B
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, Monday, SEPTEMBER 12, 1988.
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Hongkong Telegraph.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1938.
scnti-
B
. Sudoton,
Y this time, no doubt, Lord Runciman has met is any- everybody who
body in Prague.
He has moved about Czecho- slovakia trying to discover what the Czechs, Germans,, Slovaks, Ruthenians, Poles Magyars of that State really do want and how they can be given it with out upsetting each other and the rest of Europe.
He has found himself trying to understand the likes and dislikes of Afteen million people of five or six different races (not counting gypales) living in a long, narrow country, stretching from "Bavaria nearly to
Russia.
A solution for the Czech-German quarrel is, of course, his first anxiety, but all the other races will be in- terested.
S
O, perhaps. Lord Runci- man might like a few Introductions. He might, for instance, care to meet Jan Kacurck at his office, Dr. Masek in his surgery, Adolf Reuth in his frontier house, Frau Stoder in her kitchen. Josef Grunik behind his counter, Ferenc Kisar in la hotel, Michael Krivan in his forest. and the Rabbl of Brustura in his praying shawl,
A chat with these people might help him. They are nobody and yet they are everybody. They are nearly all the races of Czecho- slovakia.
They are the ordinary people who will have to suffer whatever
Lord Runciman proposes and Herr Hiller disposes.
PAR AVIAN
Saturday The delivery on morning of the first "All-Up" mail from England brings Hongkong into line with other parts of the Empire. That it is possible to despatch a letter from Hongkong to England by air at the nominal fee of fifteen cents is reason for satisfaction, and expressions of any ment other than gratification would, at this early stage in the Mail development of the Empire scheme, appear somewhat gra- tuitous. Nevertheless, comment is necessary, on one or two points, if only to remove cause for future complaint. The decision and a great many other things sion of the postal authorities that First Class mail cannot be sent other than by air to those parts of the Empire included in the "All-Up" scheme will, wel
URING the World War The was in command of are sure, give rise to opposition
an Austrian feld laun- Chater Road. I from business
to allow him to any frontier utilise the mails for despatch-day which never went near enough ing and receiving valuable escape and join the Czech legion
modern Aghting for the Aliles. -Fan documents. Although
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houses who
21
Jan Kocurek he will find in the Bubenec district of Prague (I will give him the address if he wants A typical Czech this Jan- Janck to his wife.
Jt).
He is a patent agent by profes-
for fun. He is short, broad, tough
and fortylsh, plays tennis carnestly,
and likes walking barefooted along forest paths, his shoes tied round
his neck.
D
That is his secret sorrow, but his sense of humour allows him to tell the tale of his laundry days against himself.
He will not admit that the Ger-- mans in Czechoslovakia Buffer any particular hardship, but he would like to be friendly with them. Their
masterful manners he tries to treat as a joke.
One young German, staying at Hin house, insisted on re-designing the garden. Jan Kacurek sald he preferred his own less formal method, but the German was firm.
aviation has reached limits of safety almost comparable to those of other types of com- munication, there is neverthe- less risk that mails can be irretrievably lost. By a peculiar coincidence, the first "All-Up" mail to Hongkong on Saturday brought letters posted in Lon- don on September 25, 1936, comprising portion of the Hong- kong air mail lost when the nir-liner Bosdicen plunged into post-office closing hours. Resi- the Channel. A bag containing dents who are fortunate enough Hongkong mail was recovered to possess letter boxes at the from the sea by fishing General Post Office may obtain trawler near Dungeness; the their mail overnight, but for rest of the mail has never been those otherwise served a delay of from fifteen to twenty hours found. Hongkong mail, includ appears inevitable. It is un- ing registered mail, was also fortunate that, after taking less lost in the City of Khartoum than six days to reach Ilong- disaster in the Mediterranean kong from London, First Class in the last year and, more recently, in mail must remain
Colony's post offices for almost the Hawaiian Clipper tragedy another day before it can
To leave Hong-reach its in mid-Pacific.
