1959-04-25 — Page 12

Not For The

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 1959.

Squeamish What Secrets

THE MAN

WITH THE

GOLDEN ARM, By Nelson Algren Spearman. 161.

IT

taken ten years lgren's famous nov. find an English| publisher. Maybe this panorama of life among the petty cheats, phony

small-time chisellers,

Drove The King's Friend Mad?

braggarts, double cloc.: THE stranger gasped as the Foreign sneaks, Secretary wandered past him in the August sun. The frizzed hair and touts and stooges and the high-beaked nose were unmistakable gladhand shakers, of the slums of Chicago is but there was something else quite un- not for the squeamish expected. but it could not be more vivid.

Algren's hero, the man with the golden Lrin, 14 Frankle Miceline, creupler in a gambling hell. Maried to a paychofle, he

The Foreign Secretary was known for his cold poise. But the man who edged his way through the crowds in Picadilly was wild-eyed and agitated. The top of one of his elegant high-boots was slopping over the ante into the dirt.

Tense with curiosity. the is love with a stripper named stranger followed him. Atolly,

The answer helps to explain why Castlereagh's death has always been

saw him alx with the whispers. fie

outsid+ the popular

Д

matter for

For three weeks fashionable London had talked of little else but the Right Rev. Percy Jocelyn, Bishop of Clogher, in

Bishop fled

Frankde a junkle-a. drug-erowds nedict on a resull of war White Horse Cellar. He sow wennds. His source of supply is him approach a Jewish boy who a dupe-pedig named Louje, hud a hawker's tray of cheap whom one night on Impulse be knives for sale. Curefully the

Foreign Secretary selected a Ulster, He goes on the run, tad Medly penktilfe, with a white handle, shelters him and

threw down Д shilling, and nurses hin 1rough his agonised cravings for strode off to Carlton House for

jan Audience of the King. morphing until the police close in dn klim. He hangs himself.

Algren's bums and deadbeats and junkles are pathette, viciu. He lights up their lives w.ta kod ef poetry and a genuine compassion. Pity what you feel at the end.

nol

15

CAUGHT at Westminster in

It was a Friday in August 1822. Castlereagh, the Tocy his episcopal drees in the

incriminating Foreign Secretory was the most most powerful man in Britain. stances, the 67-year-old bishop

had been accused of a home

circum-

Excliedly nt dinner the sexual offence. He had broken observant stranger fold

his ball and fled to Scotland, where friends about the incident. But warrants then could not reach WALTER ALLEN he did not know what was to hlin. follow.

-London Express Service).

How To Run

+

A Hotel

CHEZ PAVAN. By Richard Llewellyn. Michael Joseph, 184.

FAMOUS restaurant and A fictul in Paris, Chez Fuvan, is really the central character of this crowded novel.

It is still in the early twenties, conducted with all the skylish elaboratics, the nelleulcus caru for detail, the calculated appeal to the cet dunanding of palales which made it unique even in the Edwording heyday, A great hotel, as Arnold Ben-

On Monday handsome Lord Castlereagh staggered dying at his hoine in Kent. Blood spurted from a neatly-severed artery in his neck. In his hand was the white penknife from the tray in Piccadilly

Rhymed the Rodiral Lard Byron in glee:-

So he has cut his throat at

last!-e? Who?

The man who cut his coun-

try's long ago.

But were the police really after Castlereagh for a similar offence? Certainly not. reputation, if anything, quite the reverse.

Kis

was

Why, then, did he suggest 117 After his death the explanation circulated that political proli- lems, had driven him mad.

Montgomery Hyde examines those problems,

OF THE KING'S MISTRESS. THERE WAS THE PROBLEM

For many years the post had belonged to discreet Lady Hert- ford, Castlereagh's own aunt, But she was now in her sixties and the King had transferred his enthusiasm to the younger Lady Conyngham.

But why did Castlereagh cut his throat? The historians Have bern vague. Now in a fascinat Ing book of detection, THE Of Lady Conynghom a cynic STRANGE DEATH OF LORD wrote: "Not an idea In her CASTLEREAGH (Holnemand, head, not a word to any for her- 18.), K. Montgomery Hyde, pels nothing but hand to the Tory M.P., reassembles the accept pearls and diamonds, evidence.

and an enormous balcony to. wear them on."

'I am mad’

nett proved, provides canvan RST, let us return to Lon-

But even worse, Lady Conyng- hom hated Custicreagh's own wife, the fat, chattering Emme, She refused to go where Emma At diplometle present.

dimculties functions immense resulted for poor Castlereagh.

as ren and varied and anec-

was Cun on that August Friday. dotal as a picture by Fel.h. This Let us follow the tall, booted

is what Mr Richard Llewellyn | figure of Castlereagh, as he

ains at.

It is a phy, I think, "that he has found it necessary to use an elaborale prose style, which is as heavily over-decorated as all Edwardian pergne,

Jurries through the COELLY apartments of Carlton House to meel George IV.

