1957-01-24 — Page 4

1

Page

THE CHINA MAIL, THURSDAY, JANUARY

Ancestor worship

F

| RANCES QUARLES saw the advertise- ment in the "Por- sonal" column, and was amused by it briefly: Colonel John Jacob Hather- mill BCCKя information about his American anceR- tors. Such information, if properly documented, will be paid for..

Hathermill is an unusual name, and Quarles remem- bered the advertisement a month later, when the name appeared on his appoint- ments pad.

His visitor proved to be Miss Muriel Hathermill, trim,

dapper Halo woman in her thirties.

"I don't want to see you on my own account, It's about my uncle" Quartes mentioned the advertisement. "That's it, He'a muffering from a bad attack of ancestor worship, And I'm afraid he's on the way to belit dwindled. Trouble is I can't see just how."

"Tell me about it.”

"My uncle Isn't a fool, don't think that," she sold sharply. "He W49 # regular soldier, commanded a regiment in the 1914-18 war, Home Guard in

tast

He's shrewd enough, except about one thing. Family

the

one.

"We trace our ancestry bacle ta the 18th century, perfectly respectable wool merchants in the Midlands. That im' enough for uncle. He believes that there was another branch of the family which went out 10 America about the time of the Pilgrims Fathers, and settled in Virginia. In family legend Hathermill has this particular the same

uncle, nanes as my

made him to keen on finding out detalls,

That and the

hes

John Jacob.

"That's what has

fact that

Would

go

tremendously keen on overy-

American. thing out there, I think, except that he'n got high blood pressure and his doctor says he'd be unwise 10 travel."

Queries

together.

Dut

hls Angertips 1 remember the advertisement mentioned properly documented inforna- tion.

What does your uncle hope to find?”

Sho shrugged. "Pupors, photo- graphs, old books, He doesn't know himself. But he's in the mood to buy anything from anybody. That's what worries

inc."

FRANCIS QUARLES

FINDS OUT

The letter covered four closely writton pagos. Quarles road fragments of it.

Lou now, she just lives for nothing else but antiquillos, Sho collects, them, has done since she was a young woman.”

"Where does sho Uve?" Muriel Hathermill asked.

She lives in Richmond, has dono all her life. She's a kind But of a rand-aunt of mine. she's paying a a visit to New York at the moment, only the third time she's been out of Virginia altogether. Au Boon as she gets back you can rely on it he'll be doing her level bost to find that old John Jacob of yours, Colonel,"

"It can't be too soon for me," the Colonel old.

Quarles left with the feeling that Jackson was some sort of confidence man, but without any kind of proof to back it

It was a week jater that Muriel Halhermill telephoned and mid: "Jackson's gol them. The proofs. Or to ho claires. He's asking 3,000 dollars, and uncle's going to pay it,"

"What does he want 3,000 dollars for?"

"Some idind of book that his

grand aunt's discovered. Ob.

Mr Quarles, do come and see uncle, I made him promise to do nothing before you looked

at the thing."

In the house at St John's Wood, Quarles found Jackson and an excited Colonel father- mill, The American greeted him exuberantly.

"Well, Mr Quarles, tle old Wood, and met Serah Lou has done it. I told Jackson, The American was a self-assured man with rimless you she would. Just placed that ginases and a bow tie. He had original John Jacob Halherinill a bubbling enthusiasm which right where he lived, in Cecil- was infectious.

town, near Charleston.

person ccount, too."

It

"And somebody's turned up in St John's with things to sell

She said slowly. "I'm not sure that I can say that. It an American named Jackson and he says he comes from Virginia "He'n and has relatives there. supposed to be making quiries. He sud uncle seem to spend all day poring over old books and records. I daresay It's all right, but I just don't like the man,"

had certainly infected he was in- Colonel Hathormill, who istened Dagerly to everything Jackson said,

By JULIAN SYMONS

Seema of som

Colonel Hathermill tugged at his moustache, "Im infinitely grateful to you, Jackson. You don't know what this means to Quarles tested

out me" Jackson's knowledge as

exactly "Might one know well as he could from what it is that your grand-aunt his own casual read- has discovered?" Quarles asked.

without finding Ing. my flaws in it. In fact, however, up to the could present the Colonel's und Jack- one day, son's joint researches had dis. See what covered nothing.

т wondered If you

the

that

1957.

