FROM HERE AND THERE:
Weathermen Watch The Caterpillar
NEW YORK.-A group of New York scientists is making a five-year test to see if grandpa's methods of forecasting weather were more accurate than science's. of Fifty years ago New Yorkers predicted what kind
brown and winter they would have by the way the black bands on the back of the woolly pear caterpillar ran. Brown meant mild weather, black severe; and the Their records head meant December, the tail March.
so far show the woolly pear to be 100 percent correct.
NO MORE CRIME COMICS? OTTAWA! The crime comic book, which has become an integral part of the life of most Canadian chil- dren, may disappear. A private Bill, which would abolish, crime comics, has been introduced into Parliament, and church and educational groups throughout Canada have condemned -crime comic books as able to contribute to juvenile delinquency.
SHOE-SHINE BOY.
NEW YORK: Until recently Rick Brown, a 21 year-old Negro, shined shoes in Chicago. Then a customer became fascinated with the chant he used while polishing and hired him to chant outside the nightclub he owned. Then the handleader who played inside the nightclub heard the chant and asked Rick to come inside and make a gramophone re- cord. Today the recording company 16 rushing out the почета in the bellef that they have discovered the greatest swing singer In years.
FISHY STORY
ROME: Venice shopkeeper Fauste off Bianchi, fishing from a bout Burano with a girl friend, caught a fish. Before he could haul it in seagull swept down and swallowed the fish and hook. At the stume time another gull attacked Fausto and his girl, pecking them flereely. Finally the boat overturned, and the Mer- were friend chant of Venice and rescued just in time by another
Dshing boat.
MEN'S CLOTHES GO GAY
at least an inch longer to give that tall look. Trousers will be floppy. And in sports clothes, what the trade calls the personalised jacket" will make its first appearance. carry pocket.
It wil
a monogram over the breast
SERUM FOR CATS
WASHINGTON: Distressed by re- ports from England that there is an epidemic of the among cats, tho American Feline Society has flown over 300 cable centimetres of a new serum to end the epidemic.
ESKIMO YES-MEN
OTTAWA.---Canada's 8,000 Eskimos are to be allowed to go on getting married by mutual consent, without Terri- formalities. The North-West torien Council, which rules 1,200,000 control square miles by remote from. Ottawa, asked the Federal Justice Department to bring the ter ritories inws up to date. To do this thoroughly, said the Inwyers, while man's wedding ceremony would have to be made compulsory. for The council thought it over months-and decided to leave things real insist they are. To
all weddinga
post would make "marrluges" illegal.
113
on
"ENTER MOSCOW"
the
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH; SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1949.
UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
DAB and FLOUNDER
by Walter
Sir Patrick Hastings
Hid His Face
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY A year or so later, the man turned OF SIR PATRICK HAST- INGS. Heinemann, 158. 302 pages.
S
OON after he was called to the Bar, Patrick Hastings, pertinacious, poor and devilled for a barrister named Gill, skilled in securing acquit tals where the charge was in- discretion in a public park.
Walking through Hyde Park onc evening with Smeed, Gill's clerk, brilliant Hastings
upon came
new electric light standard. "Do sald that beastly Hght?" you see Smeed gloomily, "When the author- ties put it up here, it cost Mr Gl £2,000 a year."
-has,
Hastinga
universal by opinion..one of the charpest wits in the trade. It has not always saved him from discomature. Once he unsuccessfully defended a man who got n 12 months sentence at the Old Balley. Hastings and his client parted with strong mutual distaste,
up as a witness against Hastings, and was plainly bent on being him: Hastings warned offensive. "You will not answer like that if you take my advice."
"I once took your advice," retarted "The result was that the witness. I went to prison for 12 months."
There is no joy in the courts like.
when an advocatu that arising comes off second best.
At one
worked
time Hastings closely with a solicitor who defended Insurance companies against fraudu. ient claims.
In one, a man had fallen from a ladder and, in consequence, become a hopeless imbecile. So piliful was his state that he carried about large dolls, to which he talked incessantly.,
An Insurance
LIBRARY LIST
GEORGE MALCOLM THOMSON reviews the NEW BOOKS
thr
THE TONGUE-TIED CANARY, By Nicolas Benitoy.. Michael Josepli, ds. 6d. 125 paɛEL tries on the mantle of BUR
adding a few flounces from Peter Cheyney. Itis mory of mystery, danger
Lite and pursuit hap requisita nerve-traying, quailty
THE SILVER BOŊGn By Nati M. Gunn. Faber and Faber, De Mil $28 pages. A beautifully told tale of archeologient searen in
ATE SPLENDOUR By Michael Sadtoir. Constable, un, nd. 506 pages. Re-tisue of the full- blooded melodrama in which a wicked old woman arul a painted earl play their scandalous Darts
"THE PEARL by John Steinbeck, Heinemann, 6S, D7 Dages. A brief of a Mexican pear; Bahor who found the most wonderful pearl 3 the sens and was glad to throw it bad for 68, is too expensive.
micals. Twenty-six thousandi
Atle later, he was photo- graphed emerging unsteadily from n public-house two miles away. The dolls dangled from his pocket. was studying a racing paper.
