*Speak to me, Ethel-Ethel!"*
BY THE
WAY
by Beachcomber
ITTLE is to be carried from a rambling and dis- message 1. connected radio
Parva Waggling ceived at
Picced fo- carly this morning, gether it reads like this:
Sideways flight ended 10.46 up- Toards again......Stopcarner nick.... Darkurs....Pull of gravity and bumps..Instruments behaving queer- ty owing to pressure....sideways apais and down, then up 16,462,129
Are we nearing the moon? That is not for me lo say, Natives of Uruguay report that an empty can, labelled Tinned Egg Dust Pow- der (Reconstituted) fell on the little
1pwn of Quevedo del Cibisp yester- day. It is thought that it may have the rocket dropped
been Utopia.
from
A later message says: Utopia out of hand, darting to and fro in every direction....now slowing down.
Light programme REA
▶EADING of a man who got his head stuck inside a pelican's beak or bill, it occurred to ine that
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH.
SATURDAY, APRIL 19, 1947.
You'll CALLING ALL COLLECTORS ROYALTY HAS A
have a thin time
HE first stamp exhibi- tion in Britain since the war Was opened in London by. Miss Anna Neagle, a fact which may prompt you to ask: What
forging stamps
has a film actress to do with a I went to a pub frequented by philately?
To a layman, which is what a stamp collector calls you if you don't collect stamps. the answer is: Practically nothing.
someone
But to a non-layman, ie, who does collect stamps, it is all perfectly logical because Anna Neagle has been a Hont of philatelists' pin-up girl ever since she pyed Victoria and made herself up to look like the Chalon portrait of the Queen on the rare and costly 1851 Canadian 12d, black,
They specialise [INTIL I went into the ques-
tion of Anun Neagle and the philatelists, the only stamp collector I knew at all well was my son, aged six, and I thought his methods rather odd because all he seems to do is to fill pages and pages of his album with nothing but the current tup- penny ha'penny blues.
But now I suspect that I may have misjudged him, because so far from this being a lowly form of stamp collecting it seems very much like what I'm told is the highest.
It's far superior, for instance, to the sort of collecting I did when I was at school. I started out to get every stamp there was and got about 1.000, leaving me 499,000 short.
IL
Since then it's been worked out that the thing can't be done without spending at least couple of million pounds.
So what most collectors do now is to specialise, not just in
if the B.B.C. hud got him to broad-continents or countries, as the
I thought this was going a bit for
philatelists and met a man who has 20,000 coples of the Queen Victoria penny red and reckons he's just beginning
So, if you remember that the begin to French for stamp s timbre, you'll appreciate why another stamp collector Is
name
for n
inbromaniac.
+
The word philatelist was coined Continental from the Greek by n collector who thought it sounded
more respectable.
The first stamps in the world were isaved in Bellaln in 1840, and by
are
Then some plate numbers rarer than others. Rarest of all in No. 77, and you'll be in the money If you find a penny red with that on, it, because there are only eight copies known.
It's the same with the penny black. A copy, from plate 2 or 3 in worth only a few shillings, but a good specimen from plote 11 will fetch £25. -
The Suez Canal stamps that Mr Williams collects by the thousand don't even have plate numbers or code letters. Yet he knows the different position of each stamp on the original sheet and the sequence of their issue entirely, by minute variations in the design and printing
So you see why I now look at my
1842 a woman was advertising in the Times that she had collected 10,000 and wanted more beenuse she was covering the walls of her
of collection
tuppenny dressing room with them. Very ha'pennies with a new respect. He possibly she was the world's first may have got something which we specialist in timbromania.
Since then stamp col-
gane from Jecting has
to strength
strength the until it reached
the other day sloge when headmaster aĦ- nounced that he hindi banned it in his school
because St encouraged stealing.
Il c
could have strengthened his case by saying it also led to murder, as it has done at Велят twice-both
1 met
son's
laymen don't appreciate.
IT'S FUN FINDING
OUT..by BERNARD WICKSTEED
HUMAN SIDE
By ROBERT FAHS
(United Press Correspondent) *
A kile amusing incident
or
LMOST daily there is some It was al Port Elizabeth that Prin- cess Elizabeth wore a form-fitting. orange • yellow_bathing quirk in connection with the ane-piece
sult to go swimming expertly in the Royal tour of South Africn.
surf, incidentally revealing an dx- Sometimes it is something tremely shapely and attractive figuro members of the Royal Family that is usually well-concealed by de say or do, and these instances mure street dresses. provide sidelights on the charac- ter of King George VI, Queen E Royal train is carefully guard- Elizabeth or the Princesses,
During this war and the last the British Government went into the forging business and printed German
The King has a Rubile but keen stamps for propaganda uses. But
sense of humour. Like most his with all its resources It couldn't | bands, he enjoys heckling his wife make a perfect copy.
