8 THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1937,
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A James
Douglas article— remember, some people are
LONELY
HRISTMAS is the one
season of the year which makes solitude intolerable. It makes the lonely feel lonelier than any other holiday, for it is the festival of the family.
To be solitary at Christmas
Hongkong Hotel is the lot of many. If we could
Garage
Stubbs Road
Showroom
The
Phone 27778-9 ed.
JUST NOW
Another factor which destroys
Thongkong Telegraph. boycotted because they are not world, says Locke, has people are homeless splitarics.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1927.
COLLECTIVE SECURITY
of all sorts."
Lake a census of all the Christ- mas'solitaries who mope in their cheerless homes without love or always secure pence. Some com- laughter we should be astonish- munication
I shall never forget my delight of sentiments is home life is the servant famine. when I was invited to join in the commonly necessary to give vent There is a vast floating popula- gaiety of a happy home filled There are <rmies of old to the imagination, and discharge tion which migrates from one with laughing young folk. bachelors and old maids who the mind of its own flatulencies. boarding-house or private hotel have drifted into a state of Some lady surely might be to another without any
Do not take the happiness of friendlessness. They have no found, in whose conversation maneut ties of society or bonds council and try to think of some per others for granted. Call a family one left to invite them to pull a you might delight, and in whose of social intercourse. These lonely friend who may be shut cracker. They are shunned and fidelity you might repose. The wanderers with their children out from the Christmas jollity. good company.
Try to imagine how miserable The late George Moore was Dr. Johnson hated "drony soli.
Then there are the derelicts you would feel if you were com- one of these Christmas solitaries, Lude."
who have fallen on evil daya. pelled to pass Christmas alone.
I am sure that selfishness is I do not know whether all his He declared that "solitude is Their incomes have shrunk and friends had forsaken him or dangerous to reason, without dwindled. They find it hard to often caused by thoughtlessness. that So-and-so is whether he had forsaken all his being favourable to virtue: plen- make ends meet, and for them We assume friends, but he passed the last sures of some sort are necessary
sure to be invited by somebody Christmas is unutterably mourn
somewhere. ful. Like the helpless farmer who in his lonely house in Ebury- porate health; and those who re- Christmas Day of his life alone to the intellectual as to the cor-
But if everybody resolves to takes a last, sad look at his
It is not hard to find these forget and ignore the friendless street.
sist gaiety, will be likely to fall lonely people. We all know one there is a wasted opportunity young crops while the mush- I received a melancholy letter a sacrifice to appetite; for the them, and we are all apt to forget of sharing happiness with the. room-cloud of the dust storm from him, begging me to take solicitation of sense are always them while we are making merry unhappy. gathers on the far horizon, so tea with him, and I was sorry and solitary person is a speedy red to us to come to their aid at at hand, and a dram to a vacant in our own homes. If it occur. thousands in China wait to-day for the old man, for I was unable and seducing relief.
THERE is enough happi- for an expected blow from some to go to see him.
Christmas our own happiness
ness to go round all "Remember that the solitary would be doubled. new quarter. There are others his days contrasted strangely probably superstitious, and pos-
His desolation at the end of
mortal is certainly luxurious,
the solitaries in the land, What in this disturbed world whose with his long essays about his sibly mad: the mind stagnates
we need is a great share-out of hold upon security must be friends in Paris,in London and for want of employment, grows these lonely people. Let every
HERE is a plan which the Christmas mirth and good
would bring joy to all fellowship. measured in hours or days. That in Ireland. I thought of the morbid, and is extinguished like happy home make room for one ished by asking others to take a is the price man must pay for famous peroration which con- a candle in foul air."
Our pleasure will not be dimin- the failure of collective action cludes Burton's Anatomy of
desolate friend who has seen bit of it. On the contrary, it in the preservation of peace.
Melancholy," and the closing
better days.
will be increased. adjuration, "Be not solitary."
