10
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18. 1937.
DEWAR'S
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T
ROBERT LYND'S SATURDAY ESSAY
WO of the things that
we relics of the Vic- torian Age most de- plore in the modern world are the gradual disappear- ance of the horse and the almost complete disappear- ance of the street ballað- singer.
It is true that the ballad- singer was on his last legs even in the days of our youth. But he was still to be found here and there howling his wares and sell- ing a sheet of puper containing the doggerel he had sung for a
penny.
Often the bailad-singers work- ed in couples. A man and a
Hongkong Hotel woman, who looked as if they
Stubbs Rd.
Garage
Phone 27778/9
The
hnd slept in a ditch, would stand opposite each other in the middle of a crowd of listeners and yell their songs in the most merciless fushion into each other's faces.
They sang without pause from the start to the finish of the
A. S. WATSON & CO., LTD. Hongkong Telegraph. ballad, for the man would let the
ONE
MEMBER OF THE FAMILY.
will
CERTAINLY WANT
A
MUSICAL INSTRUMENT
for
CHRISTMAS
WE HAVE A SPLENDID STOCK 'FROM WHICH YOU MAY SELECT A SUITABLE
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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10. 1937.
WAR MAY SPREAD
woman sing the last half-line, of each verse by herself in order to fill his lungs with air and be able to bellow out the beginning of the next verse from his twisted face before the old verse had
Marshal Chiang Kal-shek yesterday issued a defiant mani- died a painful death on the festo declaring that he had no woman's lips. intention of censing to resist Japan. The Japanese retort was quick, and rather to be ex- pected. Mr. Shigeru Kawagoe, the Ambassador to China, quiet- ly disclosed that was possible that governments similar to that established in Peiping would be set up in Central and South China. The war was far from ended, he said. The spirit of
resistance, the national con- sciousness, the patriotism and courage of China have not been drained away in the blood the armies have shed in her defence. ho might have added,
be
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SANDEMAN
SHERRY & PORT
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Cat the pachée!
2014 -the "giale" Kiti aveler (Jend, (than they. These chia libuje (parti
They Sang
A last adieu, my dearest daughters,
-
/
With you I can no longer stay,
have received the dreadful
SEADLONS, -
And, alan! I must obey.`
I slew one night Mrs. Maofarkıne, For which, alas, 1 do deplore, Then went away and left her
Weltering in her crimson gore.
The principal charm of these old ballads, I think, is the charm of ingenuousness and bathos. How can we resist the exquisite inept simplicity of the rhyme about Miles Weatherhill, the young weaver, who murdored the parson's servant at Tod- modern-cspecially the quatrain. which runs:
With four loaded pistols, in a Bt of”
frenzi
Miles to the Vicarage did kaste
forthwith,
Aud with a weapon seotuded the
master,
And, shot the moiden, named
Smith.
Even in the ballads of the Victorian Age, however, as we find them In Mr. Henderson's. collection, the influence of the music-hall was already beginning to be felt.
and
Luckily ingenuousness bathos did not entirely dis- appear even after the triumph of the music-hall. The sentimental songs of the halls carried on the tradition of the simplicity of the streets, There were fewer songs about murder, but the songs of tenderness were just as. delightful outrages on the art of poetry.
Without Pause
It was in Kilkenny, I think, that I heard two ballad-singera singing a harsh and satiric dog- gorel about old-age pensioners when pensions first came in. It began:
Some people used deny their age--
You often could them hear
They would nearly strike you with
their stick
If you said they were seventy
year.
Men in the music-halle had
never so happy as when he had an execution for murder or a hearts in those days, and the. murder trial for his theme. One orange-peel made them pecu- smell of beer, tobacco, and
of the most grisly of the ballada liarly amenable to the molting
Now they are running to the parish he quotes is "The Execution of mood.
books,
Alice Holt," which begins:
They do not care about wind or A dreadful case of murder,
cold.
Such as we seldom hear, -And-they-tell-the-priest-now-if-ka...Committed was at Stockport, In the County of Cheshire, Where a mother, named Mary
Bailey,
Con
To try and make them old.