once in a while. When the Queen was clipping ostrich feathers from a bird on a farm nene Oudtshoorn, the "I knew she was King remarked: good at clipping hedges in the gar-
but I didn't know den,
she know anything about clipping ostriches,"
A few minutes later he told the Queen: "Now be sure to get a good
So an Individual forger up on his own has a very chance of getting rich.
starting mor
Schoolboy's find
A MUCH better way is to look
through the cupboards and drawers and see if your grandmother left hny letters around.
That's how the most valuable stamp in the world was found-the 1856 one cent British Guluna. A schoolboy took it off an old family letter and sold it for six hob. Now
it is worth £10,000.
big one."
•
one of the civic balls the or
A chestra played "After the Ball
1ed at all times lo prevent any possible mishinp. There has been no incident to jeopardise the safety of the train. But two inspectors wore startled one evening as they walked along the tracks a few minutes be- fore the royal train was due to pass. In the gathering dusk they saw an object on one rail which looked like a lock that would derall the train.. Closer examination showed that a turtle was crossing the tracks.
watering stop.
train
The Ble of the press correspon- dents is complicated by the fact that Some of the wind was taken out their train--the pilot train-leaves the half an hour before the Royal train. | of his salls, however, when
owner of the ostrich handed the This means that the reporters often clippers to the King and said: "If have to rush away in the middle of you do half as well us the Queen, a ceremony to make a dash for the you will do very well indeed." train. The alternative usually is
to get into a car and drive at 40 or 70 miles an hour over rough dusty roads to catch the pilot train at a
group is Over". While the music droned on, One member of the press the King was amusing people in the learned the hard way that merely It's the only one of its kind, and Royal box (and in the press hux op- getting aboard the pilot train is not the story is that when it was owned | posite) with an animated pantomime, enough. Tho
was already by an American millionaire' named using his hands to indicate the var moving when he happily swung into Arthur Hind a man came to him fous stages of a young swain excort- thy baggage car at the end of the
that he would another exactly the came. Ing his lady fair home after the ball, train, thinking
nide through to his own car. with
Unfortun Hind bought this for an undisclosed down to the folded bands at the detaly for him, the baggage car
of the head to deplet sweet dreams.
car was Frincesses Elizabeth and Margaret sealed off from the rest of the train are ardent riders, and horses are ar- and the telephone connecting with ranged for them at every opportunl the other cars was out of order. He ty. Much to the chagrin of the cor- not only had to travel in discomfort respondents reporting the tour, most for three hours to the first stop, but of the riding is done early in the he was unable to file his dispatch morning. And so far, the Princesses and he also missed his lunch. have not talven after their uncle, the Duke of Windsor, who often made news by falling off a horse when he was Prince of Wales.
Another thing I have found out is that some philatelists don't collect stamps at all. They just
at and then put a match to it so write about them and then other philniclists that his original copy should remain collect what they write, unique.
One of the biggest Last year the Duke of Buccleuch's collectors of stamp secretary at Dalkeith Palace found literature was a former
in a drawer an old leather writing Earl of Crawford, and ease containing 55 penny and 48 when his books were twopenny unused Victorian stamps. catalogued in 1911 it was found that he had more than
10,000
of
in ย score
The case, and stamps were offered for sale last summer and fetched £6,300. Even to a duke that must have seemed a good price for an old case and some stamps that cost 12s. 7. when they were new.
Do you know why they brought so much? Because the 2d. stamps were from plate 2. If they'd been higher-numbered printed on some of
plate they mightn't have reached half the price.
Limes in Parts. In fact, he could them--and all different." have gone beyond that, and men-
As for magazines about stamps tioned a case in the Divorce Court
he'd got nearly double that in which one stamp collector cited well,
number.up to the year 1006. The But enough of the seamy side of rst magazine came out in 1002, and another as co-respondent. philately. Let's try to understand
now there Arc more than 200 of why the man
in the pub
different red languages, isn't satisfied with his 25,000 copies them of the Queen Victoria penny and still wants more.
were printed In These stamps
of 240 and, as every school sheets buy knows, they had code letters at the bottom corners so arranged that no two stamps on the sheet lettered the sume.
It's not so well known that
were
the
worked into the design at the sides
Another line you can go in for is forgeries, for I'm sorry to have to report that, besides murderers and co-respondents, there are also for
gers in this business.
