1955-04-30 — Page 13

נ!

WHAT'S HAPPENED TO THE LION?

*

By DONALD WISE

21

teeming

fat-

I'm glad Im not a Hottentot Johannesburg's But if I were, with outward blocks where most Opposition

cal-lum

I'd either faint upon the spot

voters live.

Or his me up a leafy pal-lumn. He will reduce African school-

ing to inferior status by his. Johannesburg, Bantu Education AOL ·

HEN 61-year-old He and Doctor Donges, who Johannes Ger- plans to make British passports hardus Strydom almost useless in South Africa, was chosen to succeed Doc- did these things on the Lion's tor Daniel Malan us

behalf.

Premier of South Africa Meanwhile the Lion plays the last November, half the part of a very old, moulting whites and all the blacks lion indeed..

. -

"Man, we very rarely see him

in his territory looked for at all now," an Opposition MP

the nearest palm tree.

Like Sir Arthur Quiller- Couch in "Sage Counsel,' they thought they knew

said to me.

When Parliament opened, the United Party leader Gerhardus Strauss taunted the Lion with a

Lions-of the Transvaal. Vote of no-confidence. He called

For English-

speaking South

Africans and the,

19.000 non-Euro-

peans the oul-

look was bleak.

Even The

weather -

man weighed

in with the right sound

effects

when the mar with gun-metal eyes, was asked

by Governor- General Jansen

to form a new "Cabinet

The

crackled.

lightning

The

thunder rumbled on that stormy, rain-swept after- noon in Pretoria..

Hans

had the

sort of

record

THE LION'

to be expected of a fire-and- men. brimstone fanatic.

Strydom "Swaer

Hans"

meaning in Law

Hons-a refer- ence 40 the Prime Minister's appointing his brother-

-in-law Minister

as

Labour,

of

Then came flash of the old Lion of the Transvaal The weader of the Opposition

called a mouse, he roared, on- Teked.

Quite

Strauss's

ins are punctuated by cries of "Mousie and

rodent-like squeaks from Government

He had ap- "I say no more except that a peared in public with whip- lion does not hunt a mouse," swinging bodyguards. He added Hans, bellowed ceaselessly for a re- public. He was no-friend of the Commonwealth.

And now?

Wags have it that the Lower House is a ton short,

Pretty simple stuff for

Premier, thought South Africans.

Then last week a Nationalist MP, In the dreadful sort of mealie-patch performance that South African Ministers have to dread from their back-

come

The man that stabbed the air benchers, suggested that pictures with his forefinger, the rasping Mary be taken from

of King George

V and Queen voiced spellbindder speeches jerked him about Gallery wall.

whose

a

platform like ឌ "one-armed paper-hanger. has said almost nothing since South Africa's Parliament opened in January.

The schemer who once roared

THE RUMOURS

Ti

Press

Why not have Hollywood pin-

for dour, flirty Daniel Malan up, the man suggested. They has lost his voice. The Lion- would be just as appropriate. house is quiet place.

There is no doubt

THE CHINA, MAIL, SATURDAY, APRIL 30, 1955.

DOWN

the

Somebody's

going t somewhere it he's not Careful

Adlai

Alevenson

FORMOSA. ESCALATOR

World Copyright by arrangement with the Manchester Guardian

THE HAND BEHIND

in

INSP. MAIGRET

By LES ARMOUR

and

לאבל

BRIGHT springHe writes six novels a year. At 19, he got.

Connecticut. A He works at them in six well- married

spaced fortnights. During those headed for Paris. white painted six fortnights, he works three A man. colonial-style farm- hours day from 6 am, to wrote in French house, built in 1749, set be- 9 am.

could not tween two sparkling trout

Always, the shutters are closed pect to be a suc- streams. An inviting day. and the drapes pulled.

ccss unless he lived in Paris..

But the shutters of the house are closed tight. In side, the drapes are pulled tightly across the windows just to make sure no light gets through.

Georges Simenon sits steadily pur.ching a type- writer with two fingers

the sunshine?" he asks with a pained expression.

"How can I write of snow in

AM this precision, he admits,

a whim of the successful. It was not always this way.

Errand Boy

30.

That was i . 1921. By 1931,

more He had written

than

200

novels. He kept publishers busy-and wrote under 16 dif- ferent names.

The time for "morę "icisure had"-

rhythmically, unhurriedly. His father, a Belgian insurance comic,

when Georges was without pause. He finishes clerk, died After rising and saying he

Georges ificen.

