THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH,
SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1948.
પાયર થઇ
Chapman Pincher
THE PINCHER household comprises (besides a wiie and baby) a dog, len goldfish, a parrot and six hens. But the Pincher approach to the house- hold gods is perhaps a lille unusual....
*N,,overy · flock of chickeng
T
there is a social order ranging from the recognised top-bird to one which in looked upon by the rest as the lowest thing that clucks.
The top chicken asserts-its aupe- iority from time to time by pecking ull the others, which show their respect by moving out of beak rench or accepting the peck without re- Inliation.
Next to the top chicken la anc which pecks all the rest except the despot. And so the social senle descends to the bottom, whero re- sides a chicken which is pecked by all, and peeks none.
WHO
The boss bird HO shall boss whom is decided almost from the first monent two chickens meet. Sometimes there is a short scuffle, and one bird retreats, algnifying its acceptance of domination by the other.
But usually the business is settled In more gentlemanly way: 000 chleken automatically gives way and it has agreed to the other knows submit permanently. The boss bird may clinch the deal to its satisfac- tion by giving a token peck, or the whole thing may go through without any apparent ceremony.
What goes on in a chicken's mind before il submils? Does it check the size and vigour of its run-malo own courage? Does. It against its decide to submit because it just can't be bothered to fight at the time?
We do not know the answers to these questions, and it is inost dimcult to guess them. For it is not always the bigger and stranger bird Very often
which becomes the boss.
1 submits without a struggle to an obviously weaker speelmen.
In the hen-run, as in the Services, If one of two birds seniority tells.
JESTS AND JEERS
Macno at the moment seems to be just full of golden opportunities.
a
Many a reputed bridge expert has turned unt to bu just good engineer,
wife
is
0
Sometimes a man marries a mate only to discover his skipper.
Those who And it diffleult to live within their means may be com- forted by the knowledge that there are others who find it equally hard to live within their credit.
Overheard:
"Is she s pretty as she used to be?"
"Oh yes, but it takes her much longer now."
about
the
no doubt about who pecked whom in a particular encounter. A large number of watches must be kept over several weeks to get sumelcit results for accurate analysis.
birds or no Usually the top ten are firmly fixed on the social ladder. They know their places and they keep them. But sometimes there nte minor revolutions among lower orders, and a bird may go up or down a few rungs, though na rule only temporarily.
House!
beginning
with
HENS
is Immature and the other fully de- veloped, then the older bird usually
dominates. This state of affairs persists even If the younger chloken
perhaps belonging breed-becomes a stronger and finer specimen than its master.
to a heavier
The ability to bluff-also a Ser- vice quality is a great asset in the hen-run. The. chicken which puts up a big show of squawking and
often lords it threatening
per manently over birds which could un- doubtedly beat it up if it came to a serious Aght.
Hen-peched
RIGHT colours help in this bluf- Ang business. The cock birds of those poultry breeds where males are much gaudier than
seem to find It easier females
nvold bring ben-pecked.
·
the
the
to
arc
And cock birds sometimes hen-pecked. A male bird in a flock
the
As in most soclelles, there are freak cases. Careful watch may show that the obvious top bird is regularly pecked by one of the lowest fowls in the run. This odd state of affairs seems to date to a day when the bully bird was off colour and happened to the \make its first contact with
lowly chicken.
Not feeling like a fight on such an occasion, it may have sheered off, leaving the other bird with a
which en- psychological advantage dured. decide on a show-down later,
Of course, the top bird may
but this rarely seems to happen.
Social climbers THOUGH a chicken stands a good chance of getting a nasty prod in the eye by making up to a fowl above it in the social scale, it prefers to risk this rather than mix with inferior birds.
Chickens high in the pecking or- der definitely have more social con- tacts than lower-class birds.
When two cockerels from a mixed flock were put in separate wire cages, hens almost invariably sidled up to the bird with the higher social position. But other cockerels put in the run usually tried to make friends with the under-bird
n
chicken society lender falls sick, or in some other way losea caste, it may be unseated. Then it suffers the usuni fate of tyrants. The other birds shun it socially, and may peck it to death.
INCIDENTALLY.......
HENS can see colours and like of hens is usually the boss, but care- red but hate blue....They are blind ful observation of some flocks shows in the twilight, which is why they the cockerel to be near the bottom go to roost so early....Experts can tell a hen's age by its feathers.... of the pecking order.
Hens have no sense of smell. It kept in a dark room littered with food they wouldn't know there was any there and would die of starva- tion...As for my own hens, this year's egg output is 4.8 eggs per day from six birds....
To discover the peck order, obser- vation has to be careful and pro- longed. marked with different coloured rings on their legs so that there can be
The chickens must be
I'm Pretty Tired Of Paying Twice
By James Cameron
TNTIL they reintroduce the A rational society would consider hungman there are few more schoolmastering pn occupation worth lacerating interviews any man paying at least us much for as, say, can have, right now, than that with
a dealer in horseflesh. his child's future schoolmasier. As things are, he has to Aght for like a dentist's appointment it is tough to get and tougher enjoy.
still
to
One of the more farcical para- doxes of this bewildered age is the so-entled school problem,
A rational society would not con- done the extortion of sucker-money from well-intentioned but socially
timid papas by enterprising and successful pedagogues.