A better ballad to my mind
They did not ask for litera- ture. So long as the song was tender and sad and went to a waltz tune, they were happy. Sir Arthur Quiller Couch-did not include "Two Little Girls in Blue" in his "Oxford Book of Victorian Verse," but it touched the Victorian heart as some of the poems he included did not. And how could it fail By poison administered all in her, to, with its sublimely prosnic
berr
opening verse and chorus:
They did so cruelly slaughter
An old man gazed on a photograph, In the locket he'd worn for years:
is nephew then asked him the
rednon tchy
It must be admitted that it
grows
increasingly, probable protection of the frontier, not that Japan will strike a blow at against the Japanese, perhaps, China's southern doors before but against a Chinese force very long. Where the blow will which might mistakenly or with was that sung in the streets of the Census was fall can only be conjectured, but intent attempt to fight from Dublin when it seems likely that Canton will British territory. It is reassur- first taken-a ballad beginning:
By her own doughter. the target. The Japanese ing to know that the military] Oh, they're taking of the censU8
In the country and the town! The ballad-maker was for the have less reason to love the authorities are alive to the dan-
than the more gers in such a situation as that Have your children pot the mailcar most part a moralist, and he time that Are your chimbleys tumbling liked to make the murderer con- northern peoples, for it is from existing at this
down?
fess his guilt and go to the gal- "Come, listen," he said, "I will tell the south that the hottest anti-they are taking precautions for Japanese feeling has flowed; the protection of the border by But that was sung long before lows in a repentant spirit.
of "observation I was born. and the weight of this stream the erection
In "The Last Moments of A. has not been checked by the posts" and that a dependable A book of English ballads, Dalmas," for example, Dalmas northern invasion and the cap-battalion is ready for any emer- "Victorian Strect Ballads" makes no concealment of the ture of Nanking. On the con-gency in that direction. That which has just been compiled by fact that he had committed the trary, the southerners have 'de-worry can safely be left to the Mr. W. Henderson, suggests that dreadful crime for which he was finitely overcome their previous competent men of the Rajput the English ballad maker was condemned: animosity towards the Central Regiment. authorities and are loyally fight-
ing the invader fronts.
on a
dozen
What should be the immedi- ate consideration of the Govern- ment, it is suggested, is the Admitting for a moment that the attack on Canton is im- problem of feeding the civilian minent, what will be the im-population and sheltering refu- be a pity if gees. It would Hongkong were found unpre- pared for any emergency which
mediate effect upon Hongkong?
It is difficult to predict with any certainty, except to any
this
that
BULLS AND INNERS
☐
From the Office Butts
That picture had cort hím tears.
you, my lad
A story that's strange bub true, Your father and I, at the school one
day,
Met two little girls in blue.
Two little girls in blus, lad, Two little girl in blue,
They were ́aistern, we were
rothers,
And learned to love the two; And one little girl in blue, lad, Who won your Father's heart. Became your Mother; I married
the other,
But now Ice have drifted
apart.",
What a situation, and what words! "But now we have drifted apart" seems to me one of the most nobly bathetic lines
The way that horse looked at The typhoon is blamed for a in English literaturo...
# B A lady was fined for leaving. of thing is liable to discommode furniture in the street. This sort the public.
☐
n
The crooner with his "close- your-eyeses" and his "arms- enfold-your" has triumphed, and the ballad and the music-hall According to a market report,
song of the kind we once know tripe has fluctuated somewhat are almost as obsolete as the eggs are strong; frogs have cowboy's covered waggon. jumped considerably, while cut- Is there any hope of a TO-
vival 7 tle-fish has hardened.
I confess my heart leaped up with hope when I first heard "The Isle of Capri.” --
Colony will undoubtedly may arise. And since it is unthe heroine, we thought he was considerable reduction in local
And now these inglorious were thinking glories of a simple world have be flooded with thousands of likely that Canton will have any going to take a bit between his bird ilfe. We
that they had merely returned all but faded from the earth. refugees; that trade will be warning of attack, if it truly is teeth.
to Shanghai. seriously affected and the "back intonded, this Colony can ill af- garden"
on which we largely ford to wait without action for dopend for fresh foods will be a situation which might develop closed to us, There in naturally disastrously. It is not proposed a certain element of danger for that anything involving expen-
We received two contributions the Colony in any war waged diture be undertaken at this
In the stage, but it would be advisable to this column this week. One close to its borders, first place there is the risk of to take stock of the resources we had seen before, and
make certain other we haven't seen yet. "Incidents," and there is good avaliable and to cause for apprehensiveness on that nothing can interfere with this score. But it would seem the communications upon which that tho chief difficulty facing 'Hongkong depends for its "tially
the bread. authorities would be
the
口
· [0]
the
0 After sitting next to a lady We wish some public bene- wearing a fur coat, we would factor would offer travelling
aaxophone refer her to that advertisement scholarships
which "stops falling hair." players.
to
*"Victorian
Street Ballads.** Edited by W. Henderson. Country Life, 7a. Údu