Deep in the heart of Texas

TEXAS

TEXAS PRODUCTION:

1,000 MILLION

BARRELS A YEAR

OCE

LVESTON TOKOUTZIANCION..... -

EUROPE

ALISTI

SAN ANTONIO

TRAGÚ PERSIA

SUFZ CANAL

KUWA

AFRICA

DATAR

ARABIA

MIDDLE EAST PRODUCTION:

1885 MILLION | |-

BARRELS A YEAR

HEALTH FOR CASH The oil

Д

by William Foster

What will happen to today's "He can't stay here if he nocident cases, crippled in re- can't pay his way," they storm, cent hoilday smashes? Thirty- "Put him in an ambulance and one-year-old Tom Payton was send him somewhere else." driving

American highway just a year pelled by law to

peacefully along

Private hospitals are com-

set aside ago when disaster in the shape fixed percentage at "free" bods. of an American Lincoln came They always grumbling thundering over the crest of a about it. They cost $30 a day hi and ploughed into him like to maintain, and the ratepayers a runaway tank.

only pay half..

REC

ศ

New York. MERICA is still mourning the biggest traffic disaster in her history. It will be a long time before she forgets Christmas and the New Year, Over thousand Americans were killed on the ronds.

What could be done to im. Tom is one of the lucky ones, prove American hospitals? Many While New Yorkers were still He has

an oil-wealthy father shaking their heads over the with a well-lined bank account, part of the doctors' huge pro-

Americans would like to ste, lists of dead, I investigated the At the rate of £6 a day for anty distributed among the nurses, fate of the Injured. For every

private room in a New York American killed,

There are vacacies for fifty there were frospital, plus

£14 a day.for three who landed up in hospital. three special nurses, it had cost thousand

Moro NUTECH

in

"

four

only broken bones and shatter-

cd Year.

a healtà Instarunce scheme, Most TIKTO was only one good

bodies to greet the New schemes only cover patients up reason for not walking out

"What do you want to do about it?"

"Sure," Jackson was amieblo. como and seo uncle

"Only she hasn't discovered it, and meet Jackson.

she's had it for years. I told you think

collected of him. I

woman you CER "What about this relative of Introduce you as mine

a friend of yours,

Here's her letter antiquities. Miss Freeman?" the who knows something Colonel asked, impatiently cut-

Walk through the forbidding the old man £1,100 in less than America. No wonder. They are and she's rent a photograph of

paid even less than office boys, a month. wards of the average American Common- about genealogy."

Nurses are forever walking out ting short a discussion about

one page from the

hospital as I did and you will

There would have been an- of one, hospital and signing on origin of Virginian place place Book she talks about

And them-pathetic victims of other C650 The letter

covered

where on top of that if at

wages are. Quarles rubbed his chin, "All names,

Quarles speed-razy "Toad - hogs" with Tom had not been paying Ima higher, right."

closely-written pages. When she had gone he "Sorah Lou Freeman. read fragments of it only, went to the London Library and Jackson chuckled.

"It anybody

MY

dear Thomas,-We spent some time

looking up can help you, Colonel, It will returned ten days ago from New appropriate volumes.

be Sarah Lou. Although I'm n York. What a city! And what Southerner by birth I've spent lives people live in it, scurrying went to loo many years in New York to like ants from

one place Hathermill's house be much real help. But Sarah another, too busy to stand in

the street

and tell a stranger this day! I thought

day when we Journeyed in the lift to the top of the Empire State Building (oh

yes,

rubbernecked it like real country cousins) and the the tiny figures on pavements below..........

Four days later he

John

Col,

TIME

WAITS

FOR

NO

MAN

But if you are one of the many wanting a TISSOT timepiece, it will pay to wait on the arrival of the 1957 collection expected shortly.”

The manufacturers of Tissot regret the temporary shortage and promise that their ladies and gent's quality timekerpers will shortly be available in the latest models, and all in the famed tradition of

Pour

Société Suisse Geneva, Switzerland.

SINCE 1853

I'Industrie Horlogère S.A.

Tissot

TREASURED WATCHES FOR 100 YEARS

Société: Suisse" Pour l'industrie Horlogère S.A., Geneva, Switzerland.

Sole App CHITIS LTD OMEGA • 70007

310 Clécomslot

~ly one

sow

we

to

Since

we returned I have been investigating the affairs of your friend Colonel Hathermill. I am delighted to say the his Idea about Amerlent ancestors was right. There was a John Jacob Hallermill lving in Ceciltown in the 17th century. the greatest good fortune I By have found much information about him In the Common- place Book kept by He seems, Henrietta Freeman,

to three or four pounds worth altogether that I could discover. Nurses get FREE hospital frent- ment if they need it."

