1955-05-26 — Page 4

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THE CHINA MAIL, THURSDAY, MAY 26, 1955,

* DON IDDON'S DIARY IN CANADA

MONTREAL'S NIGHT LIFE HAS NOWHERE TO GO

Montreal, Tuesday, city ideas and also it needs persuading them to buy worth bridge to dress up their town FIND Montreal, American tourists.

less shares in uranium mines, I hope they will not resent this goldfelds, and copper corpora- mild" criticism. which `occasionally

calls itself the Paris of "The new mayor, Mr Jean ons. the New World, controver- Drapeau, elected

name, down on

on a re-

now

blaming Canadian

Polio campaign

MANADIANS are particularly proud of the fact that, al-

The crusading and publicity, sial. There is a row about form ticket, says the way loving Sonator, Alexander Wiley, alleged stock swindles on to drive out the gangsters, is the innocent Americans, ar- who have been blackening sock swindlers for "damaging thou half a million

of their is. to human hopes and lives," and children have been

inoculated gument about a so-called Montreal's

the clamp political scandal in

night also gouging tens of thousands with the Salle anti-pollo vaccine, of dollars from the unfortunate there has not been a single case capital, Ottawa, and a de- life.

Americans.

of unfavourable reaction. The day I arrived a brick The Province of Quebec, fol at least one prominent English- At the moment the English, or was thrown through a win- Towing Ontario's. example, is people dow of the mayor's house going to shut down the bucket H. R. Trevor-Roper, the shops and save the Americans historian, are not too popular in most at four o'clock in the morn from their folly. Honest brokers, Quebec Province,

.It was ugly

van- who outnumber. the dishonest club ing.

by" hundreds to one, are de manding action to protect their own business.

bate about the cabarets' closing hours.

*

Some Montreal whom I've met are angry about the night curfew.

+1

My guide, one of Mon- treal's best journalists, Mon- sieur Jules Larochelle, said: How can we call this an- other Faris if the mayor is going to shut down cabarets at two o'clock in the morn ing?"

dalism..

After the crooks

Mr Trevor-Roper is being damned for dismissing French Canada as a residual and dying divilisation and also for getting his facts and figures wrong.

The alleged political "scandal" does not strike me as being very I will not go into details as Serious, In the United States they are too involved, but I R Drapeau. Immediately it would not cause a flutter; but must have visited Frerich issued a statement which I Canada must be the incлruptible Canada 30 times during the thought rather restrained. "This (modelling itself on Britain) and past few years and one thing I can tell you-it is not dying. It is not a prank but definitely a, its Ministers above suspicion.

is very much alive. crime."

Later the mayor alleged that

Having recently been in underworld elements were after Las Vegas, where bars and him and revealed that he had

close, I would received threatening letters. clubs never .welcome any curfew, even at tea-time; but Montreal, the metropolis, has big

PRESS

The Night Cub Owners' Asso- ciation which must be a strange sort of trade union, countered

Raised a storm

NYWAY,

the

Minister of "A Man Revenue, Dr J. J. McCann, is being charged with making political use of informa tion that came to him in his posi- tion. He is also being

with a statervent of their outtscited for not resigning his They "disassociated" themselves directorships and cutting him- from the brick-4hrowing incident self of from his business in and added: "We cannot believe terests when he took offlec. that a group of business men

like ours, which, provides work.

The St Laurent Administra-

PHOTOGRAPHS for 5,000 citizens of Montreal. tion has been damaged by the

could possibly resort to terror McCann hullabaloo, but is so ism."

strong that it will easily sur- mount the storm. t!

This was an interesting start Copies of photographs to my Canadian visit, which taken by the South China is going to last a few days, and

the interest has been maintain Morning Post, South China ed. The mayor is pursuing the

crooks with a reformer's, zeal. Sunday Post-Herald, and

and anyone who knows Montreal, that a laundering was China Mail Staff Photo-knows

overdue. graphers are on view in

The stock swindling is also on the Morning Post Building,

ORDERS BOOKED

the mayor's list.

other towns

mulcting gulible

and

I find Montreal looking sleek prosperous despite the

but it badly needs arguments, a new gateway into the city.

☆ I was dazzled by

the company MARKASTUKSIA0323013 LESBIELINTER

WA

Funicular to

THE SUMMIT

·BOTH: AND WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE COING ?”

