ARTICLE TO ARGUE ABOUT
3 REASONS WHY HUSBANDS ARE SLAVES
WAS· brought up in the old-fashioned surroundings where it was considered that the husband was the head of the house and that his wife was his faithful and obedient servant.
Before long, however, I discovered that this was only a superficial view of the English home, and that white the father of the family could go out to his club and pompously boast of being wife, tamer, and while in many a cottage in the village a woman would have black eyes or bruised legs night after night, yot none the less she, too, in the morning would go out and tell her friends how proud she was of the virility of her
her husband and of his great over- powering strength and courage.
WAS
What I eventually discovered was that, whatever might appear on the surface, in reality the womon always head of the house. It was her will and her wish and her method of administration and her manage- ment which gave the home its char- acter.
WHEN I tried to solve the mu lem
of Purdah in Indin I found that the Anglo-Indian women spoke with
tirely wrong.
pity of the poor Indian wives who lived chind the curtain",
I found, however, people who rule that that was en- Indin to-day are not the men, but the women. It is the women who carry on
on the traditions of the past and who break in their husbands, so that the old habits and thoughts con-
generation.
by Dr. Josiah Oldfield
Dr. Oldfeld-physician, lawyer, theologian, fruitarian,
experi ON
dietetics and philosopher- keeps hin nýs secrét, but all that 10 years ago the newspapers said I wda aver 3,"
A man is a very adaptable animal, A woman is a very subtle colleague. A woman has three grent assets which will sooner or later secure for her the dominance of the home.
1-
-A man can never "oll-nag" a woman. The one, therefore, who has the lost word--even if just on the point of dropping off to sleep--is the one who wins the battle;
The home is the woman's home; she is at home there always, and the man has to go in, as it were, from the outside, so that the one
stronger position.
THE HONGKONG' TELEGRAPH. SATURDAY, MAY 17, 1947.
THE PARKERS
"TIRED, DADDY,
This 'tomania
by HODGES
'tomania isn't
catching
ET us this week spend a few moments looking into the question of ballet, for there is, as you know, n' boom in ballet just now.
Moro people are going to see it than ever before. If you live in London you have the choice of four companies and in the provinces there are at least three more. Between them they get an audience of 10,000 every night, or 60,000 a week.
That's quite a lot of people. It's a pretty good who is in the home already is in the football match that draws 60.000.
-The story of Samson and De-
3- lah is true through all history;
twist the neck of his fragile wife The great brawny man, who could with one turn of his fist, in bent the round her little Anger under effect of the cosmic law of sex.
The moment she is married the
and sooner or later she will rise to her opportunity.
or four times
Some people go to the ballet three a week. They arc language and literature of their own.. called balletomanes and they have In pre-revolutionary Russia balleto- mania was an occupational disease among high-ranking generals,
A group of them clubbed together tinue through the wife to the next woman is in the superior position, once to buy a ballerina's slippers,
which they cooked and ate at a ban quet. Another general had the com- plaint so badly that he refused to cat of any piate that didn't have a bal- let dancer painted on it.
A wise woman lets her husband think that he is the muster. A man
La casily deluded, so long as he has good coffee for breakfast, a com- fortable bed at night, and his little creature comforts provided for.
SIDE GLANCES
who lets his Huppy is the man wife have her own way in the home, but who retains his individual vices of arrogance and superiority among the small fry in his club,
COPR, 184) BY NOT BEEPICE, "THE YM, BIOTEK’8. PAT, O
By Galbraith
"You're the one who's always saying women buy ex- pensive clothes to please mon-so why shouldn't i look at a nice costume like that?"
CLUES ACROSS
1. The stickler
may
Skeleton
pro-
vide an apt
end.
5. Father's
Just about a
Just
god in this
temple.
doesn't
make a liv
at
the
gome. The little brown fel
low leaves
the circle,
12. Park where
འ
god
10. H
11,
you'll and
oad
да
charac-
ter.
.14.
Your attempt at dice playing may be worth changing.
twist.
15. provides a hearty ac-
10:
18. Sounds.
10.
as if he might be a vin boy. from "Marlana.”
23. Things may be smoothed out
thereby.
24. I'm put in the position of hav-
ing obtruded.
25. Groom,
20. Push through a street shortly.
CLUES DOWN
2. Animal from the Icelandic
wasics.
3. Space for a real beginning, 4. Light entertainor ?
words).
Entrechat
Fouetté
BERNARD WICKSTEED
- las Fun Finding Out about Ballet -
At the age of ning children
can
a
For some reason a higher propor- They are given a new pair of shoes tion come from the Midlands than, every eight to 12 performances, but from anywhere else in Britain. There this is not enough and they have to seems to be a tradition of dancing buy three or four extra pairs there, just as there is of singing in month at ds. a pair. Wales.