I have only just finished in- of treatment a day. vesilgating American hospitals.

Everywhere I found the surna story. American

$$$$$$$

hospitals nursing

With Tom in the

wreckage

have tho same

rea

Like other countrics, including Britain, America needs more and bigger hospitals. Out of shortage #7 those i olher of his car, they found a collego five thousand hospitals, 3,450

hundred Arx thousands of friend. He, too, had been pay- hold fewer than a countries.

don't pay their patients worry so much about ing $100 a year into a health patients and

But months way. finding the money to pay for insurance scheme. their treatment that their covery is often delayed,

You

can expect knowing smiles from American doctors if British doctors walk out of the United Kingdom's Health Ser- vice as they are threatening to do. The very idea of a Health Service has always terrified the/ American Medical Association.

of litigation followed, before the insurance people paid up.

Operation after operation Tan up a bill of 530,000 in a matter of months. "I had to take the hat round all my friends and ask them to guarantee so much," Tom tot me.

to

who complain that the

And people in other countries old- fashioned "family doctor" Is on his way America.

out should visit American

general practitioners are so bothered by Tom and his friend both walk new medical discoveries that with a limp today. But it might they can't keep up to date any have been

Americans more. WWERG who simply can't pay inflated More and more patients are doctors' bills nte sent to Tell them that Aneurin Bevan grim, fortress-like city hospitals doctors'

the being sent straight from their signed because a shilling, was which are

rooms walting supported by rate- "diagnosticians." The only jab indeed, to have been clapped on British perscriptions payers.

these gentry have is to say me of hers, although and they laugh out loud.

Alarming storica filter through, what It costs the equivalent of £3 of badly injured patients dying

wrong and recommend a it came to nothing.

It all adds up the local doctor and by way of just to have a stopping replaced in ambulances. If renvoie spoolaist

10 mone red tape, more waste of being character. I have had a tooth if you lose one in gale, you find they were often time, and MORE MONEY.

New York. one page of the bookt photo-

on ihelr way from the nearest While the medical profession private horplink to a "free" hos- graphed and enclose it...

America is a multi-million dollar gold-mine for doctors, All too often doctors have Padents are throwing up their discovered, when admibling a jobs, pawning their jewellery, patient, that even selling their houses, to pay money saved up their bills.

bills,

rather a flame

He was

There was much more, to the effect that she would not in ordinary circumstances think of parting with the Commonplace Book, but that the house had been needing repairs for years, and that if there was a prospect of getting them done well, she left it to her dear Thomas to say what the book was worth. Quarles looked at the photo- graph. It showed page

of characteristic 17th century script and told how Doctor Jacob Hathermill had treated the whole Freeman family for mumps for which, he had pre- scribed cooling drinks and warm flannel next the skin,

Quarles read no further/ Colonel Halherznili tugged his moustache complacently. "A

Tempuriable frakt," Quarles

in

pital,

The wife of an Irish diplomat at the United Nations thinks she knows the answer to Ameri- can doctors' bills. "God bless us, it's frightening to think of ho hasn't any getting 1," she told me. "I'd

to pay their jump on the first boat and

home."

go

bosses bargain

B

EFORE Suez, Britain bought nearly all her all

Kewalt, with 8 million barrels * month out of 16.3 million, was Britain's biggest supplier, followed by Vanezuela (17 million), #ahrein, Qatar, and the Trucial States (1,5 million) and trak (1 million).

Now Britain has to look wast for oil. But the American companies are putting up prices and demanding that dritalis must undertake to go on buying their off aren after Sues is clear

20,000 wells *TWO-THIRDS of world sit la produced in the Americas (compared with little

mora than a sixth in the Middle East). The United States alone produces hall tho world's off -- and Texas alone. more than a filth.

Texas has 20.000 oil wells. and dollar problems apart. could relieve Europe's shortage" of the drop of a ten-gallon hat. But the Texans are not boring all the oil they could. They have 270 million barrels in storage, and have been cutting production to push up prices.

Tough budnets fo oil-starved The name "Texas" means "friends" - but the State emblem is the mocking - bird 1

Superlatives,

IF the petrol crisis lasts long. Texas could grow aven richer.. Already it is the state of superlatives. · From west to dair t measures farther than New York to Chicago.

