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THE CHINA MAIL, JULY 110, 1937.

4,000,000SPINSTERS

• Spinsters want ten week pension at the

chillings

a

a widowed mother eighty-

two to

The Government – has always lightened the lot of the war widow. But what of the war spinster? What of all those girls who, in the first flush of love saw their sweet- hearts cross the Channel to be sacri- ficed?

“OU might say ““No” to one of Health, has twice received our Because she has not only herself,

spinster, but you can't say deputation, twice said “No” to our but -a -- "No" to four million.

demand. He argues that the coun-

support. try cannot afford it.

She has written to me: "What of fifty- But you can't argue with an or would happen if I were out of work?” five. The National Spinsters As-ganisation of our - strength. Our I hardly dared to reply. sociation is going to get it for first battalion is nearly a hundred Everywhere -- I hear harrowing Yet equity with the widow is all them.

thousand strong. Our second bat- stories of these poor souls struggling we ask in pension terms.

Sir Kingsley Wood, the Minister talion is already in formation.

THE PALACE OF DISCOVERIES IN PARIS

(By “GLOBE-TROTTER”)

"Do you realise", a friend has just returned from

to

make ends meet.

Is their case not even more piti- ful?

So,

the fight will go on!

CAN'T BE WRONG!

*

We've got right on our side. And At fifty-five a pension of 10s. a Members of the Association are we're going into action.

week would mean the difference be- so keen on the righteousness of their Look out, Sir Kingsley, here we tween life and death for most of demands that they have made cost- come!

them.

ly journeys to London to attend Outrageous -though it may seem, meetings.. The country can't afford the pen it is nevertheless a fact that some Professional workers and sympa- sion ? Listen!

M.P.s, well known professional men, thetic married women are swelling and even bishops, regard the spins- the ranks. ter as a kind of pariah.

“A woman should marry bear children," they say.

Four million spinsters in this who country make an annual contribu- leave tion to the Pension Fund of near- explained to me, "that it costs less ly £5,000,000: From this they re- to travel from Marseilles to Eng-ceive only £2,000,000 in pension land or vice versa, including a ticket benefits. for the Paris Exhibition, than if The surplus goes towards the ment!-- you take the regular ticket for cost of widows' pensions. French trains and Channel steam- er and miss the show?”

Without any gift for maths or logic, the arrangement to me sounds highly attractive.

Widows! We ask you!

It's robbing Martha to pay Mary. The government takes this money on the inaccurate assumption that every spinster is a potential widow. Unfortunately China is not re-We have no grudge against widows. presented, but Great Britain, Russia, But the system is unfair and ab- Germany and Italy, among other surd. European nations, are showing won- Ten shillings a week pension for ders in the style of their pavilions spinsters. at fifty-five would- cost and their contents.

To many, the m、.

We want 5,000,000 signatures to and a petition to the House of Com-

mons.

The inference being that those The National Spinsters' Associa- who have not done so deserve punish- tion will get them.

THE

Look out! Here we come!.

WORLD GOES BY

By "ULYSSES"

:

а

NCE in a Yorkshire river that might refer to feminine favour, but ONC

-was full of opaque water, my as that is improbable we will take the country a yearly sum of £4,000,-fishing line showed a pool of re-lit at its face value, and consider it

markable depth, fascinating 000, rising to £6,000,000 in ten years.strip and dive and explore was na- copying the bearded ones of a few The impulse to as meaning that more men are exhibit is the Palace of Discoveries The cost of a battleship, which a tural and inevitable, and was only years past. in the Champs-Elysees.

Even that is better few bombs could destroy in a few

restrained by the thought of "what than the hideous Charlie Chaplin The scholars who conceived the minutes, is £7,000,000.

the neighbours would say.”. idea of it imagined nothing

So it. cockroach, or the spectacle of a less Can't afford? Fantastic!

is with life. There is nothing more doublechinned round dumpling® - of than a visual history of all the scien- The married women and widows thrilling to me than to plunge into a face vainly masquerading as ces, of interest to both layman and of this country have been well pro-a strange and especially foreign bare baby's. All the same, it must "high brow.". In a labyrinth of vided for in the social services. The community where I know no soul, not be inferred because whiskers rooms, you pass from the realms ageing spinsters have been ignored. and thank God for it. Mystery and make a man look wise that he is of astronomy to organic chemistry, Gentlemen! Have you no grace? adventure are involved. The call wise. Any fool can grow a beard. from biology to geometrical optics, Justice demands that the spinster of the unknown is clamant. So it Tis the same with that weird crea- from oscillating. phenomena to those shall receive her due.