He
to Decide, this remarkable harridan- in killed off by page 40, and all is dross that is not Helena.
*
For who are left?
1.--Helena's frizzling stepson Cloud, a stick if ever there was ono."" Does he really love Ellen, the sharp- tongued girl- trom the Board of Trade? I don't believe it and most people won't care.
Claud an art-fancler, as his name would imply. He gazes en Ellen with the dawning passion of a suspicious dealer confronted by a doubtful Vormeor. She responds to his advance with the acidulated ardour of a departmental sub- committee.
is
Somewhat less of an leeberg Somewh
Helena's daughter Charralan, (2). self-appointed, martyr-wife to Evan, a bad boy who runs after women so long as Charmian loves him and takes to the bottle nå coon as she stopa
3-Johnny Field, Helena's erst- while platonic boy-friend, who gets himself and Evan into clinkt over a company, which was paying compensation, remained
molor-car racket, and a good job,
The best you brutally sceptical. A frial visit to
can say for After working some
years for too, The very little Harley Street was arranged.
money, Hastings sud- Johnny is that he is so sluglike ho Junatic WILD poor
photographed
He got makes even Claud seem vertebrate. leaving the doctor's house, in tears denly got a fee of £400. and clasping the dolls to his bosom.because a barrister named Hart could not appear in court-and Hastings was the next name on the list.
MR CLAUD MULLINS, FORMER LONDON MAGISTRATE, GIVES HIS VERDICT ON-
A BOOK
OF COURT CASES
MY COURT CASEBOOK, crimes were
detected. by Marice Wiggin, Sylvan Press, 10/6. 224 pages.
IT
would be interesting to CAPE TOWN,-Sam Kahn.' South read a report by a psychin- Africa's first Communist M.P., had trist explaining why so many only one sponsor for his swearing-in law-abiding people enjoy read- by the Speaker recently, The neces sary second one, a Smuts man. Intering reports of criminal cases offered himself
common evening by evening. Is it that decency." The three walked up the in this way people can give Chamber to cries of "Enter Moscow."
harmless exercise to their own unconscious criminal ten- dencies? King Lear declaimed to Kent:
BLACK SCHOOLS
NAIROBI-Indlan members of the Kenya Legislative Council have unearthed a "black education. Some teachers deliberately marks, and then rive pupils low
with offers of approach parents private tuition for big fees."
market" in
NEW YORK: The "New Look" for the poor American male is about to be unveiled. Apparently the 1949 styles will make him look bolder, faller, more colourful, more natural, more sleek, and more comfortable all at the same time. All the empha- sis is on colour. We are going to put women in their place at last, one designer told me. There will be plenty of pastel shades, specially for
COSTLY BET alucks, burgundy and royal blue in- atcat of the traditional greys and browns, and for the darlig, even JOHANNESBURG-Gill Mdazala, yellow. The lounge sult is radically 29-year-old African, won a £1 bet The coats will by drinking a bottle of neat brandy changed in design.
sitting. The next day he have square shoulders and they will at one not to sugly. And they will be 'died.
Tremble, thon wretch, thou hast within thee undivulged crince, un whipp'd of justice. According to the teaching of the psychiatrists, we all have "close pent-up guilts," to quote Lear again. Freud believed that we work off these unconscious criminal ten dencies in our dreams,
But if it may be that newspaper
rellef similar
by renders obtain reading of the errors of others, who were less fortunate in that their
I
The fee was paid for going down io Maldstone, sitting silent in court with a high fever and a fore sleeply coated in Fuller's earth to hide the ravages of chickenpox. Luckily, the granit Jury threw out the bill and Hostings went back to bed,
and with many both committed
of real types of enses
laborious with those
'An uncritical-reader of this lively gravity, or hearings when accused persons have book might come to the conclusion to be committed for trial at the that Sir Patrick's БЦСССЅЅ Нач higher courts. Nor are there in the depended almost entirely in helpful book any wearisome cases of friends and generous colleagues. branches of controls; nor many Those who read between the lines trae summonses.
11 I confess that when I was
almost Metropolitan magistrate
reports of never read newspaper
To do no crimes and peccadillocs.
I had, in was too much like work. my day's Inbours enough of the errors of other people. But now that Mr Maurice Wingin, the author of descriptions of almost countless cases in criminal courts that were engerly read by a home-going public, hun made them into a book, I readily smiled, I have rend, admit that laughed and enjoyed.
The author's alm was, in his own words, "to pass
second- on at hand something of the comedy and "His rich drama" of Magistrates' Courts. The publishers comment on sense of character and portraiture, combined "with his Renerous tolerance and keen understanding of unhappy men and women." This is well deserved.