Tights cost another three or four begin taking special examinations guineas and there's make-up on top designed for those who think they of that. are going to be professional ballet
I went to see Mr Arnold Haskell dancers. An average of 1,000 children
ten to ask about this. Mr Haskell writes their mothers have.
embryo ballet dancers. have noted that although all of them appear
to have mothers, there's no He said that big money goes hand evidence that any of them
have in hand with the system of building fathers.
up stars and wasn't encouraged in Not more than a few dozen of British ballet. Д these would-be professionals have
Well, Mr
Haskell ought to know what he's talking about. He has been studying ballet so long that like other experts, he can tell a dancer on sight, just by looking at her feet.
Rothschild To Reclaim Property
Baron Loula do Rothschild, head of the Austrian Roths-; childs, has roturned to Vienna to reclaim his property. Rob bed of everything he had by tho |Nazis, he will have an enormous
bill to submit.
Was Once
He was one of the richest men In Eumpe. Hisfortung estimated to
sterling.
equal £15,000,000
He was kidnapped by the Gestapo In 1938. His friends had previously warned him to, leave the country, but he had refused, saying that it would vet a bad example. He had barri- caded himself in his house.
When the Gestapo called and his servants were trembling with fright, he answered the door himself. "They have come for me," he told the ser vants, "It's all right, they do not want you. I am ready."
Sometimes he spots one opposite Jilm in a bus and says to himself: "Hullo, there's a ballet girl."
This question of ballet foot is one The Germans held him to a ran- that has caused
much concern in som of £2,000,000 and refused him dancing circles. Until recentlyony communication with the outside hundreds of little girla had their feet world. permanently ruined because their teachers made them dance 'on their toes when they were too young.
It is now known that no girl should dance on her toes till she's nine or ten, And even then she should do it by easy stages and un- der the care of an expert.
Do
you
They wanted his shares in the Wilkowitz iron works in Bohemia. which was doing important_arma- ment work for Britain and France. The Baron refused them,
60 Stoopless Hours The Nazis grilled him for hours. hours without They kept him 60 sleep. He was an elderly man but
he still refused to submit, like it?
So much for the set-up of ballet. Now, to be more personal: What do you think about it?
I have been asking people that question.
First of all for the people
who don't like It. Most of them seem to be men and here are some of their reasons:
"It's too effeminate." "I can't un- derstand
It." "I prefer my music
Ko round to the stage door of the a year have this delusion-at least books about ballet--and if you've straight, without being distracted by That's one of the odd things about read any of them you'll know where dancers." "I'd rather have Abbott
You don't think anything like that could happen in the "west?" Well, Royal Opera House at Covent Gar- den after a ballet and look at the British bobby-sox girls waiting for autographs.
Autograph pests
Observers
I've been getting so many of my facts.
and Costello. You can at least laugh at them."
And those in favour sald: "I forget my 15 stone and feel I'm dancing on air myself." "Ballet is just, the right length and you don't have to concen- THEATRE people say they're
worse pest than the stage-door the faintest chance of ever get in which dancing, musle, drama and
He said: "Ballet is a composite art entertainment today that
trate too long." "Ballet is the only Johnny of the nineties. The same job in ballet. The rest get married,
preserves the old illusion of the partners. Hiri will demand the same dancer's take up teaching, or go on the stage. painting are equal
theatre. Many fall out because they grow ballet as a whole is the thing, and Everything else has nutograph six nights a week twice on Saturdays.
too big. Ballet dancers must be be- good company is more
realistic." low average size or they will look than a solltery individual, huge on the stage. Five-foot six is the limit,
and
What do they do with all these
sell signatures? They
them. I don't know the current market price of Robert Helpmann's autograph, but in the right market it would fetel more than a Bernard Shaw.
Then there was the girl in the queue outside the Adelphi box office. She was waiting to get tickets for the International Ballet, and as she looked intelligent I spoke to her and asked why she went to ballet.
"Why do I go?" she said. “Oh, I couldn't liv
live without ballet."
How long has all this been going on? Well, the ballet boom in Eng land really began in 1933, when a Russian ballet went to the old Alhambra for three weeks' season in July, and stayed until- Novem-. ber,
Before that me ballet had been considered rather highbrow.
Fashionable
ONE of the principal dancers at
that Alhambra ballet was a girl
of 15 called Irina Baranova. She reminded every mother in the au- dience of her own daughter.