He was sent to

entered hoped there would be no further the twenty-fourth page and work as

what he calls his errand boy in a that the debate on TILAT subjec

Mrlooks up. Lion was shocked at the impact Strydom ordered the MP out of lucky, he will speak to you.

If you are very bookshop.

"semiliserary”. that his election made upon the the House with a flick of his

phase-the phaso His mother hoped that he in which he pro- cutside world.

bead end had a word-it looked

would become a pastrycook, duced the "Mai- gret" detective storica..

ful wife, teolotaller musical

in the corridor outside,

The fact that he has a beauti- 3 pretty savage one with him

non-smoking and likes singing in

In Capetown they say that quartets with his two the Lion is sick

children made Ettle

his

teen-age impression outside country..

RARELY SEEN

תול

The English-speaking half of the Union and the world was worried.

former

Nazi-minded

That was the story when he started to challenge Finance Minister Havenga m the Fre miership race. He was a sick "man in a hurry, they said, and

"I am preparing myself for immortality," he will tell you.

Day's Work

Instead, he got a job as a re- porter on the Gazette de Liege.

Mention Georges "Simenon and some- one is bound to say, "Ah, yes. The French thriller-writer.”: Which -- just goes to show how little is known" of the world's most prolific "whodunnit" author. To start with he is not French. He is Belgian-born and lives mainly in the USA. Nor is he just another thriller writer;" "for" he more than any other person has raised the detective novel to the level of literature. At a moment, when he has but recently boon elected

President of the Mystery Writers' Association of America, it is timely to take a close look at the man

behind Inspector Maigret.

He continued writing them Regina, who divorced him in Two years later, he wrote his until 1935. In between, he had Reno on grounds of

""extreme Arst novel "Au Pont des Arches learned something of the practi- cruelty, rudeness

end inatten (The Bridge of Arches'). He cal side of the detective business. tiveness." The next day be does not like to take very much in 1934, he helped in the police, married his French-Canadian about it. But it sold 1,500 copies investigation of the murder of secretary Denise Quiet who and it convinced, him that he M: Prince, judge of the Stavisky looks after all the business side that ought to become a writer

He

He does not mean he was leaving South Africa he is about to

die.. for the first time in his life to means that he is writing vengeance 80

He started writing with a consult the best European

pages 3. chay, doctors.

literature-24 pages a day, sometimes more. hardly ever any more, or Now Mrs Susanna Strydom

His output included westeras, Since then the curly-haired told me that, when they were any less.

"spicy stories,"

short novels, short sketches. Qoce a magazine Doctor in Europe, he saw no doctors. Hendrik Verwoerd has pushed

This will be his three published six of his stones in told hundred rough the sort of legislation

and fifty-first the same issue. All under d that he, as an editor during the

novel.

It will take him ferent names, war, boosted sky-high until a

Officially they say he is NOT two weeks to write, rarely Judge found his

minions suf

The only name he didn't use SICK now.

more, rarely less. Then he was Georges Simenon. That, he But he is behaving like a very will do nothing for a long rich enough to have the leisure,

decided, must wait until he was Verwoerd intends kicking tame old lion, it not an ang every "surplus", servant out of one.

time.

to write something worth while.

Aciently guilty to silence them.

He is NOT SICK, she

me.

SHOES FOR

Rome

FROM the thousands of

FROM

visitors to the Vatican

City only a few know of the some,

SANTO PADRE

THE

By Aldo Forte

"

affair.

of his existence, reads his

The newspapers, at any rate, proofs, and acts as his memory. gave him most of the credit for What has emerged from all the triple arrest which followed this?

did not publicly He is certainly the world's and police quarrel with the newspaper ac- most productive contemporary machine possibly the

count.

By move

writing

Dumas!

on to "real Fierature"-- his psychological novels. The Pa "work for immortality

The

War

cvea

AZARL

1935, he was ready to most prolific since the elder

mdybe prolific than Dumas, for he writes every word of his work, employs TAD back man, · and and the fall of works to no fixed formula. (His that he wrote nothing for two four-minute mile, will probably France affected him so strongly record output was a novel in 24 hours a record which, like the years-devoting himself to look- ing after Belgian refugees who stand for quite a while.) had fled to France during the Edgar Wallace, to whose pro- first German assault on

their duction Simenon's bag Seen country.

compared, produced only, 150- less than half Simenon's output.