is with all new experiences. For ture, the owl, which has gained the of radio interference. All that At the age of fifty-five your sing- better or worse they are interesting. undeserved reputation of being may appear uncanny, but the sur-le woman has not finished her life From prosperity to conditions less wise old bird. Why? We know prising state is to see the layman of toil. She sweats in humid fäc-Ipleasant, so long as those conditions a lot of humans who wear a perpe- interested as if it were a Coney tories. She scrubs out untidy offi,are fresh and unfamiliar, is in reali- tual solemn look, thereby gaining a Island "attraction." Here he is ices. She takes in dirty washing.ty a gain. To know, to feel, to ex- reputation for a wisdom they do not made to understand the mystery of She cooks food, cleans shoes, poli-perience, that is all the true lar-possess. the rainbow; there, the refraction shes brasses.

gesse that life has to offer; and that itself is all that a wide and full and complete life is.

of solar rays.

Sh slogs and slaves at all the Further along, we speak before meanest jobs in the world merely an apparatus which, instantly, traces because when she was young she

*

“That's all very well," placidly re-Anglo-American a graph of the intonations of the was plain, or somehow, the right marks some commonsense, balanced voice!

man never came her way.

fellow--one of those who seem al-Humour

a

And it is the same in every And, as she pushes back the wisp ways bent on taking the joy out of room: you have to open your eyes of hair from her wrinkling fore- life "but what if it should rain?" American humour is responsible more than your ears. Considering head she looks through the mirrorThat's different. You cannot ex-for the American belief that the the psychological truth that sight is into the eyes of a woman whose fu-pect a philosopher to maintain in British lack the sense of it, and the keenest of the senses, the exhi-ture is hopeless, because her wan- daily mood the high level of his who can be surprised? The Bri- bits represent the easiest and most ing vitality is stealthily lessening mental life, any more than you can tisher giggles and amirks and adver- pleasant method of driving useful her capacity to earn a living. truths home.

It's heartbreaking!

* *

expect all preachers to practise what they preach. This also is life, to be inconsistent, and to laugh about it. If it rains--well, let us

there will be other holidays.

On the opening day, the Secre- tary for Scientific Research spoke, There were three spinster sisters in a few words, of the domination in Nothingham, life-long lace fac-hope it doesn't. But if it does,

of Science over Matter, of metals tory workers who paid National enslaved, of the part played by the Health Insurance from its inception. discovery of the unknown in the Only one reached Old Age Pension creation of our civilisation.

age. "Man," said he, "dreamt of own-

She drew it for two weeks. Then ing docile and robust slaves; now I she died. shall show you those with which he has been endowed by science."

tises the fact that he is about to try and be funny. This keys the American to a pitch of expectation which makes the inevitable disap- pointment all the more depressing. The victim refers expletively to the infernal regions, and the entente In my favourite bar they were dissolves in a cloud of smoke. On ragging me as they have an un- the other hand, the American jokes Ulysses chap," said one, is always most gloomily, and contrives to con- pleasant habit of doing: "That with a completely serious airy al-

I know an industrial worker, other. He wants constitutional re- to impart some really useful infor- wanting reform of something or vey the impression that he is about spinster of fifty-eight, who dare not form, society reform, labour reform, And thus, for two hours, he mar

take the short rest her doctor rebusiness reform, moral reform. ched from "exhibit to exhibit in the commends.

"And chloroform,” added a by- Palace of Discoveries, opening be-

stander, described at the inquest fore his party fantastic horizons, "The future holds terror for many flater as innocent. and literally stunning his audience. others besides myself

When they emerged on the Champs striven to keep respectable and in- Return To Face Elysees a little later, they looked dependent."

She writes to me:

who have

}་

with renewed interest at the pas- Another brave little woman has sers-by, the terraces of the cafes, for years deceived her employers the traffic of the Avenue, like travel-into thinking she is twelve years

lers returning from a trip to dis-younger than her actual age. tant shores..

Why?

Fungus

mation.

The effect on the Bri- tisher is mixed. He doubts if the American iser as truthful, don't you know, at all times as a chap [should be. ̈ ̈ Ands her sometimes suspects the American is a simple- ton who believes his own exaggera- tions. All of which, by the way, makes Ulysses wonder how his column, which includes: the worst one

A contemporary notes at Home a features of both forms “ at "slight but perceptible movement" time or another; must affect; this in favour of beard growing. This cosmopolitan community.