Expenses
musical comedy or the films.
dancers in
XIHAT happens to the fow whe very much less than
make the grade? They get paid
they do have certain
But other advan- tages, for they work all the year round and have no agent's fees to pay.
The
Important
A good balletomane, he said, does not groan when the principal dancer cannot appear. He's glad of the op- portunity of seeing what someone else can do in the part.
become
too
But the Baron de Rothschild won."
He threatened to attach the German funds on depoalt in England. It was playing Hitler at his own game and he succeeded. He was released, and broken, and sought refuge in England. Today he is an American citizen.
Under the draft Austrian treaty he can not only claim the restoration of his own property, but he can de- mand that Austria makes good the extensive damages it suffered.
MILD GOLD
RUSH IN
NICARAGUA
A minor gold rush is develop- Finally, there's a Harley-street ing in Nicaragua, with an area specialist I know of who goes every of 10,000 square miles on the night that he can because, aftermarket for exploration as the dealing with patients all day, finds it so restful to look at healthy chief bait for prospectors. young people moving about grace- fully,"
he
The Americans have brought the And that, I muy say, is very much star mentality to ballet, and in his like the reason I go myself. I don't opinion this is killing it over there. understand half of it, but in these Mr Haskell is one of those who days of difficulty It is such a relief to believe this is one of the reasons sit back and watch people doing that British ballet is already becom- something they really know how to ing an important export.
One of the world's most famous research centres,_the____British Museum Reading Room has been opened again.
55
do.
MILES OF BOOKS
AFTER extensive renovations.
and the repair of bomb-
If Baranova could be an inter-damage incurred during World national stor at 15 why not the War II the famous Reading daughter? So the boom spread from the box office to the dancing school. Today 18,000 British children take the annual examinations in ballet dancing set by the Royal Academy of Dancing. Many of them are only five years old when they start.
Crossword.
6. Specialist who sounds as if he has made a study of walking. 6. Disappeared among the big
ones.
7. A doctor begins to Jet his mind
wander.
B. In which you might expect to
And old geyser.
แก
0. Criteria by which flags are
judged?
13. River that might mark” tho
spot, we hear.
10. She's taken out of Adam. 17, Horses end as quite diferent
creatures.
20. Stepeated all the way in poetry.
21. The man to ask for money.
22. The Spartan loses the effect of
sunbathing.
To solve the Skeleton Crossword
you are required to fill in the black squares and cluo mumbers as well as the words. The black squares form a symmetrical de- sign, so that the top half is similar to the bottom half and one side is a reflection of the other. You can therefore fill in ten more black squares at once to correspond with those already given.
Now study the clue numbers. 18 Across must be a Ave-lotter word: the position of 20 Down Axed. So 10 Across must be the four-letter word on the marke line as 18 Acress. And it won't lake you long to doduco from that the positions of 10 Across and 17 Downi
As you solve the clue and fill in the words, you will find it possible
to bulld up the design.
LAST WEEK'S ROLUTION
•
Room of the British Museum, London, has been re-opened. Five million books, filling book- shelves 55 miles long, are at the disposal of anyone who has suc- ceeded in getting a reader's you ticket for the Reading Room of the British Museum, the world's largest library. Tickets are Issued free of charge and are not too difficult for the genuine reader to obtain.
BY EGON LARSEN
who has travelled all over Europe for the "New York Times" and worked in Prague as à journalist before settling down in England in 1938. He writes scripts for the British Broad- casting Corporation and for documentary films.
za number of German ex- of books, wilch he left to Britain,
is responsible. During Fope and Swift and a great collector
the plosive and incendiary bombs fell on and around the British Museum, ́A“
Engineers from the US are pour- ing into this small Central American country in a steady stream to look at the area, take samples and advise financial backers on
potential value.
تال
The sale price is estimated at about £300,000.
Called the Rio Coco concession, the territory includes the River Coco and all its tributaries in Northern Nicara gua.
Independent prospectors say it is a choice district, and includes "about" one-third of Nicaragua's gold terri- fory. About 50 smaller gold conces- sions are now being worked and sur- vered.
Chief Export
Although this country is known as a "banana republic," gold has become Its chief export. For the past three years gold fins amounted to one-half the country's total exports.