Rich people, too, have

their problems

313 4:30 1112 DESKIN3625532 41ANZDIJEST TESSA FERIS DE EI OLE ·

THE DINNER

T

HERE are still some rich people in the world; and

were

there

very many more, in the enjoyable.world of 30

years ago. I hope

I drove here from New York, that no one will be led. about 400 miles, and had to astray by the fiction that negotiate

an extraordinary rich people lead dull, boring

+ archaic and narrow bridge across and frustrated lives; com-

the St. Lawrence and then

For months Plunge into some catacombs bepelled to listen to raucous now a small group of racketeers fore emerging in Montreal itself. chamber music every other operating cut, of Mentreal and

The city planners, who are night, to sit through inter- here have been tusily strapping ancient shabby minable operas which they

Americans, tramcars, should build a new do not understand, to bow-

unwillingly to Royalty and to force down their, gullets such dietary dross as pate de foie gras, trout in aspic, and champagne.

Another

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by

PARTY

NICHOLAS MONSARRAT

Less than our years ago NICHOLAS MONSARRAT rocketed to renown and riches with The Cruel Sea-the nautical novel based on his wartime exploits which has, netted a jabulous £200,000. This story has a ver different setting-a boyhood holiday in

France.

Since Winchester and Cambridge, the versatile son of the Liverpool surgeon has gone far in many directions,

Before the war broadcasting and journalism absorbed him, but in 1946 he was appointed Director of the UK Information Ofice, in Johannesburg, where he met his second wife. In 1953 he took up similar work in Ottawa, and in the same year his truth" novel-The Story of Ester Costello-muccessfully left the stocks.

World Copyright by arrangement with the Manchester Guardian

DRAWING BY

DID IT HAPPEN?

KOOLMAN

She looked ränd us with

Then

a pleasant smile. she said: *Before We

leave you, may I have my ring back ?"

The dreadful and fruitless

The

ring was never found. though the guests stayed nearly. till dawn-unwilling to be the

Please be assured that many of them lead lives of particular pleasure; com- manding the finest artists to play and sing exactly ner party, a party for twelve a day, he was giving a din- what they wish to hear, people. All of them were old greeting Royalty on terms friends; two of them, in- of pleasure and intimacy, deed, were what were then and eating and drinking pre- called, unambiguously, "old cise by what they want flames." (My uncle, aged handsome woman, of regal with a touch of hauteur. "Then search began again. often pate de foie gras, fifty-five,

would scarcely bearing: I remember the we can leave the gentlemen to

their port." trout, in aspic, and cham- have found it possible to candle light flashing on, and When no one answered her, first to leave, wishing to comfort.

give a birthday dinner party within, the canary-yellow not attended by at least stone, as she turned her and the silence continued, I still my uncle (who though deadly thought that it could only be calm was deeply stricken), and two such guests. He had hand gracefully towards my a practical joke, and that one of still hoping that long been addicted to what uncle. was then called, with equal: But rich people do have unambiguity, a "full Hfe.").

Across the table, their problems. They are

newspaper proprietor leant seldom problems of finance, I, myself, aged 15, was across, and said: since most rich people have deeply privileged. I WBS

"May I also have a look, sufficient sense to hire other staying with my uncle at his people to take care of their exquisite villa near Cap Therese?" worries-whether they are d'Antibes; and as a special She smiled, and nodded. Then immediate and shattering, of the concerned with taxes, poli- concession on this happy she took off the ring, and held tics, the education of their day, I was allowed to come it out to him.

Behaviour

"It

10

from the us probably the prince himself shambles of the dining-rocc -would produce the ring with a the ring would somehow appear. the laugh and a Bourish, perhaps

It never did appear, either hiding her for her carelessness.

later. My uncle when nothing happened at then

remained oll, I knew that the rest of that Octavian, to the last, night would be dreadful.

true to his rigid code, and adamant that no one was to be I am sure that you can guess searched the sort of scene that followed. There was the embarrassment,

them old and

Sad Man

friends. There was the

politeness of the prince, I myself went back to England, near-tears of the princess, and school, a few days later. I

was my vale all of children, the estrangement down to dinner. It was ex-grandmother's the old empress, freezing