Instantly he selzed thu

Queen trouble

King's plump arm. And what THERE WAS THE PROBLEM

OF QUEEN CAROLINE. was sadd next remained ixed in Even on his wedding

night the King's mind for ever. Perfection in the l'avan scale

George IV had got himself no longer says: the hotel is run- Demanded Castlereagh: "Have dead drunk at the ning unto a loss, Paven's clever you heard the news, the terrible thought of hla German wife. daughter has a sweeping solu- |nows?" The King looked Now he had not seen Caroline tee" that would bring the hotel | puzzied. Castlereagh, "with eyes for years. For years she had up to date, but lore" everything | staring, went on: "Police officers

for width 1 stood.

Pavin's protege, Charles, puts

uy a light for the eld standards. The daughter wins the first round: the hotel is transtormed, Charles and Pavan turn their backs un turde.nity and set up elsewhere.

But the lures les not so wport who are not, funkly, well realised 25 characters. It les rather in the day-to-day running of a perfect hutel

are searching for me, to orrest me. I am nccused of the same crime as the Bishop of Clogher

BOOKS

by

ROBERT PITMAN

You'll get up early,

the King

was told

TO S

MAS. NOOSEVELT..

time. At the end of it, Mr Dulles and Senator Vandenberg told hor: "We begged the Proŵdent not to nominato you. But we must acknowledge that we havo found you good to work with."

The men

Mrs Rochevell Нав carried away from those UNO days many sharp impressions of Rus- sion statesinen. Vishinsky with his amazing memory. Molotov, palite but impenetrable. Later but more interesting, was

wearing a white Russian blouse with beautiful embroidery, re- lexing on holiday in a house out-

GOODBYE TO THE PRESIDENT'S WIDOW Kushchev, bare-needed, and

ON MY OWN. By Eleanor Roosevelt. Hutchinson, 271.

"Next morning che (Queen Mary) was up and dreesed to perfection, walling in the corri- dor to cay goodbye. And she had

de Yaitu,

With Khrushchev confident

and

had

A

excllable, Mra Roosevelt long argumentativo Pession. At the end he asked: "Can I tell our papers we have had a friendly conversallon?"

at

"You can say,” she replied, "that we had a friendly con- versation. but that we differ."

"At least we didn't shoot

other."

exclaimed cach Khrushchov, grinning broadly.

In the end, what remains

this vivacickis book of impres Between Churchill and Mrs signs is the ortless self-portrait.

ROAMING about the world, an old lady before whom the most exalted doors are open and the highest in most lands are ready to speak their minds, Mrs Roosevelt is a unique figure of our times. She has the prestige of a famous President's widow, She has the privilege of a remarkable personality. She has the mobility and inquisitiveness of a successful columnist, that his companion was really u young man dressed in woman's

And, if there is no parti. old, talk about Prince clothes, immediately the young cular distinction about her. Charles's tonsils. man's accomplices rushed into

Mre Roosevelt notices that the the

and proceeded to writing, she has good eyes, room

good hearing and 'n grent royal entourage is much younger made her son, the poor King most vividly with the rendor.of blackmail Castlereagh.

This suggests Montgomery deal of candour. She is than it was on her last visit, and get up alsol"

as she leaves, remarks to 2 Hyde-on top of the strain of benevolent but not cnally secretary that must be overwork, is what made Castle impressed, polite but lack to be both a young Queen and a Roosevelt there is something less of a woman of sireng but simple reagh talk crazily of the Bishop

than complete sympathy. You character, of Clogher. This la what de- ing in reverence; and, with mother,

'don't really approve of me, de Mrs Roosevelt tries to it this all her cosmopolitan sym

you, Mrs Roosevelt?" he asked complex world into ico homely stroyed him,

pathies, is an old-fashioned

her once.

When she visits. Britain American in temperament. she calls on the Queen, going At Windsor Castle, in George Queen Mary was up by an old-style cage-type VI's me, lift to a sitting-room with a shocked to hear that her son and daughter-in-law did not propose The

two to be there in the morning to see women, the young and the Mrs Roosevelt off.

And the bishop himself? Twenty-one years after Castle- reagh's frenzied death he was silving at peace in Scotland. For some years he had worked as a butler. When he died at 78 his coffin bore an inscription in Latin devised by himself: "Here lie the remains of a great crackling fire. sinner, saved by grace."

JACKYS DIARY

BY

Jacky Mendelsohn Age 32

bard

"Not at all," replies the recre- tary, "The Queen is very well departmentalized."

Shocked!

On SatuR DAY MOMMY Took Me to the Barber to get my Head cuto

When We got iN SIDE THERE WAS ALL READY Lots of other people • AND EVEN A COUPLE OF GroAN-UPS®

mere

COMIC BOOK

Lured ปาก Continent in Cublous company.