Engineers say the surface has only been scratched, and that important minerals have not yet been touched. The only problem in mining gold is the rising cost of equipment and la- mains pegged at £10 10 an ounce. bour, while the value of
of gold re-
The Nicaraguan method of hand-
may be sure that the most London: Sir Robert Cotton, an anti-ling the Rio Coco concession salt is valuable publications of the world's quarian who was imprisoned in 1620 an example of the country's amaz
way
of doing business, crature and all important refer- because his librarian had lent to a ing enco books are available.
render political treatise; and Robert Gen. Anastasio Somoza, Nicara- The gaps which you may discover Harley, first Earl of Oxford, a dis- gua's boss for the past 10 years was are probably those for which the tinguished statesman, the friend of advised that Rio Coco should be de- veloped for gold. He gave the con- cession to his brother-in-law. Dr Lula Manuel de Boyle, former Minis- Since then, royal collections made ter to the US. The Reading Room is an enormous, large number of volumes were des- by successive English sovereigns Somoza asked his obedient Con- demed, round hall with innumerable troyed, and the historical Reading from the time of Henry VII were gress to adopt an Act transferring the comfortable seats and desks and Room damaged. So the "habitues" added; entire libraries or single concession to Bayle. lamps. Books are issued ut counters had to move out, into the smaller, valuable volumes were cold, be- in the centre, and the whole retunda but more modern hall of the North Quested, or
lined with reference books--a library in itself large enough to offer Library. Only now the big Reading Museum.
Room has been repaired and rai on opened.
Is
+ *
you information on any subject earth. Yet this is only the facade.
presented to
to the British
Museum, Small wonder that for the last 200 years many famous men of letters, British and foreign writers. politicians, and philosophers, have their books and essays in the Read-
Room.
Behind the scenes, connected through The most precious possessions, done their research work or written
an elaborate modern mechanism of however,
had been taken to safe
Sir
itts, trolleys, and convoyer belts, is hide-outs at the beginning of the in Walter Scott had his customary the wealth of literature collected war, among them the famous col- from every corner of the earth, in lection of manuscripts £50,000 place at this desic, Charles Darwin every living or dead language.
worth of them. They include
to work at another; .Thomas gems as the "Codex Binalticus",
Carlyle would dig himself in at his
Paris
used
One hundred years ago. a Copyright rare editions of Thomas Kourite spot, behind a wall of his- Act was introduced in Britain "De Imitatione Christ!", the first torical works. The Hungarian rebel, obliging everyone who publishes any books printed for the
Sorbonne Ludwig Kossuth (who described printed book, music book, pamphlet, in 1470, an English psalter of the himself as "late governor of Hun- or geographical map to send one 12th century, the charters of the gary in the visitors' book), came to copy of it to the British Museum. Saxon Kings (written in gold the Reading Room in the same year Within this century, therefore, moun letters), carly MS. copies of the filas as his German co-exile, the Socialist. tains of publications have thus ac- and Odyssey, a papyrus MS. of leader, Edward Lasker; here Isane cumulated, the greater part of them. Aristotles "On the Constitution of Disraeli collected the material for however, without
any literary or in- Athens", more than 2,700 other
his "Curiosities of Literature" in 10 formative value. When during World Greek and Latin papyrus MSS.; and, years of research work, and when War II the nation's waste paper was lost, but not least, the oldest docu-
his son,
Benjamin, afterwards Bri- collected for the munition factories ment of the Library: a letter tablet of tain's famous statesman, was 16 he most of this superfluous literature Egypt's King Amenhotep III, written was introduced to the British Museum was sent to the paper-mills.
in 1400 B.C.
Reading Room by his father. Per- Although good many foreign In spite of these ancient treasures haps Lord Beaconsfeld: (as Disraeli publishers have made it a habit to the Library is relatively modern, became) met here his future oppon send one copy of every valuable. On January 15, 1760, the first Read- ent, Gladstone, who also ed the publication to the British Museum, ing Room of the and consider it an honour that their had its nucleus in a private collection,
Museum
(which Reading Room...
Charles Dickens and David Hume,' books are going to be kept there, the of exhibits purchased for Britain" Browning and Irving: Ruskin and Library Director has to buy many in 1763) was opened. The Library Thackeray, Mackaulay and Meredith more works for the Museum in other consisted mainly of the collections of there is hardly a name from the countries. So although you don't two men who had both been, at index of English literature of find in the British, Museum every different times and for different 10th century that cannot be found in book that has ever been printed, reasons, prisoners in the Tower of the list of readers.
20
e
THE MODERN
POETS
EVENING
Pears from the boughs hung.
golden,
The street lay still and cool, Children with books and
satchels
Came sauntering home from
school;
The dusk fled slowly inwards Across, cach darkening zil, The whole sweet-autumn
slumbered,
The street lay cool, and still, The children moved through
twilight,
The village steeple gloomed, Pears from their boughs -hunty
trambling
And suddenly it seemed Shaken with such a wildness Of terror, and desire, My heart burst into music And my body into fire,
Frederic Prokosch