They called it
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, -- SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7, - 1950.
women's freedom
OF A PORTRAIT
TURKISH FAMILY. Ir- fan Orga. (Gollancz, 16x) 303 pages.
URKEY has changed within one generation, perhaps more than any other country. To see those changes taking place in a middle-class Turkish family, in the lifetime of n boy born in Istanbul in 1908, is fascinating, even though this is a unive and particularly well not written book.
women's
MARGARET LARE reviews this week's NEW BOOKS
Oriental world which did noth- ing to help them?
on
IRFAN ORCA. born Istanbul; educated at Military College; aimed commitníon with Turkish Air Foter 1047; now tiving, in London,
VINDICATION
OF RUS- KIN, J. Howard White- house. (Allen and Unwin, 10s.) 64 pages.
E more I read about Rus- kin the sorrier I feel for
Emancipation was thrust them, whether they like to him. Fame has played him an not. They sold the few jewels that hat escaped the fire, went y trick, for now. Instead of to live in two sordid rooms, and caring about his work in edu Irfan's mother-only after nine years of marriage went to work in a factory.
proshute
20
ention, social reform and
Art.
verterity is chiefly interested in post-mortema oo his marriage.
Ruskin married the beautiful Faring the hardships of
her Enle Gray in 1848. For reasons new life with
unexpected which we can never know for Irfan Orga's mother was a
she abandoned the
certain (though Mr Quonnell in veiled Turkish lucly of the old courage,
vell, even though the
was his recent blography offered the type, married nl thirteen and
stoned in the streets asikellest theory) the marringe living in total reclusion, as be-
for ikla
of plece Life for the effrontery.
was never consummated. It be- filted her class.
Her sons were sent H little boy was centred in the
came, as one would expect, bit- to a charity school and the ter and unhappy. Six years quarters and in the mother and grandmother lived later the marriage was onnul
his grand- weekly visit with
Jed, htt Eme morried the mother to the hamman, the chiefly on quarrelling and cab-
bage soup.
painter Millais, with whom she luxurious public baths in which
had fallen in love. lovel to well-to-do women spend the day, being scrubbed by servants, lolling about In the steam, anointing themselves ols and eating with scented enormous meals.
It was a hard life, and often nukes painful reading. One is constantly amazed, as her chil. dren were, that A WOLTER Those meals! Turkish life in delteately and helplessly nor
tured could make such those days was obsessed with Icod, with perpetual meals of fant struggle for survival
Post-war Turkey, where hard- the most elaying and destructive
ships and the new regime show- fort. Every domestic occasin was celebrated with mountains e no mercy to the sort of life
eatables; the hnd always known.
In
Ruskin himself Inter became passionately tufafunted with an Irish girl, Rose La Touche, When she was only a child, and if was Elle Millais's bitter let- ter lo Mrs La Touche, warning her against Ruskin's "cruelty,"
eventually
which
their marriage.
prevented
Sir
Itallan Workers For EritainTM
Among recent arrivals in London aro 45 girls from Milan, Italy, who are
to work in British textile factories, Bere are some of them when they landed. (London Express Service)
FISH
WORTH
en-
VERY morning a quiet
bowler-hatted man
Buckingham Palace carrying a small leather
terg
bag full of fish food, Mr Charles Schiller is Curator
AN OUNCE
£100 AN
By RONALD
GARTH-DAVIS
himself, a kissing ah will kics his reflection in a mirror!
Not long ago, a British pedition
went to South America in quest of new speci- mens and returned with a ten- catch eglimated to be
Found
i
Defensive Value Of Pyrenees As High As Ever
By Haynes Thompson
ODERN warfare
between lic
Metricted tre fans Inaccessible seat in towerling,
the defensive valuo of the Pyrenees Mountains. Spain's historic line of de- fence to the north, sny military observern,
The scene of both north and Fouth-bound invasions through centuries of history, the tower-
tun between them. The tallest, to means of lateral communken- Maledeta, goes up 11,100 feet."
From a military point of view, however, the Pyrenees are weak in two places--the Atlantic and Mediterranean
flanks.
Both have been drazilijonal invasion routes for south and nori- ing, rugged mountains are ns bound armies. much an obstacle today was to the Romans, they bo- -lieve.
Through the narrow corridor, anly 10 miles wide between the
They add that nothing so far foot of the Pycne and the obscrvel in the fighting in Mediterranean. Hannibal cross- Korea indicates the contrary. ed lato Spain in 218 B.C.
the
1 718 A.D. With the outbreak of the
Saraccns, Korean war, however, and with then musters of Spain. Invaded. it renewed fear
over the same of a Soviet France sweep through Western Europe, until they Spain's defences in the Charles Martel
Pyrenees are (etting fresh alten. tlon from military planners,
were
route stopped by
The Atlantic side la similarly weak, but it also ha been a
Many observers Believe the traditional route for invaders. mountains are the only obstacio
in Western
Europe capable of
halting. even femporarily,
Iussian sweep west.
SECRET GUARDED
USED BY NAPOLEON
n
CX-
Just what Spolu has in the Pyreneen Is a closely guarded se- evel. However, a
the look at mountains alone indicates, the barrier
ofter they
against Invasion from the north,
of rich and Fickly weddings were orgies of syrups
The whole story is trace and of the Tropical Aquarium but today British-breed tropical worth £10,000. Amming them war The struggle, however, extort- mysterious and Achiral One is not mur- end sweets.