At war end, he moved to the United States for good.

He still writes in French, speaks English with a very

the end only for the Vatican, French" accent which his friends for the monsignors and Santo Padre,"

the

has made!

From Life

Simenon has certainly been privately believe he cultivates popular. His books have been because his neighbours among translated into 17 languages; 40,

Not Typed

The critics have been almost atanimous Din praising his "sight" and the "economy of his style"

For the several years that the Connecticut farmers like it of them have been made into But you have clever. To fashion a pair of shoes for

films. little old shoemaker's shop hands and a quick skill. If you the Pope, Domenico works

Domenico, Cangiulli on

He lives the life of a country

But there a micre to it than. on the Borgo Pio not far conduct yourself

with serious, the soles and the cloth or velvet shoes for the Vaticat, he has squire on his 48-acre farm, 105

miles from New York-devoting that None of his works has from the grandeur of State and wisdom and put to cuts to fit the special shoe-forms, never seen the Pope. If is w.rimself to riding, goll and been a hack job or a pot-boiler.

good use my instructions, you Peter's Square. But about may do even better than I have while Rosa meticulously em, his hopeful aspiration to be aching the shop and its owner, done for a long time, to make broiders the golden cross on allowed to kiss the hand of the the precious shoes for the their Instep and the delicate Pope and hear from the Pope's 30-year-old, dark, tousled-

Santo Padre. haired, Domenico Cangiulli,

golden olive leaves around the awn lips some words of praise borders.

for the shoes he has made, there is an especial fame,

Many people in the Vatican His neighbours are occasionally and perhaps not so much

Together they have made. have praised This work, a little bewildered by the man, on earth. For: Domenico

several pairs for the Pope. The Domenico said, "and have told reporters find it impossible, Cangiulli is no

to "type" him. Yes, Domenico Canglulll, to first. pair are of red velvet and m the Santo Padre was cobbler, and the shoes he gather with his berutiful wife, the others in dine white leather, pleased. But it is not the same gay rally-poly little Belgian His murderers

Ong has described him as a fashions are of a special Roca, makes the precious Said a neighbour who had seen thing"

painted nose and small pretty tileable. Even the sleazy, bright eyes", while another who low-lifes of Continental visited him a short time later who are his chief delights are reported that he was in stocky always exibited as rounded bear-like man.”

human beins,·

kind..

ordinary

This short and stocky ex-quilor from Taranto will

shoes for Pope Pius XIL They them, "They were wonderful and are a special kind, of shoe Zashioned

from fine leather, of appeared te. dazzle night and cloth or multi-coloured velvets. alive in the shop's dim interior"

Home

with

ing in the knowledge they have lives his characters.

done the work! But they have when 1-food an-der-coming

1 special, fumble the long to the

· He finds his characters" "in life...... ordinary contemporary

people whose extraordinary situations the uses to bring to light the Huniversal aspects in man.

gre

often

ports

seldom more than

45,000 won

ko pals of their I tell the family am standes him tepat anges was chosen for Pope. Plus hen all contact with the out tow

tell you the story of how With the shop, old Giuseppe his work and if was very mats clare there is a wonderful feel part of the ream is that he and civ

Domenico said that he loves Both Ross and Domenico de- There is no pinning him down. His novela ane always short, he started in business, if left the forms made to the fring. He has made many shoes you have the time to listen. measurements of the Pope's test for clients not in the Vat

besides many other Horps of but by the end of the month; How, as an apprentice, the the dignitaries, the monsignors, intends to close the shop founder of the shoemaker and the bishops of the Vallean. Borgs Pio and open elsewhere in shop 40 years ago, old Giuseppe Cottafoglin, called "It takes nearly three days to him to a sick-bed and make these kind of shoes,” says, "I have decided he said said:

Domenico, "You have to be very "Lament all who know. njend

to trezester to Vin-Gozzadini

have artýinen the Vatic my son, the in quality at my cliente aze authorities, that tryin heritance I leave souris burdene exception

patient, but I'm a shoemaker of

when he was proclaimed

salpe in

In St Peter's last year.

"the""post" of "amis side world ceases, I don't wether dockride answer “phonies." don't see chandlers' stores, the

opter the plain of my of Commerce, trada

money and crime,

am writing about an old Meel old RiI

As long as coena are intervet in any of thowe, there wil

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