A rational society-but there, idle dreams.
For myself, I am lucky;. I have A rational society-perhaps this only three children, that is to say shall have to tell on only for оле, пру generation now--would about another Afteen years before nol tolerate a situation where a man the last of them is ready to scratch In the mean- has to struggle and enjole and invoke a living for
himself. the names of better-off acquaintan- time the twin obligations remain: ces in order to manoeuvre his child to pin down a school prepared to into an institution of which, in his make brain-fodder of any such prob heart, he does not much approve anyway.
A rational society would provide enough schools, good
everyone.
schools, for
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lematical risk as a son of mine, and to pay for it, at the average cost of £200 per year per brain.
THIS
I
+
HIS is, of course, senseless,
have no right to do it, As socially conscious member of my community I should reulst this silly convention that a child has to wear a graceless enp and a foolish tie lo prepare himself for, say, selling insurance or digging drains.
There is no end to that argument. There are schools et hand which cost nothing, which are as likely to turn outs purses from sows ears as (say) Eton. If everybody thought 10.
From
"My boy-those romarks about women, their extraordinary silent courago, without which tho country could not exist and all that-don't tell your mother."
the
News Cameraman's
The job of the news-cameraman is even more fascinating than that of the reporter, says GEOFFREY JENKINS of the Rhodesia Herald, who describes his adventures in Britain with some of these men, who will go to almost any lengths to get an unusual 'angle' or a 'scoop'
Angle
In the breeze.
impression was not so much of the sea, but of a junk-yarı, for there are masts, super- structures, wreckage, and frag. ments of ships everywhere. There wns only a slight ca
chimney was a length of ordinary running, but, the lifeboat bob gutter down-piping, swaying slightly 'bed like a cork. Presently we were along the Silvia Onorato. It was amazing to see the EVERAL months ago, I Churchill return from Morocco; steel plates twisted like card- described my impressions from a sunken ship in the river
hoard. I scrambled aboard, but of the world's largest Tees to Princess Elizabeth and
I did not stay long, since the newspaper office about the Prince Philip at Buckingham picture of a wercked ship, after handling of news inside that
the sen had broken over it for office. But now I want to tell
a week, was not very pleasant. I have had some you something of the comple-
exciting They told me that Fred and mentary side, the garnering moments, as well. I have even his men had stood by the Silvia of news from the highways hung out of an open window for twenty hours, in gigantic and byways.
in a plane as it swooped over sens, before they were able to
Polace.
a Russian grain ship off the rescue the crew.
Nore. But even this pales be-
IT
Very Cold
was clear but very cold as we left the Silvia, and away to the two schooners were
I think ‘garnering' is the right word, because newe is like wheat; it is harvested by one side the adventures of the men get of workers and then-if I with whom I travelled. may pursue the simile-it is One of them. Stanley Devan north-east treated in the granary by an- (who, incidentally, covered the among the ships going down the royal tour in Rhodesia and Channel. Thinking of my history, South Africa), was the first 1 remembered that it was just here Admiral Van cameraman to fly round the that Blake defeated
Tromp, and tied a broom to his mast world, and he is one of the head to show he had swept ̄finest ̈nerial ̈ ̄ photographers in Dutch from the, seas."
Fleet Street. Recently, he made
An aerial photograph of the rellef, by a helicopter, of Wolf Rock lehthouse, off Land's End -a picture that made history
picture history by photograph Ing the relief, by a helicopter, of Wolf Rock lighthouse, off, Land's End.
Thrilling Trip
A word more on Deal. I
the
Was
istening, that evening, over a glass of French cognac, to Ashermen's tales in an old-world tavern when a tall, husky fellow in a naval duffle coat snid: 'You'll find the Goodwins in Shakespeare, you know -Merchant of Venter, and he quo-
MY most thrilling trip was ted: 'Antonia hath a ship of rich
when I went out in a lifeboat lading wrecked on the narrow sens; to the Goodwin Sands to a the Goodwins, I think they call the place: a very dangerous flat, fatal, wreck. Perhaps you know that where the carcasses of many a tall none but the lifeboat crew go ship lic buried. out, and observers and press- men are not allowed on rescue able to go round the film studios at Denham, Gainsborough, and Pine- occasions. However, it was wood, and to be on the set during
have been fortunate in being
the actual shooting of Alms. If you arranged that a cameraman
were to ask The my over-all and I should be treated to a Impressions, I would say: 'No special launch, and go out with glamour, only a great deal of hard!
work.
the Deal lifeboat to most of the wrecks on the Goodwins, par- other set. And news-gathering ticularly the Italian vessel has this also in common with Silvia Onorato, which had gone whent: you often find that you aground a week previously. reap where you have not sown
values you can duck them, combat-and that is generally the Before I tell you
But if you live in a world of false
them, but your descendants have a right to learn the right weapons to fight them with, too.
child's future.
no
the
of the
Film Work
an
Оп another occasion, I went to Buckinghamshire to seo something which was far from an illusion- rows of six-inch shells stacked by the roadside, rusting aways, where they had been left during the war There was dump after dump, and the cameraman and I laughed at the so-called 'fire precaution service': beside a pile of sheils suficient to sink n cruiser, were two, brooms,
with
oilskin, and two bound fire-buckets in a rack. A stirrup-
to put out pump
the fire London would have been just as appropriate! Actually, the story was a fullure, as no one at about seemed to the farms round care a lot whether or not the shells went off or just rusted into dust.