Ey the Willum James's book, The Orat Buckingham Palace, and price. prised to learn that Turkish cd a terrible
lies rarely felt well enough time her sons were old enough der of Release, and Mr Peter tends the inch-long tropical to do more than sit about in to go through military
school. Quennell's more recent blogra- fish, some of them Amazon enclosed garden hanglug their and the eldest, Irfan, was train phy, present a Ruskin slightly rarities worth up to £100
brain abnormal and distasteful, with a pilot, her swimming heads over pieces of ing to be
under the pressure whom embroidery.
Have way
งา
woman.
however of suffering and anxiety, and much in love, could have been
dragged from she was
her happy.
值得
family to end her days, in asylum.
to £200 each.
fish
sh are national
mckoned among
dollar earners. Barnet breeder who began with sight Ash casting him 75. bred £3.000 worth from this original outlay.
the a
Od
A
thousands of inch-long guppies Every year Britain despatches
to North America by sir at up
little fellow with name the Hyphessobrycon- Innses--so light that you can- not feel him at all He ranks
with 10:0 perhaps
highly transparent glusadish, who have to be very closely watched be seen.
to
imde,
com-
Leaf fishes that can give remarkable imitation of a dead Mr Whitehouse's new book is leaf anti hatchel fishes, so thin as
The transparent fish a brave attempt to turn
invisible, are the to be almost
the royal favourites.
to £4 a pair. Buyers invariably however, has nothing in One learns with relief (since tables on these disaffected blo-among which
get a bargain. By the time the men with the "invisible Brazi- more grapliers by showing Ruskin in With a special powdered sound common Turkish asylums
rolfish" family an a more reverent light, as blame food containing 14 Ingredients, par arrive, there is a that nightmarish than
fish suckers and of several dozen, for the less and misunderstood. There plus earthworms and tubifex
fairground he died in 1940, shortly before is certainly truth on both sides, worns, the fish feast royally.
breed very quickly.
Nineties. Irfan was sent le England, in
of
but a
as with Byron's relations charge of a group
young with Augusta officers drafted
Leigh, we Turkish
never know the whole truth for pecial training in the RAF.
certain,
To the Orga family the 1934
disasters war brought
been have must enough in Turkey at that time. The father was
iheir killed, house burned down in the great fre of Istanbul, and the young mother and demineering grand- left alone with mother were
children, a few three young pleces of salvaged furniture. and not a penny in the world.
What could those velled and sheltered wonten de, "thrown on their own rescurces in a harsh
most)
for
can
Three times a week, too, water fleas are taken into Bue kingham Palace as a meats of exercise. Giving the fish both food
And
In spite of its shorteornings arealdent of the fukin Society,
*J. HOWARD WHITEHOUSE and the author is, remember, warden of Bembridge School; has 'writing In English, not in his been appointed executor in dent
own language-this in
In- with Ruskin's docks and documents.
Times were when Britain nud often tel
moving (World Copyright Reserved-London Was strictly on the Importing book,
itle of the tropical fish trude,
Express Service).
the
that
packed reenhorns into sideshows in the
fich
a
Among other stars of
Experts tell you that troplet fish world are fantalied values are built up by distance. Slamiese On one occasion, Charles Schil- pugnacious goldfish. fighting fish, which kill cach ler arranged the passage of other on sight and their very supply of sticklebacks to reversel-the affectionate kiss Australia. When they
reached ing sh. Fun to watch, they Melbourne, the humble stickle- spend their lives in an oscula backsworth a penny or two tory date, kissing each other in England-fetched 195. for hours at a time. Left to each!
Stretching almost entirely across the Spanish - French border, the Pyrences cover 34,373 square miles of ground, two-thirds of which Ule in Spain,
Napoleon's generals tred Roncesvalles
on the Atlantic side, to join the Baille of Sorauren in 1813.
an
both
Should Russia attempt Invasion of Spain today, many observers believe sc might
buth Napoleon and: follow Hannibal and attempt Banks simultaneously.
How long
a such
double thrust could be held by Spain, no one seems willing to predict,
Most observers are agreed, however, that without outside As the crow ie they are support or
up-to-date 270 miles
long, but actually armaments, Spain's best efforts rover 375 inilow between the in repelling a Russian attack Atlantic Ocean and the Mediter. would amount at the niest, to
only a delaying action. ranean Sea,
more
After a recept inspection of They vary in width from 39 Spain's defences in the Pyrences miles between Pamplona, Spain, by American military attaches and St Jean de Luz, France, to In Madrid, the Splash Anny B1 m wide in the region of was reported Lo
have Andorra,
strengthened several passen with reinforcements from Zaragoza.
With 30 miles of the Mediterranean, they rise to 0.137 All are believed well covered fect, From there to the peak by network of hidden de. of Anke, 54 miles from the At- fences which do not meet the Gd.lantic, there is no pass under eye on a casual drive through
5,249 'fect.
the area.
VIGNETTES OF LIFE
WHICH ONE OF THESE WOULD I LIKE BESTS*
ORE
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THE NAME OF IT.
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#1 QUIT! IT AIN'T
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PHOQEY
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AFTER SHE'S USED UP FORTY MINUTES OF YOUR TIME SELECTING THE
BOOK:
YOU GOT ANY BOOKS 'BOUT BUGS?"
SAARET
THE PLACE IS FULL OF SURPRICES
COPA, 1953 17 GRIRAAL FEATURES
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