It has the most beef, sheep,

cotton wool, mahair,

lint, farms, and Sunday newspapers of any U.S. State. Its popula How has grown from 220,000 to 815 million in a hundred years. And somewhere in Pocos County it boasts the deepest hole in the world -- the 15.270-foot ollwell that sym. bolises the fathomless reserves of wealth of the Lone Star Sisle

A Feudal Welfare State

Turns

said. I don't know what Idna THE biggest squawk I

of forgery you'll receive for your 3,000 dollars, Colonel, but do know that it won't come from America, any more than this lotter did. Or Mr Jacksori hero,

★ ★

"Just look at this letter, Tho it la tho stuff about real of

meat the Commonplace Book, the rest the padding is pudding. But has been done

English

aro

wo. There

words in it, words no American would ever

190, unless they'd

lived for years In England. Americans don't talk about it but about elevators, and for them pavements are called side walki. That means the lotter is a forgery.

whero's Jackson? scoundrel!?

URATION roared the Colonel'. Bolow them a door banged. Murjel want to the window. "Mr Jackson is. rtinning

very hard

་

· down the streut.

The

The Colonel loolood sadly at photograph. "Do you, sup poro, Mr

Quaries, thin, mesna that I never had an American ancorfor?" OPE

I've ind Ideo, Colonel. But I think you would be wise, if you reeted bappy with the Englis

we

hear as a financial journalist at home is Lancashire's: "How can with compete Japanese slave labour?” Well, Osaka

is the Japanesо Manchester and Birmingham rolled into one, with a garish rainbow of nightly neon that makes London's Piccadilly a dull place. And New York is n country retreat compared with the day-and-night-long sym- phony of Osaka taxi korns. On the outskirts of this the second largest city of Japan, I looked today at what Lanca- shiro likes to call a slave camp with three bowl of rice a day.".

The facilities

Out The Goods

From FREDERICK ELLIS in OSAKA...

park-like setting with lawna. The bulldings are modern. Dotted arounit were tennis courts, a swimming pool, baseball, softball, and volley-ball pitches with facilities for

Judo, facing, and archery, All very

Butlin

a feature of

And all around were shrubs and

trees that are Who uses the tennis courts?" I

Japanese life.

asked my Japanese guble, "The operatives," he said, looking, mystified that I should ask such a question.

The family

All Japanese emills and plants

operate

samil-feudal system. Workers join for lie,

regarding themselves or part

of the family...

rice. But then the Japanese wilt without rice. It is their daily bread.:

The company provides every- thing a sort of privato wel- fare State.

this company, based on lengthi of service.

The average last year was 200 shares, worth £20 on the stockket.

It will be a happy day when Lancashire mili girls go home with a handful of shares.

The hospital Ims 50 beds, doctors, dentists, nurses. There is a beauty parlour for the girls, a barber shop for the men. All All on the firm..

&AMEDES

The food

The clothes

workers here" from the manager downwards, wear. the company uniform. It is pro- tective clothing, clean and neat,The men wese, khaki denims, the girls attractive blue blouse slacks, white shoes, and coloured head surf. The girls look chic. And thos

do not have to pay for it. So really is a mockery sa judgo. Japanese, texilló, wages by the oft-quoted basic wage of R15 a month for girls, £20, a months for men The men and girls work this British 48-hour wockindud But it is imposible to say what ding a full day Batruday, y

all these

Three meals n day cost the workers just over Millling, a bargain by Japanese or Lanca shire standards, Moals are the only doduction, from wages, The cast ir spending money. Lancashire's lassies earn around

AT a work, wh

the only Poral holdays.

parks

Well, Lancashire's lasses get

some of the Osaka dacities. In when they take a Wakes Week holiday with Billy Butlin, After that it is back to the Young workers sleep in donal There is no

this Omaka plant-nil, the workers, from the chakman downwards, live in.

・ed the perica, coll- But here's the sub for Lancha,

supath two-shift system, an

oreshire. Everybody works

then-club

duli mill-town life for another tories: There are house for rooma, Alms, cut-price: shops,

year

married farnilleg

This is jumpopular in LancashiG

particularly with traden varicious,

KERK Japanese textiles than in the

Here I drove through the gates. Each dots over misch-pelted bathe had wall more the secret of choop

Drow buste of a great textile plant into a "dally--inchading that bowl of Then therm la o shane, bantin in /kdwi