By George
"Not more than four per cent. of divorces take place within the first three years 0 1 marriage. anyhow," he said. "The few that occur mostly take place where the marriage has been forced on the two people by circumstance."
Edinger
living, bo independent and all that.
"She had been gone two years. When he got the separation order, two years was all that was neces- sary under the old law. Now, of course, he wants that separation inade into a divorce.
66XXYELL, I don't see how it can be done. You see, this Act says that where there has been a judicial separation after desertion for three years and over, It can be made into a divorce.
"That's all very well, but where people got their separation after only two years, as they were per- fectly entitled to do under the old
THE
tui,
FILMS
picturesque elties. What n
"In that case," I insisted, "they will be even more miserable during those arst three years."
"They would have been un- happy anyhow," he said,
No, the severest part of the Act seems to me its provisions for annulling marriage.
People who married epileptics or sufferers from contagious disease without knowing it can have the narriage annulled under the new law.
Bo can those whose partners re- fuse to consummate the marriage. But they have got to file their petillon for nullity within a year of the marriage. If they discover the Infirmity later they have no redress.
many Still, not very people are likely to be affected by that provision.
On the other hand, the case of a labourer's wife whom I know in a small Essex town is typical of
By Mary Pickford pity! They do not fenow what they many thousands whose lot will
IN AN INTERVIEW
are losing, and what they are getting
In return.
What pity for the fine old urt in their houses. What would not Americans give for those beautiful old buildings which are pulled down in Europe to make room for tasteless modern constructions. They will re- gret 11 when it is too late.
Everything becomes a wasted my time. Certainly, it has though we love travel welight.
cost many sacrifices—many sacrifices must spend some evenings at home, Since I was eight I have always of happiness.. and what better companion could we had mulerint Interests in the ms
The reason why I'dwell so much ns Scots have than Alexander Satth's 1 played in. First I was in partner- European Tonic
on this is because for the overworked "Dreamthorp," a volume of essays ship with Adolph Zukor, then I be- which. must churm all booklovers came director and also managing At home In America I often feel und and body the street is the place and as Dreamthorp is Linlithgow, director of United Artists and other like an accumlater which has to of artistic recuperation. one which should specially appeal to flm companies. When I sit my supply current everywhere. Then
Bible and Shakespeare Edinburgh readers. Along with Hollywood office, telephoning to take the first boat to Europe; it is Alexander Smith we might sample Paris, London, New York, Berlin, like a reservoir of renewed strength, Here one has time to see other Max
Beerbohm In such books as &c., I am in my clement.
Europeans do not realise this, and things besides ane's work. Since "Yet Again" or "And Even Now," Life has taught me many things, cannot appreciate what it means, giving up films, I read flm alories and here we shall find style, humour, and li has not always been an easy Beenuse of this they try to build and books about Alms which are and satire, work in its own medium or a pleasant school. Still I have American skyscrapers in their beau- being made. On my bed-table lle as clever as his inimitable carica-
(ures.
As a restful change, again if time) permit, we might add a novel by Anthony Trollope or Mrs. Gaskell. Those old Victorians are as good as a rest-cure in our anxious bustling times, and both authors know how to tell a story, an art which present- day novelists too often seem to have Just.
SWEDISH EAST ASIATIC
M.S. "TAMARA”
ol
M.S. "PEIPING”
M.S. "NIPPON”
I Mathew Arnold's saying is truc, that "postry la a criticism of life," we must not neglect this branch study, and in any case good poetry is always refreshing to one's mini and may, otten inspire us to greater zeet of living.
of
To get away from the beaten track we might study A. II. Clough, whose narrative poem, "The Bothic Tober-na-Vuollch,"
"tells a good story and pictures the Highlands for us; T. E. Brown, the Manx puct, whose vernacular pleces are full hu- mour and racy of the soil.
or
or
Along with those a Shakespeare comedy, "As You Like It" Twelfth Night, will reveal to us new beau- ties of character, diction, and setting, which will be like another summer holiday, and we shall find our win- 1er is certainly not one of discontent. The programme may be modified to ault time and inclination, but here are treasures priceless and free,
Qee. W. Cooper
M.S. “NAGARA”
M.S. "SHANTUNG”
27th Nov. 29th Dec. 29th Jan.