Mr H. R., Harmer, a ulamp nuc-
Colour question STAMPS don't always have to be
old to be valuable.
Do you remember the 24d. Silver Jubilee issue in 19357. Three sheets
NOTHER unpleasant factor for the reporters is that every city The Royal Family has the normal visited is observing a holiday. Banks human reaction to young animals are closed, so there is difficulty In and the usual dislike
are closed, for reolites. getting money, Stores At the Bloemfontein Zoo, members so it is impossible to purchase any icopards only a of the Royal family cuddled two articles that are needed. The big- the Unlike weck sid. The Keat problem is haircuts. mother leopard in her cage had no King, who has his barber travelling respect for royalty, however. She with him, the correspondent must was just suspicious and as anxious depend on public barbers. In one while the Royal family held her elty two reporters searched high and twins as she could be towards any low, finally finding 趱 women's other human beings.
beauty parlour that was open. Des- peration overcame their timidness and they entered-and
they came out with A good
ood haircut!
a terrific head- Laundry would be a to see how gadgets work. At Port ache if the South African rallways
was equipp- had. Elizabeth, the beach
such made
magnificent ar- ed with a special Ilicline reel. The rangements for two or three-day
K
ING
George has a strong desire
hot
cast from this position they would more knowing, ones did when I later ones also had code numbers tioneer in New Bond-street, has of them printed in Prussian blue in King had Lady Margaret Egerton, service at least once a week. have been praised for their enter Was at school. but in single
to indicate the partictalar plate used collected albums and albums full of stead of ultramarine were issued to lady-in-waiting to the Princesses, Some of the laundries have been Well, here prise. (Seagull, noites). I am with my head in its beak-issues, as my six-year-old son
I does. yes, in the pellean's beak-and
Jolly beak, must say it's very though there's not much roumn. That noise you heard was the bird moving
10
its foot. Well, now I'm trying We
get my head out skieways. are now taking you over in Crewo Junction to hear the posters' king.
Something to declare
GR
sing-
man
ROWING suspicious of
with legs, like Corinthian pll- lars, Custoras oficials fapped his right leg. It gave back heavy thud.
He was afterwards found to
be wearing 47 pairs of trousers, un- der which were six thousand-yard rolls o! Turkey carpet, wound round his legs. in each roll were 1,764 pairs of silk stockings, and in each slocking were 20 watches, a pound of toast, nix sweep tickets, and 300 needles. The man gave the name of Sweetwood.
(News item.)
Thank you, sirs
UNDERSTAND that when the planners decide to shift the sile of d"antellite town" at the fast mo- ment, those who have been evleted will be permitted, after satisfying the planning authorities, to return to their homes temporarily, provided that they hold themselves ready to be evicted again, should another change be made in ments,
the arrange-
25,000 specimens ONE of the men I saw recently
was Mr L. N. Williams,
and writes books barrister, who
brother edits magazines with Iris about philately, and his speciality is the 1868 stamps of the Suez Canal Company.
There are only four in the whole issue, but that hasn't stopped Mr Williams collecting several thousand specimens of them.
In their printing.
And during the Hfetime of different plates stamps 500 used.
these
were
So theoretically you ́eguld have 500 times 240, or 120,000 Queen Victoria penny reds, and every one of them different.
Plate numbers
OUT specialisation FOCS further than this. The real philatelist differentintes between stamps printed when the plate was new and when it was getting worn which doubles bis Beld
forgeries. He has each one mounted beside a specimen of the real thing, and to get what he wants he has sometimes paid more, for the forgery than the stamp it represents.
When Mr Williams got his. Suez Canal stamps together he found in existence
separate sets of forgeries of the one issue.
Mr Williams says It's impossible to forge a slamp that will deceive an expert collector of the issue in the paper. the question. Either ink, the gum. the printing or the workmanship will give it away.............
If I may be personal
by ALAN
I
MOOREHEAD
spotted the error.
go out into the surf, and then he giving extra special fancy service to London post office by mistake, and 310 of them were bought over the sent the lifeguard out to rescue" the man in charge of the air-con
train. counter by stamp collector who her-Just so he could watch the life- ditioning system on the Royal
Ilne in operation.
His name is George Windsor, and Similarly, the Arst time he tra- his shirts receive special attention Today there are timbromanincs velled in his plane, he had the pilot even down to cellophane wrappings. willing to pay £100 each for them. demonstrate that one of the two en- Actually the railroad has employ- All of which makes me wonder if gines could be cut out without af ed three women, who are the only Anna Neagle had the least idea fecting the ability of the craft to rd- ones permitted to wash the Royal what sort of people she met with, main in the air with safety,
family's laundry.