OLD bachelors and old In spite of years of isolation-
There is no necessity for any- If you have a spare room, see body to endure a solitary Christ- people who lend lonely lives, that it is offered to somebody ism, the United States is stirred
DR. JOHNSON detested There are thousands of childless who otherwise would be an exile table at which there is not room mas. Is there a single dinner- by an event which occurred to his friend, Mrs. Aston, he Christmas brings only sad
solitude. In a letter widows and widowers to whom from Christmas fun and frolic. thousands of miles away from wrote:-
At least we ought to ask one plate, and an extra
for an extra chair, an extra her home shores. Now the
"You know, dear madam, the There are many young people should open our hearts and our be your neighbours. Think of memories of happiness long past. friendless solitary to spend
glass of wine? fallacy of that outworn doctrine liberty I took of hinting that I who are lonely
Christmas Day with us. We
Some of these lonely ones may
maida are not the only
at Christmas.
& CO., LTD. becomes apparent, surely. For of hot think your present mode Their homes have been broken homes to the wretched victims them and take the trouble to find
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any nation which expects to send its ships and men of com merce into foreign lands, isola- tion in the political sense is, obviously impossible; und
to
re-
of life very pregnant with hap up by unemployment. piness. Reflection has not yet The old-fashioned family re-
of poverty and adversity, changed my
-out-whether they are forgotten" excludes pleasure and does not able. Sons and daughters are rooms, opinion. Solitude union at Christmas is impractic- young
When I came to London as a by everybody.
man I lived in dreary If every happy home in the and I discovered what land were thrown open to one separated by distance from the De Quincey meant when he enll- outcast there would be no out- old folks at home. They cannot ed London "a atony-hearted casts left alone with aching
hearts on Christmas Day.
for instance. On the other hand
It
stepmother."
Christmas DAY IN THE FLEET
Here is a description by an ex- officer of His Majesty's Navy of Christmas on board a battleship. It is written in a light vein, but at the same time succeeds in being exceedingly informative,
that nation must fall a share/48 Britain in the Mediterranean, afford to pay the fare. of responsibility in maintaining the British contention that the conditions, in which its enter-Mediterranean sea-lunes shall prises can operate without dan-never be interrupted and her ger to investment or to the determination to keep them well people who guide them.
protected are points of policy| which give advantages to other Sir Archibald Sinclair traders than her own. The cognises the truth of these con- Mediterranean lanes are vital to tentions. Britain, he told the Great Britain, but they are also House of Commons, has no right important to other powers. to call upon the United States American commercial interests may well be possible that for co-operation in the defence will find that British support in of purely British interests.,. The preserving the freedom of
R. N. (Ret.) implication is that Britain could | Atlantic or Pacific trade routes
IRISTMAS day starts early on expect co-operation from the is desirable. Such an argument
board a battleship. leads to the conclusion that co-f
Long before the earliest landsman operative rather than parallel hus rubbed the sleep from his eyes action is the most practicable and crawled out of bed, long before cure for the world's ills; and the most eager child has sent ex- that collective security, based pluring fingers down a stocking to What Father Christmas has on the League Covenant, even brought, sailors and signatmen have though it is not yet universally been aloft securing bunches of holly accepted, is the surest way to and set to the yard arms and fixing the largest Christmas trees
United States when the in- terests of both
are affected.
peace.
(ny Lieut. Comdr. H. de L. Standley.
obtainable to the most heads. ships are judged by their trees.
scrubbed, and the hands will be going. For to breakfast.
Cleaning
Half the ship's company will be on long leave (the Christmas leave period is fourteen days) and half After breakfast all hands will be the "Watch on board" 1.c. those not employed cleaning ship; the watch on long leave will have been ashore on deck polishing brightwork and for the afternoon, evening and night putting the finishing touches to make of Christmas Eve.
the upper deck "ship shape":" the The night leave, given daily when "watch below" clearing up messiccks ships are in their horne ports, finishes and at seven o'clock in the morning, and
flats Christmas deco
and just before this time streams of blue-past have been making their
completing those which for days Juckets will be passing through the pearance. For on Christmas Day, a dockyard anxiously eyeing the ships' mess deck is by
judged its decorations. decorations and hoping that their own At about nine o'clock the hands are will have surpassed the others. piped to "clean" in to No. 1 dress. Work on Christmas day is cut down their "Sunday best," In the Navy to a minimum. By the time the they never talk of changing into such night leave men are returned on- and such dress-ll is always clenit board the decks will have been Ing."