"I have not it of their wives, or the greed citing to me to be admitted for many years. It is sild to There were the demands to be was very glad to escape. The of their servants.

to such company, which in have once belonged to Genghis searched, the overturning of sight of my uncle's face, and the cluded, besides the two "old Khan." But there are other, more flames" and

genuine problems. They are their respec. Can you solve

the problems of behaviour.

the problem:

this fact

chairs, the minute scrutiny of knowledge of his overturned There were the dinner table, the napkins, the world, were more than I couldă exclamations of carpet, and then of the whole bear. All that he was left with, delight and ad- room. There was the fact that among the ruins of his way of miration.

one would meet life, was a question marke, which The presently no

of his intimate friends was the ring was passed anyone else's eye,

thương from

hand to hand, For a moment it rested on my own palm,

gleaming splen-

didly with that

Search

T do not know how, or on what scale my uncle Octavian "made amends." I know that he never returned to his lovely

wonderful, Interior yellow glow, they did not bring the princess's that he remained a recluse for All these things happened, but rouse near Cap d'Antibes, and that such jewels can command, ring back again. It had vanished the rest of his days. I know Then I passed it to my next

irreplaceable beirloom, that, to our family's surprise he door neighbour. As I turned worth possibly £200,000 in a was a comparativery poor man pass it on. At least, I was almost roomful of 12 people, all known when he died. He died, in fact,

to each other...

a few weeks ago, and that is why I feel I can tell the story. No servants had entered the

a away again, I thought I saw her

tive husbands, Let me tell you one such a newspaper of a problem, which beset my proprietor

a full 30 exceptional in Is uncle Octavian

telligence, and years ago.

hig fabulous

...or fiction? A full 30 years ago, I my- American self was 15. That is not wife; a recent prime minis- really important, though it ter of France and a monu was important to me at the mental elder statesman of time, on the threshold of postwar Germany; and the dazzling adult world Hapsburg prince and prin- More important to this cess. story, my uncle. Octavian was then (In 1925) a rich

on holiday

It was some 20 minutes later room. No one had left it for a it would be wrong to say that man in the lavish pride of from school, you will guess. when the princess stood up, moment. The thief (for now it he died a broken man, but he that I was dazzled. Even giving the signal for the ladies could only be theft) was one of dit die a profoundly sad one, today, 80 years later, one

to withdraw. She looked round us, one of my uncle Octavian's with the special sadness of a

cherished friends.

hospitable host who never gave a single lunch or dinner,” party He was (as any suitable may fairly admit that the us with a pleasant smile. Then med

she said: "Before we leave you, contemporary will confirm) company was distinguished, may I have my ring back?" cable minister who was most WORLD COPYRIGHT RESERVED I remember it was the French for the fast 20 years of his life. a charming and accomplish- But I should also stress, to

on being searched, sistent Indeed, in his excitement he had already started turning out his ponkesa, before my uncle held, up,

manhood.

At that age,

sure I saw her.

murmuring.

"Ah yes that I remember

ed host whose villa on the give point to this story, that I remember my uncle Octavian Cote d'Azur was an accepted they were all old and in- wonderful, ring!" rendezvous of the great; timate friends of my uncle the newspaper porget that his hand and stopped him. and he was (as I will con- Octavian,

"By Jovel Mustn't and one of the women laughing. firm) a hospitable, content Towards the end of

Octavian's face was Uncle ed, and most amiable man wonderful dinner,

La pale and tremendously tense, s when Then there was a phuse, while if he had been dealt a

mortal until January 8, 1925,

dessert had been brought in

• each of us looked expectantly blow "There will be no searcha at his neighbour Then there-ing he commended "Not in There was nothing special and the servants had left, was

silence.

my house. You are all my about that day, in the life my uncle leant forward to

friends. The ring can only be of my uncle Octavian, except admire a magnificent soli- The princess was still smiling lost. If it is not found he Twill naturally snake

that it was his fifty-fifth taire diamond ring on the unused to asking for things

though lang easily, She was bowed towards the princess, birthday. As usual on such princess's hand. She was a twice. If you please," she said, amends mysent

DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?

YES!

NO

Put your Bek in the space abere und

moother, sizyke this perine:br

JERBARD - TICKELL

of Lack," by Michael Partwestier/vali