TRIESTE HOPES TO BECOME
MARITIME METROPOLIS
By Edgar Clarke
the
TRI
RIESTE, as a free port, to exploit Genoa, which he briefly highly developed but preferentially hopes for the second time Integrated with the French Empire. tariffed German waterways and
The French made in this century to exploit its another of the many Italian ports, second World War, the political re-
Venice just railways. Since the end of natural heritage as the mari while they poured capital and busi percussions of making Trieste time metropolis of central and ness into her ancient rival.
independent free port have been matter of record at the Peace Con- southeastern Europe.
ference and the United Nations ses-
Tho competitors will be.
-
ston
Genoa, greatest port of the THE fall of the republic of Venice Mediterranean, and Hamburg, ed and held down in the interests started, too.
of Venetian shipping,
ад
also gave Trieste, long dominat- The economic reaction has already Political defeat has her chance as put Hamburg and German competi-
the Brenner Pass from:Gehon.
Trieste,
of
Beck
MEANWHILE, the political battle I continues, sometimes drowning out the_never-ending、 economic struggle. On the surface, there has been
chatter much political Italo-Yugo-Slov* nationalism, the clash between Anglo-American and
-on
principal port of the North Sea central Europe's natural port. De- tion out of combat for the time -two giants which have lay in development of Trieste, when being, but Genon, ancient rival of renow is ready to amothered Trieste's natural de- she later camé under the control of Adriatic ports,
Austria-Hungary-another political the struggle, hindered only
by But let us suppose he is referring velopment for about 30 years: herewith CONCLUDE
Now here, by way of self-defence
factor-was due primarily to the re- damage that is fast, being cleared. I
The big obstacle will be the same lative lack of commercial acumen of For a while, at least, Genoa has general comment, is the reply I to the general news, and that he is period of just on ten years' and Feren brewing up these ten long right. I do not think that journalists national and international political the Austro-Hungarian regimen. lost the political side of the contest
are more wilful, more careless, more rivalry which has made this beauti- work on Fleet Street; that is.to
Politics gave Trieste to Italy
and at with Italy's loss of Trieste years. starting with the Nowhere in my experience are the lascivious, more eager to pervert the ful clly at the head of the Adriatic the end of the first World War, and Flume. But she has not given up BABY FED say the deading Edward VIII words you read in a newspaper like truth than other men. They are 15- the most bitterly-contested spot in a few years later politica again gave hope economically.
in л ually
hurry and they have not postwar Europe.
Italy Trieste's smaller sister port of Her first alep has been to and ending with the era of bread ly to be as sensational, scandalous and much space in which to write; but I Tricstinians, with love and hope Flume, at the opposite side of the free port status for herself. Many
assure you the general idea in a WITH WINE rationing and the atomic bomb. inaccurate as the ordinary conversa-
Now in these ten years I commotion one hears in a bus or a pub or newspaper office is to get the thing for their clly, above the nationalistic Istrian peninsula. For all practical Genoe industrial and shipping in-
club or at the corner of the street.
and cultural turmoil which clash purposes, the economic development teresta belleve that, in that way, recall any period when journalists in Nor, as a rule, are they so prejudiced straight If you possibly can.
faith of Tricato and Flume stopped, and their port will be on a more equat about them, constantly have The time came when little particular and newspapers in general or immoderate. That's points one. If the reporters fall-and I grant that the free port of Trieste can they became little more than pro and competitive footing with free
were not under a constant barrage
they do at times-part of the fault prosper. They believe it can fulfil vincial ports. Rodney Whitley-allergic to of criticism, varying from mild and
at least lics in the public's general the promise of becoming the
great Economically, possession My reply
altitude towards newspapers. In international port briefly glimpsed Trieste meant that Italy could con- cow's milk-just had, to be cynical amusement to downright and
Berocious wrath.
OINT two is more personal, I de England above all countries there is in the last days of the Austro- tinue to exploit her great art of POINT weaned. Today, four years
of, Genoa without running the danger Hungarian. Empire, when much There were stray compliments, of not remember ever being asked an antipathy towards publicity. later, he is alive and healthy course, but mostly one remembers the to write "to orderto give an inci- "Don't let's got found out. What Central Europe was a single political of losing Central European traffle. much of which was routed through because he has been drinking ca.her lofty character who remarks dent a particular political twist or to will the neighbours think? It's not entity.
nice to see your name in the
paped "You surely don't believe colour a story in a special way. heavily:
-this is the attitude of mind. wine instead.
the stuff you write for that rag of
My reports have not been rewrit so when the reporter arrives to get ECONOMICALLY they have no yours."