HUMOUR IN THE OFFICE
STATE EXPRESS alliance, however vague, with a enterprise. Just as the mount-out of the day's provides lise frat
777 (CORK TIPPED)
COUNT THE
"TELEGRAPHS"
EVERYWHERE
اله
Divisions, which correspond to an Army parade, take place at nine- thirty. The ship's company falls in by divisions and inspected Brst of by the divisional officers and then by the Captain, or it is is absent on leave by the senior executive officer on board who, in the absence of the Captain, Is the Commanding Offeer.
Church
There is a common cause in the Far East. Once it was ap parent, the Liberal leader went on, that Britain intended to act to defend her own interests, the United States might be expected
How much the world needs; to take parallel action. It seems very likely that such an ex- peace, how great is the need of pectation is well founded. The security before mankind can effect of parallel action would the prospect of profit from his contemplate with any certainty
Once Hte is generally regarded and raised a Inugh at the same time be precisely that of joint action, labours, is pitifully apparent. while tits is true to a certain extent,
#18 belnit very monotonous, and by putting up this notice:- but apparently the United Threats of war and famine and anyone with a sense of humour can
"Closing Time... 0 p.m. Lighting-up Time 6 p.m." States is still shy of making any pestilence take the heart out of derive quite a lot of quiet amusement
The telephone occasionally yields a smile. The manager's son rang up of the day. My drm, for
Then follows Church. It depends European power for fear that ing dust storm sends the farmersm
one day, and thinking it instance,
WILS his on the class of ship as to where home with listless hands and customers by letter that reads as
received orders from his father speaking, said cheerfully, church ta "elgged." In fome ships she will be embroiled in the hanging head, so the political follows:---
"Hullo, is that you, you old skinfint?" the service may be held on a mess Whereupon our office-boy gravely re-deck: In other ships a large "flat" complicated political and econo-storins which sweep the world "Please send me a sleeping suit for plied, "I'm sorry, the cashier's not in mic troubles of another part of jure apt to leave the victims of a boy without feet."
may be rigged as church. just now, sir!"
In ships of the Queen Elizabeth the globe. She is not to be war lethargic, saying: Why "I wish a cardigan for an old lady The arrival of a new office-boy in class, church, during the winter blamed for this caution; but at should we build again for de-of chaste design but still pretty." always the signal for some clumsy months, is held in a large
One of the best morning smiles we attempt at a practical joke on the called the "half deck." During the Брист the same time it does acem ren. Btruction? And workers may ever had was supplied by a man who part of the older clerks.
summer, church rigged right aft sonable to expect that if parallel cow apathetic, saying: Why sent a letter complaining that some Great glee resulted when one under the Quarter
deck a six- the services are held under the grim awning and action is applied in. one sphere should we work only to destroy? underwear supplied had shrunk. "I youngster took the proffered It should be applied in another, War and its aftermath can be am sending you all that is left of the pence to go and buy a boille of invis grey muzzles of great guns.
The jokers got a shock, The ship's band, especially where Interests in-prevented; but only by the col-vest I received. The rest vanished bleink,"
The enclosure however, when the Ind returned string portion of the wash-tub,"
or rather the lective determination of far-was the Arm's name tabl volved are similar.
the with a nice clean empty bottle. music, and there is something soul
of it, provides sighted peoples who having When some of our elerke took to carefully corked, and no change! stirring in the volume of full throated It is not suggested that learned to rule themselves, may smoking a cigarcite in the office be-The office-boy is not so easily gulled male voices foining lustily in the old America has the same interests rule the lawless.
fore closing-time, our manager very | nowadays. ingeniously" put a stop to the practice
S. D. M.
Christmas hymns, so well known to
(Continued on Page 5.)