At last, 1821, Castlereagh promised the King to have Parliament put an end to Caroline's status and delate her

and

Then he told the amazed King: have just had my horees came up from Cray. I name from the Prayer Book. shall leave by the little gute But Caroline fought back,

rouged In your garden. 1. shell go to Thickly

oddly Portsmouth and there sail for dressed, she deliberately set up Fronce." Finally, while

to the house next Castlereagh's King tried lo soothe him, town-house in St. James & Casilereagh sobbed:"f" om Square. Sho rallies the anti- mad. I know I am mad.” Tory mab against him. His

What was all about? What windows were smashed so often had the bishop done?

that he

had to Bleep at the

• Pretty Soon it WAS MY chance & was ver) BRAVE & HATOLY cryed At ALL when the BAYBER TABLE-clothe

"I don't suppose I really did," the agrees, giving as the reason Churchill's wartime habit of keeping her husband sitting late in after-dinner talks.

As to American reprezenta- tive on a UNO commition, Mrs Roosevelt had a hard and testing

a pattern of ideas. But out of the inevitable failure, she makes an interesting and sometimes diverting book.

George Malcolm Thomson

--London Express Service,

The Barber HAS A BIG PEPPER Mint Stick GROWING IN FRONt of his store. ONLY YOU CANT LICK IT ON A COUNT of its wrapped in asse

BARBE SHOP

@3

MAN Was Getting his FACE Washed With Whipped Creamo it must of BEEN REAL DIRte as the Barben hap to scrape the Dirt off with A Knife,

toLD HIM to cut My Head LIKE DADDYS With A HOLE IN the Middle But

After He finished cutting my hair He Tried Berry Soda Only he missed & Got it ALL

StreetBordignon started in chokine me with a MOMMY WOULDNT Let Him to make friends By giving ME SOME RAYL≈)

ON THE CRIME SHELF

THEN THERE WAS THE PROBLEM OF THE ANTI- TORY · AGITATORS THEM- SELVES. Take the case of the Cato Street Conspirators,

STRIKE FOR A KINGDOM, Crook, the shabby, unconven-bag for the task of carrying the Menna Gaille Gollancz. 12s. 6d,, Honal solicitor.

A claustrophoble Welsh mining. valley during the 1920 strike li the setting for the murder hunt. whleb. follows the death of a fibidinous pit-manager,

THE

In 1820 they plotted to murder the entire Cabinet at dinner. And they had prepared a special

nted Castlereagh's head.

Such had been Costlereagh's SHADOW OF worries. MURDER. Charity Blackstock. But by August 1822 they were Bodder and Stoughton. 15. no longer so neute. The Cato Trying 10 forget a murky Street. men had been caught The crime is solved by the episode in his private life, and hanged. Queen Caroline iccal J1, a miner-poet, just in thor John Shawßeld becomes had solved the Government's the to prevent a nasty situation entangled in a case of multiple | problems by dying, Even Lady from getting out of hand. inurder among eccentrics in a Conyngham had falled to upset

snow-bound Highland village. Castlereagh's high status.

why was he driven to mad- ness?

And why should so

• DEATH OF A SPINSTER, normal a man seem to fear a Frances Dumcombe, Secker & charge of homosexuality? Warburg, 12s. 6d. Anthropologist Dee Galbraith

If the detection malched the description, this would be an outstanding novel.

comes across

• BLOOD AND Judgement. Michael Gilbert. Hodder, and Stoughton, 12. Detective.. me add tribal customs, murder included, in the cosy New

The theory

sergeant Petrella turns skin England town where she scitles

disobeys oiler, tussler with a sang of to await the birth of her baby. Moves MY HYDE be

superior

voluat crooks and clears up a

ONTGOMERY

case of mistaken Identity-a THE DEATH OF HUMPTY.printed in 1855 for a clergyman

DUMPTY,

Ku has traced a book privately

who almost

certainly information from

got

one uf

tight-packed plot unravelled at break-neck speed. (Published Boardman, 19%. 64. When the Castlereagh's fellow Ministers.

Alexander. David recently).

dead body of a Broadway comedian is delivered to him in Castlereagh often met up with According to the clergyman, THIRD CRIME· LUCKY. " hansom cab New York oditar women the streets on his Anthony Gilbert.. Crimo Club, Bart Hardin has to tussle with 102. Gd. The profitable carcera crime syndicato and rescue walk home frora Westminster,

His habit 'was observed by of a murderously emcient hus his kidnapped girl friend before bend and wife team of house he can get his scoop-an certain con-men of the age, who keepere, who specialise in tak improbable if welcome example devised a deft pint.. ing care of elderly parties, ends of editorial initiative. with the intervention of Arthur

---{London Express Service).

One night during 1819 ho went back with a wornan toi Ther apartment,. There he found,

was hoping he WOULD WASH ME With WhiPPED GREAM ALSO BUJ SVESS MY FACE WASNT Dirty Enough As he just dusted it off with A WISH-Broome

OVER MY HEAD

(Aften then He holds UP A

Special Mirror WHICH Shows What You Look Like WHEN YOUR Standing BACKWARDS

D.

1989, King Features Syndicats, Inc., World rights

ADD VICE FOR CHILDREN:

The Barber Shop Has Pepper Mint Sticks WHICH YOU cant Lick Whipped GrEAM Which You cant eat & Razz Berty Sodn Which You Cant drink⚫ So if You go bring plenty of Food

Your Friend JACKH