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two
volumes Shakespeare and
and the Bible. These alone form my per- gonal reading-maller; everything else I read is for my business. When one has invested half or a million dollars in a film, one has to know something about these matters,
It is hard to say whether I am more of a film-artist or a business-woman, When I am reading the proof of my films through, I do not think of my impressions, I think of the public; otherwise I would often have a dual personality. I have been through o hard school in the criticism of public taste.
To-day I follow a very simple but n very effective system. I very sel- dam make use of new film matter or books, but I buy up novels, stories, and theatre plays, which, before be ing adapted for the screen, have had an outstanding success, either ler- ary or on the singe. This success must not merely have. bren local:
It must not have appealed to one particular country only. It must be
n success which has swept Berlin,
certainly be a happler one when
the Act comes into force.
Her husband is unfaithful to her, but she does not want to go She through the divorce court. has three children and she docs not want to marry again.
All that she wants is to be left alone to bring up those children away from the bad influence of an unfaithful father who is always quarreling with their mother.
*
CHE has no remedy now. Her husband will not let
her go. And because she cannot ahow that he has ever even threat- oned her with anything that could be called cruelty sho must just go on living with him. But only till the beginning of next year.
Under the new Act she can go to the magistrates, who will set her free from the necessity of living any longer with an unfaithful husband. There must be thousando of women like her.
It is because of these and be cause of those others, soon to ba freed from lunatic wives and hus- bands, from those who maltreat them and those who have deserted them, because, too,
of those thousands of chudron whose parents will now be free to marry, that the Act is being welcomed all ovor England and Wales.
And even if Marjorie will stil be bound to her drunkard and Anne can no longer be married in her parish church and some 200 couples every year will have to wall three years for their divorce,
Vienna, Paris, Budapest, and Chien- the year 1938. is probably being
TO.
Flims are expensive goods, and only show a proit when they are of international value, like the gold which produced them.
more joyfully anticipated by many people than any other that wa can remembe
ditions of succèss are totally distinet. The position of a cinema proprie- A good film? It must appeal to tor la quite different from that of aan international public and is a plece producer, Hila equipment and con-of International business.
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ACROSS
1 Another choice bit for the missionary.
of
advice
8 One must be as much again.
No epithet for the best butter. 12 From here the way is down. 13 Many live on lee before this. 14 The age of an engineer's as-
alstant.
15 One obviously not in the select
elreie.
17 Hazard. 18 Break in water?
a hill caused by
20 One for whom a Biblical hero
certainly had a weakness,
24 Subject for a kitchen grate. 20 Part of the river that mars the
sigri.
20 Tree.
29 What to do after talding the
plunge.
31 This connot be far away! 32 A virtuous beginner. 33 Meinl.
34 Epithet for what will capture
the attention.
DOWN
2 Not a nice thing to have in a
boal with you."
3 Wrap,
4 A growing concern in the house. 6 A feeler.
The removal of this may dis- close interesting features.
7 The art of taking one's chances. B Given this one might secure a
horso.
12J
16
10 This throws light on 30 down. 11 Without the fifth letter this fea- ture of Alice's tea party might represent one of the participanta (two words)..
10 Paddy grows in this 13 across. 19 Can we say that this is of no significance to the photographer? 21 A tributary of the Thames. 22 Very heavy.
23 "Have Ice" (anag.).
25 Not extensive in one direction. 27 A saving grace, but not without
□ flaw.
30 Early in the day for ports. 31 This lends a diarcteristic nole
to the hunt.
Yesterday's Bolution GUILLOTINEZ (BIE
LANG ABOGIAPERS A BCOT RESERVOIR RUM CETËT«EWH
ARCHDUKE P
10 ABBAGE GARMEN E B LELBUNGEE P ETBLES DEDO
ICINO PRISO ON OF BOTA INSURGENTEGRAVE
8 UGYAMA LE AS NG A MUTEOELEBRATED
EVERYONE
WAIT
Rot
FOR-