1938-08-16 — Page 10

Its

WATSON'S

LIME JUICE

CORDIAL

WATSONS!

LIME JUICE CORDIAL

Made From Fine V

$1.20

Manufactured by A. S. WATSON & Co., Ltd. only.

LEFT IN THE DARK

is both annoying and troublesome, but unnecessary! WE WILL SOON THROW LIGHT ON THE SUBJECT · With our trained staff of operators and maintenance men, under the foremanship of an electrical engineer, we will not only re- pair all your electrical installations at any time of the day or night with oùr

24 HOUR SERVICE

but have one of our inspectors look over your lighting and power circuits, at least once a fortnight, in order to ensure their maximum working efficiency.

Our charges are reasonable

So we don't shatter systems when we send out bills!

THE CENTRAL ELECTRICAL SERVICE CO. 505 National Bank Building

Telephone 32972

THE KAILAN MINING ADMINISTRATION

Prices per metric ton delivered, as follows:-

Peak District .

$31.00 29.00

28.00

32.00

31.00

32.00

Bowen Road & Lower Levels

Kowloon

Repulse Bay

Pokfulum

Shek-O & Stanley

Clients are hereby informed that deliveries of Household Coal can only be made if cheque or cash for the supply is sent with the order.

DODWELL & CO., LTD.

Agents.

BAGGAGE

TRANSFERS

Efficient

THE CHINA MAIL, AUGUST 16, 1938.

The China Mail

Ninety-Third Year of Publien:

dawn of history Neolithic Man gave way to the impulse, and that some, at least, of the cave draw- ings to be seen to-day are not so much planned and ritualistic measures for increasing by magic

BA Wyndham Street, Hong Kong, the game animals, according to

Telephone 20022

London Office:

Subscription Rates.

3.Months

6 Months One Year

H.E.$ 9.00 H.K.$18.00 H.K.$36.00

Postage Abroad Extra -

1

а

to

the most approved archaelogical theory, but merely the fruits of 7, Garrick Street, London, W.C.2. the natural desire to scribe on

walls. Notice To Contributors.

A beautiful example of All communications intended for schoolboy's scribblings in the publication should be addressed to ancient world has just come the Editor, and be accompanied by light in Palestine. Certain clues the Writer's Name and Address, permit them to be dated precise- not necessarily for insertion but aly 597 B.C., when Nebuchad- nezzar's armies attacked and des- a guarantee of good faith.

troyed the royal city of Lachish, the sight of which was discover- ed a few years ago by the arch- neologist, W. F. Starkey, who recently met his death at the hands of marauding Arabs. Lachish was the ancient capital lof, the Canaanite kings, and be- sides its frequent mention in the Hong Kong, Tuesday, August 16, 193 Bible it is referred to in the

correspondence,

on the

clay tablets of Tel Amarna between Egyptian officers and Vassals and Pharaoh Amenophis III about 1300 B.C. Recent excavations by the Wellcome Expedition have It was sagely remarked by a unearthed considerable remains writer not pretending to much of various periods and, particular- profundity that human beings ly, a valuable series of letters were of two kinds: those who written on potsherds immediate- scribbled on walls and those wholy before Nebuchadnezzar's sec- did not. It is perhaps as logical, ond attack on Lachish in 588 if not quite as significant a classi-B.C. On the face of one of the fication as any other, and certain stone steps of the King's Palace ly less mischievous than most of which is now being excavated the current chauvinistic distinc-

are crude scribblings interpreted tions between people by race,

as the doings of a schoolboy. colour, creed social grade. They are described as a rectangle There is no doubt that to some with lines across and the draw- people a plain undecorated sur-

THE WRITING ON THE WALL

or

face offers no temptation to effecting of a lion fogether with the its adornment or defacement by first five letters of the Phoeni- cian-Hebrew alphabet. The small inscriptions or drawings; but an ancient deeply-planted impulse boy returning from school and (not to employ the much-abused attracted by the clear surface of word "instinct") perhaps artis-the palace steps unburdens his tic, possibly merely destructive, mind of the figures and letters seems to be present in others to that have been occupying it, make marks, to draw pictures or with no conception of the learn- otherwise express themselves on ed men who will solemnly draw the inviting tabula rasa.

historical inferences from his

Small children are notoriously work twenty-five centuries later. wall-scribblers and have to be

restrained or, more wisely, given

a blackboard and chalks to sub- Affected Accents limate their destructive desire.

Where the impulse is not effec-

*

tively controlled it persists in The B.B.C. voice, it has been after years and, in spite of op- discovered, is giving the English Short-wave position and prohibition, the accent a bad name. baulked desire sometimes, turned broadcast talks have stimulated sour, expresses itself in the dis-the interest of the English-speak- agreeable and shocking manner ing world in diction, and many that is characteristic of a good holiday-makers arriving in Eng- proportion of wall scribblings. land for the first time from the and the United "Death to Dictators" or "Down Dominions with the Jews" scrawled by States have been surprised adults in a public place are not and relieved to find that the

tones so much implements for the pro-affected

(the Ameri- pagation of ideas as means of cans call them "sissy") of some the release of suppressed hatreds of the B.B.C. radio announcers by wall-scribblers who are own are by no means characteristic brothers to, and not infrequently of the race as a whole.

Some inscribers of indecent drawings have insisted on learning the identical with, the ill-balanced German students are reported to

and bawdy writings on the walls Cockney accent because they lik of public buildings. But these ed it so much, but this is likely are special cases which depend on to remain an exceptional case. the psyche of the individual and The broader accents of Yorkshire the character of the society in and Lancashire, the friendly which he finds himself. The drawl of Devon and Somerset, normal impulse to scrawl on walls and, of course, the beautiful is to-day exactly what it was English that is spoken north of when Van Riebeeck settled his the border, these are the tones little band of pioneers on the that attract the majority of new- shores of Table Bay. Perhaps comers. The fear is often express- some unrestrained youngster deed that broadcasting may lead faced the mud walls of the old in time to a general uniformity of Fort that sheltered the first accent, but just as Cockney child' South African Europeans nearly ren learn to speak good English three centuries ago, and the sons while in school and relapse into Saxón serfs probably drew the vernacular immediately they Cng with the Hampshire gain the home circle, so the popu

stone walls of Nor-lation generally seems able to centuries be shake off the B.B.C. influence and un-stick to its own more forceful

ways of speech.