destination, but kong business houses with no under existing circumstances. alternative but to despatch the postal authorities in Hong- valuable and, irreplaceable docu-kong cannot remedy the situn- would, of ments by air is, under the cir- tion. The delay
course, be non-existent if Im- cumstances, inviting protest.perial Airways could arrange It is not hard to envisage a for Hongkong-bound planes to Hongkong merchant, or even a depart from Bangkok at mid- Hongkong Government depart night, arriving at Kal Tack in ment, sending valuable docu- time for letters to be sorted for ments to Macao or Canton for the afternoon deliveries, re-posting to England, in order subsidy Hongkong is paying for to overcome the slight danger the privilege of receiving and or loss attendant upon air trans- despatching all First Class mail portation. The only solution by air is not high, in view of the the appears to be the suggestion-advantages enjoyed from
the other: and it is one worthy of con- new system. On sideration that registered mail hand, the subsidy is not so low should be permitted to go for that the Hongkong public has 'ward, at the option of the not the right to insist that the sender, by alternative routes. despatch and receipt of mail The second problem, that of should be maintained at the mail delivery in Hongkong, is a highest possible degree of ef- difficult and apparently un- ficiency, from the time it leaves surmountablo one so long us the sonder until it reaches the planes arrive at Kai Tack after hands of the addressee.
The
Ruthenian
Hungarian
Palo ; **
A few
Slovak
introductions
for Lord Runciman
So Jan marked off a portion of the garden und said politely: "Here I shall grant you extra-territorial rights."
Dr. Masek, another stocky Czech, is also a man of Prague, but he 1lves six hundred kilometres cast, at the other end of Czechoslovakia, on the Carpathian edge of the Hungarian plain. Ilis patients are the queerly mixed people of Muka- eevo, sinall town of the province of Ruthenia, that mountain and forest corner of Europe tucked be- tween Poland, Rumania and Hun- Kary and inhabited by primitive Russian-speaking Ruthenians, by Magyars, Poles, Jews and Gypsies.
Dr. Masek had no great desire 10 live in Ruthenin. A medical stu- dent when war broke out, he passed through Mukacevo (Hun- garlan Munkacs then) on his way to fight the Russians in the Car- pathian forcals.
With other Czechs he deserted from the Austro-Hungarian forces, fought for a time against them, and finally pushed his way across Siberia and round the world to Prague again.
In Prague, during the hard after-war days, there was no work for him. But the far eastern pro- vince needed ploneer doctors. He found himself once more in Muka- ecyo.
A
DOLF REUTH can tell what happened in the German-speaking parts of the country. 11 guest house lies close to the Saxon fron-
tler. under the Schneekoppu mountain north-east of Prague.
It irritates him, when he goes down to market in the country towns of Hohenelbe or Spindle- mühle, to find them called Vrchlabí and Spindleruv Mlyn.
Also, he doesn't like the clank
Just down the road is the dusty, untidy, thatched village of Russian Mokra.
That part of Ruthenia is thickly settled by Jews. They own all the Inns, and many of theni are far- mers, working in the fields, with their side curls blowing and their broad-brimmed black hats flap- ping in the wind.
RAU STODER is not anti-Jewish, but she said chattily to me as she served a dish of sweet pancakes: "There is only one Jew in German Mokra, and he does not prosper."
The Rabbi of Brustura, not so many miles away. on the other hand, does prosper. He is a tall. powerful man with a lean, hawk nose and a black spade beard and side curls. He wears a kind of black frock coat and knee boots against the Brustura mud,
When I arrived on n Friday evening he showed me to an inner room, and said, "The Sabbath is just about to begin. You must order all you need for twenty-four hours. That is our tradition."
All that evening a muffled, wall- ing. prayer sound reached me Next through the wooden wall. morning the Rabbi sent his Gentle servant to collect the money for my lodging.
Ferenc Kisar of Stary Smokovec is a slender, polite. good-looking but slightly haughty young man. His Hungarian father keeps a hotel
How Wild
nt the foot of the High Tatras Which thrust their jagged, Dolo- mitelsh peaks up over the Polish frontier.
Once that highest range of the Carpathians was a playground for wealthy Hungarians.
The Czechs? Oh, yes, they buikd schools, they look after the forests, they are good engineers, but... Не Ferenc shrugs his shoulders. implies that they are, well, not quite...
Jan Kocurek has an answer to that:
"We lost our aristocracy
during the Thirty Years War," he says. They were all killed. We are a middle-class and peasant people. The Hungarians have a aristocratic charm of manner. Therefore their propaganda is bet- ter. But we work harder."