You probably know that
do photographer will alnost any→ thing to get an unusual angle.' My such 'angle' was experience of one
of
far
A
a
from pleasant.
Spoulsh tiamp
steamer, the San Nicholas, from the river was being salvaged Tees, NË Middlesbrough. From 5 photographer's point of view it was just a routine series of pictures, but over the Tees at that point is the Transporter Bridge-several hundred fect high-from the top of which is suspended a cradle which carries passengers and cars.
We were taking same last pletures, when my colleague looked up at the bridge and sald: There's our pleture.
on Let's climb top.' Up
A pigeon on the firaš siroke of its flight, its wings"touching under it
above the water, camera focusing, lighting, sound,
and
and up a narrow steel ladder wo went, and then, hundreds of feet walked across a narrow cat-walk, while the whole structure swayed as the cradic rattled across!
T Gainsborough, they were shoot- In the last scenes of The Blind Goddess, the stars of which are Michael Dennison and Clare Bloom I was surprised at all the troubic they take about things which seem news which hits the headlines! launch, I must introduce the to the visitor to have no importance whatsoever-even the principals cox, Fred Upton-a fisherman, footmarks are chalked in, and they In Fleet Street, I have been with greying hair, in a blue must move exactly according to So countless men of good will going about with the news recfer jacket and a peaked cap, must act, they must
these marks. They must turn, they with bright-faced babes are forced cameramen, whose job is even and with one
move strictly Into a decision which is painful to
of the most according to plan-all to it in with the pocket, to the sociological con-
more fascinating than the re- humorous smiles I have known. and a host of technicalities which victions, indeed to common sense.
porter's, for the public relles
mean nothing to the outsider. And The declslon has to be made оп on them for the unusual, the Fred Upton's own bravery all this must be done in front of on the final principle that
camera-crew, electrical army of papa, new 'angle,' the picture of an and skill are all but a legend in arm however self-righteous, Itha
engineers, sound engineers, right to play penny-ante with his event which reaches the front Deal, and the crew are all the 'props men, not to mention the
I was fortunnie in being with the page, not only in Fleet Street same type--brave, having little director and producer.
camerdman who took one of the The same short scene probably but throughout the world. It to sny of their rescues, cheer- does not last more than two or three
pictures of the year-In 1948 so far, that is. You may have seen it, for is not only a question of how ful and friendly. -
minutes, and is shot Ave or alx Umes
It aroused much interest. Wo OF all periods in mankind's his quickly these men can press the
running at the whim of the
photographed a pigeon on the first tory this the darnedest one
stars do it, I producer. How the
stroko The actual launching of the cannot Imagine, or how they can
of its flight, on the conscience,
the wings camera button, but how soon
touching under its body and bulging from their emotions they can be on the spot, and lifeboat is a thrill; there is no pick up
with the pressure of the alr, and its Soon, vory 5000 we hope, the
head wholly enveloped by its wings.. parents' conillet will bu resolved achieve that ambition of every slipway at Deal, only greased previous scene, which acen shot weeks before.
action it was because the Inequalities no longer newspaperman-the 'scoop." railway sleepers, loose in the It was interesting at Pinewood For concentrated exist you will get no advantages
sand. I was standing on deck Attenborough at work in an open-air
Studios to
Richard unparalleled. from either Harrow or Harley- During my stay with them, I
when the pin was knocked out scene they call it being 'on lot'- have been out to see many But the transition period puta a things-from a kidnapped baby of a heavy chain holding the which had been built to resemble a
the principles, to a surrealist art-school; from stern, and we shot down the London street. From the front, It may be a murder, it may be a film
was perfect: the shops, the railway film star's
to sleepers like an express train bridge, the garage, pedestrians and wedding
caro coming and going, and to the New World, must pay twice Becher's Brook at the Grand and into the water with
tenements and gas-works in the for everything once because they National; from a dog which tremendous splash.
background. I had a shock when I have to, twice because, until the
Milos out wears a mink coat, and has its
at sen,
on the went behind, however, for there the the millennium, they daren't take
'houses' were just a few pleces of nails manicured, to seeing Mr fatal Goodwins themselves, my wood and plaster, the gas-works
street.
fabulous strain on
not to mention the pocketbook. Par- ticularly as those not yet adjusted
risks.
watch
n
may have
מם
every
- From every conceivable place and these possible occasion, harvesters of newa go out to reap~*~
star's wedding, it may be flying over the North Pole, it may be a new flah of the Zoo. I have been with the men who see the angle and the picture in a flash, as quickly as they press the shutter, and I have found these moments to be among the most exciting of my career,