ten in London. If the paper did not the facts they tell him nothing. When tears. International politics are TRIESTE and Flume gains would Russian spheres the struggle be- Wine, said his mother, Mrs E. K.
like them, usually, I fear, for liter- his incomplete report appears in the their bugaboo. They can envisions have been losses to Genos, un- tween Etat and West and other fac- Whitley, of Durban, South Africa,
Our critics
ory reasons, they simply left them tock the place of cow's milk in
their city, as a free port once more less Cenon had political control of tors less to tho, point than the bastr My belief
as the port of Austria, Hungary, the two potentially rival, parts, economic issues, Rodney's diet when he was a year THEN there is the chap with the out or cut them down. Headlines Paper they become very angry.
much of Yugo And just so long as Trieste and Czecho-Slovakia,
Triestinlaris hopë të old. For a ten-day period last year,
regain their rogulsh gleam in his eye who are not written by the reporter. during hospitalisation for infantile says: "I know you fellows-always thought it worth his while to offer Royal Commission on the Press. But this can happen only if politically latively free of dangerous compell- Czecho-Slovakia, Hungary and Yugo
And nobody all this time ever HOWEVER, there is soon to be a invia and possibly some of Poland. Flume werd Italian, Genbu was ye former great customers: Austria, paralysis, wine was all he was fed on the look-out for a good juicy story. me a bribe.
and no doubt we are going to hear engendered customs restrictions and tion.
Slavia, who gave h her business in that she said.
Plenty of sex appeal, eh?"
Alid
Innocent: "I suppose they. But here is Lord Justice Greer on all these arguments ad nauseum.
Shipping figures showed the effect order. They refer to the days of The
trade barriers are not set up to in the subject of the newspapers. He Tc-day, at
If you were to raise the ethical terfere with the natural flow of of this political control. Before the Austro-Hungarian Empire, five years of age, pay you by how many words
you said: "I am rather inclined to think question of how far a reporter Rodney's teachers say he is ex send in, so you have
or traffic in and out of the narrow con- World War 11, Trieste arid Fiume, when traffic originating 400 specialists sensational."
to make it the probabilities are all against what anyone else is entitled to Inquire ceptionally bright, and
combined handled only a little more away in southeastern Poland arrived one reads in the newspapers. It it's into private lives in the public inter-fines of their free state.
Mindful of the history of other than 200,000 tons annually, comparat Trieste without crossing a single -called his rapid recovery from il-
And the challenger. "But you a subject you happen to know some est I'm not sure what I would reply. ners nothing short of phenomenal,
wouldn't dare to put that in your thing about yourself, you
always All
eports of the Mediterranean,. Tries ed with 7,000,000 tons a year cleared political frontier. want to do here 1
tinians have reason to fear politics, through Genoa in the same period. While in no way Interested in re- And the papers are wrong."
years is to fire this arrow at my en- The fate of all other great seaports
The
naxt political blow dealt Mrs Whitley sald she got the wine paper, would you?"
-of-then pre old Central Not to speak at the commiserator:
emies, to bless my friends, to express of the past in this ancient sen hinged Trieste was
hope from
the Anschluss, Inspiration
Dr. Lo They rewrite everything you send
Our accuracy
my Kratitude for the patience and ultimately on politics, no Leipoldt, South African medical au-
matter Austria was incorporated into the modern Central Europe, will tolerance of the people I have writ- wh
what their natural advantages of German Rejch, and other Central the thority and writer who died recently. In, don't they? to make it suit their
BIT severe. Would the Lore ten about, to reaffirm my belief that har She said she had to fight off all own policy."
for economie development
gunham- Or. the universal pleader: "Now L▲ Justich maintain that such things' this is the only sane, country left in harbours, berthing facilities or land European prens come under German their free port the same: opportunity eamers among her relatives to keep
influence, both political and econo pered by politics. If that the quotations the world, and to record my con- as the law reports,
Venice, the once great maritime mical.
they see their “city doing, not hun- from the Stock Exchange, the Par- stant astonishment, wonder and de- and commercial power, dropped to From that time on, Trieste was dreds of thousands of tons of bust- liamentary reports, the sports requlis light at ever having spoken into little more than a acarido neighbour to fight a losing battle for Cen- nest annually, but millions →-United are always wrong?
print at all,
of Trieste because Napoleon wonted tral Europe with Hamburg and the Press.
Young Rodney on the bottle--two you won't go and put that in your nips each meal-and rejected the Dhper, will you?" possibility that he might grow up
to be a wine addict.
"There are more, many more, but these will suffice.
arteries.
whohon aire, they »
miles
that
Rive
bo,