ORD
more
RUNCIMAN,
finally, I think, ought to have a word with Josef Grunik. Ho la Slovak and he spends his fe behind the counter of a grocer's shop at Kosice. He talks to his customers every day in five languages. He has to know the word for everything from boot polish to sardines in five lan- guages. And he, kowlso with a shrug of his shoulders, poses the problem in a sentence:
"Whoever rules, I shall still need Ave languages."
A.B.Austin
Flowers Get
Their Names
and bustle of military prepared-WHAT attractive names some of Nature's Medicines
д
YY
ues near a frontier which is so
our wild flowers have, names, as pleasant mountain strong charming as the Bowers themselves! Kround for the tourists out of whom he makes a living.
Adolf la anxious. The winter sports and summer holiday trains from Prague bring prosperity to aim and to thousands of other Ger- man guest-house and hotel keepers. He believes that his is a superior be race, but he would like to allowed to go on cooking hils wiener schnitzels in peace.
names,
L
more
Bee and Butterfly orchis take their nomes from fancled resemblance to I do not mean the Laun
the insects, while many other names are descriptive, such is Butterwort, which convey so much information to
we get the learned, but the ok! -fashioned the sticky surface of the leaf suggest- country names, the simple nemes we Ing butter or grease. And
Knotwort, with its gnarled joints, docs have known since nursery days.
We sometimes ask ourselves how and Cleaver, which certainly
cleave. and why they got them. Some carry
Perhaps the old use of herbs to back to the old days when the
cure all diseases gives of the Church dominated the lives
Seltheol names than anything else, #re the Biblical sounds as if it were the panacen for Old Frau stoder is also German, people. These
Saint all the ills of man, but we get but she is not so anxious. Two names like Jacob's Ladder, hundred years ago Marta Theresa. Johnswort, and Aaronsbeard. Empress of Austria, sent Frau the many flowers which bear Steder's ancestors and many other prefix "lady" are called after "Our to cure Inflamed or aching eyes. Lady's Scurvy Grass was eaten as a cure for Virgin-Our Austrian peasants as colonists into Lady,"
scurvy in the days before each ship the wilds of Blovakia and Mantle, Our Lady's Smocke, Our carried its lemons and acids to
Bedstraw, Our Lady's Ruthenia. Their descendants now Lady's
counteract the salt diet, live as tiny German islands in a Fingers, and the rest.
Some names are purely im- Frau Stoder herself has a clean, aginative, like "Angel's Eyes" and neat house with a carved balcony Foxglove, which, 1. fancy, is a cor- in the clean, neat, wooden Carpa-ruption of "Folks Glove," or fairies thian village of German Mokra. glove, called after the "Good Folks."
Slav sca.
GRIN AND BEAR IT
the
And specifle cures for other troubles. For the instance, Eyebright infused was sold
By Lichty
be, I. planted "the reeds upride, down!
A simple rule seemed to be that the plant itself helped the ignorant by its appearance. A leaf ahoped like a heart was used for heart disease, like a kidney for kidney trouble, and like the lobe of a lung. we got for consumption. Haven't Heartsease and Lungwort in proof of this?
dis
The Banes
"Bane," of course, was poison, so we get Wolfbane, Leopardbane, and Henbane.
But one is prompted to wonder why. Would not anything poisonous polson wolves, leopards, and hens? And why stick to these particular animals and bird? Why not Pigeonbase and Dogbane and Catbone? That is one of the puzzies our ancestors have left us.
Enchanters' Nightshade is fascinating name, and suggests unholy rites performed at the dark of the moon. How was it used, wo. wonder, and what did it do?
Other names are attractive, al- though in lcas grim fashion. Restharrow and Saintfoin (which various definitions give an Holy Healthy Hay, which was used as e febrifuge.) Marygold-another of of Our Lady's flowers and Speed- well, Archangel (again one wonders: why), and Blue-Eyed Grass.
DL. Forrest Di
Veteran Has 22d. Operation
Sarnia, Ont
Joseph A. Chivers, World War veteran, is recovering from his 22nd operation. The operations were persi | formed to remova, shrapnel from his /- body. His right leg was amputated¿: lin_the_last_ordenlink.