But
readers. while
are fully Justified in enjoying the cased set qut in this book, they should not accept them as typical of a day's Mr work in a Magistrates' Court,
and for comedy Wiggin's search drama precluded him from dealing
VIGNETTES OF LIFE
"YOU SHOULD HAVE BOUGHT A STIFFER FREEZER THESE THINGS ARENO GOOD FILLO BIGS, CAN'T GET |
PARTS. AND THE CONDENSERS DON'T STAND UP UNDER EVERY
DAY USE...
writer.
will resist this too hasty opinion.
pages.
What men! What women! What a world of tepid self-indulgence and raging self-plly! How little we care Inhabitantr happens to its what (although it would be nice if some- strangled Evan's awful body mother)..
And what
Pamela a pity that Hanford Johnson's talent should ba For she spent on such creatures! has personality. gifts; she is one of the hopes of our wilting fiction. Sho has already reached the front rank of Les Girls of the English novel
Where are Les Boys? Teil ma that, somebody.
It will be good thing if she creates some new rich, flamboyant, fruity character, somebody on the largest scale. Miss Hansford John- son is at her happiest designing for
the outsize figure.
A SUMMER TO DECIDE. Mr Wintin is a good descriptive By Pamela Hansford Johnson. Thus: "When Spencer left Michael Joseph. 10s. 6d. 382 Preston in the early hours, a mess. ago flashed ahead of him, just nz It does ahead of ambassadors, andILL somebody kindly and a Strong, Methuen, 10s. 6d. 341 there was a recentlon party waiting Wuitable
theme for Pamela for him when his train panted into Hansford Johnson? Euston at 6.0 a.m."
There is an introductory chapter She is on alert, witty, Roo!- that reveals Mr Wiggin's limitations, mauured novelist who never thrusts He is to impressed with the Metro-her personality between her charac- politan magistrates and deservedly ters and the public. She has an eye so that he belittles the lay justices, for human idiosyncrasy and a heart who do most magisterial work. He ready to athe in sympathy with tiro
"professional magis twisted fates of men and women. DSSames that
trained in all their trates" are
She They are trained to conduct
'can handle a good strong work. fair trials, and that is a great asset, theme as well as most people in the
In An Avenue of Stone but are they trained to pass wise business. sentences? Mr Wiggin should read she did very nicely with Helena,
vulgar.
insufferable Uie latest book of Mr Leo Pago- old,
and charming. In its sequel, A Summer The Sentence of the Court.
TREVANNION. By L. A. G.
pages.
PREVANNION is a seedy rascal
and a figure sequence in the Dycer's Bay.
of dubleua con- seaside town of
Strong might have made him a comle character in a good tradition. At first
It seems he will especially when Trevannion launches la matrimonial offensive against
Balgormon, and Miss
when Mr Antrim, a sumier rogue, looms up. Instead, Strong opts for tragedy and sentiment. Everything heads straight for a highly moral ending.
“Don't You Just Love 'em?”
BY KEMP STARRETT
#
* YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE IT THAT WAY.....IT WON'T HOLD FOR A WEEK. NOW THE RIGHT
WAY IS.
• ETC.
CLONA "THERE!
YOU SEE?"
THOSE BOYS WHO KNOW ALL ABOUT MECHANICAL THINGS" AND PROCEED TO LET YOU KNOW WHAT A DOPE YOU ARE ...
HELLO. SKINNEY!"
H'YA,
FREDS
HAVEN'T
SEEN YOU IN A DOGC
THE PLUMP LADS WHO
ARE CO
DARN PROUD OF THEIR
FAT
Ledger Syndicate】
THE ONES WHO INCICT UPON TELLING YOU ALL ABOUT THEIR FAVORITE PROGRAMS...WHILE” YOU ARE TRYING TO LISTEN TO ONE OF YOURS....WHICH THEY ASKED TO HEAR.
DEAR 11b/
I WOULDAT -HAVE AW
TO MY CAT.
HE
ROPERATED CZY
MRC.
HOLLY
THE LADE WHO MAKE AN ATHLETIC EVENT OUT OF SHAKING HANDS.
"THE ONES WHO TELL YOU ABOUT ALL THE FATAL
·JAKTAKES YOUR PET SPECIALIST HAS MADE.
THE ONES WHO PARK THEIR BUTTES
AND DRINKS O YOUR BRAND NEW
PIANO.
THE NEIGHBOR WHO KNOWS EVERY- THING ABOUT EVERYTHING POINTS OUT! ALL THE MISTAKES YOU MADE FIXING ACHAIR, AND JUST HOW YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE IT...RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR WIFE
*RO, THANKS" / I DETECT CHICKEN...JUST THE VEGET
ABLES. PLEASE,
EXCERT
THE BEAUC
AID
CAULIFLOWER
THEN THERE ARE! TUOSE "HOREST' YOLKS WHO TELL THE
TRUTS AT ALL COUS.
"THE HEARTY
ILADS, WHO
TELL YOU HOW TO BUCK-UP.
CHEER UP, CHARLEY? ITS ALL
́IN YOUR AUND ...
WHEN YOU
FEEL LIKE
THE UNDER
SIDE OF AN
OLD BOARD.