1959-09-26 — Page 14

AN ASTONISHING COMBINATION

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1959.

JACK THE RIPPER AND THE OUTSIDER This Fascinating Man

Mr. Wilson wins his

toughest

battle

after midnight. A lttle later é "Poor Mary Anne Nicholls," into the yard below the club and get a night's lodging in an found a Swedish woman with awful does-house over there, her throat cut."

But she hadn't got the necessary,

BEHIND his spectacles the author's big mild eyes man drove his donkey and cart Guld Wilson. She had tried in

shone avidly as we set out on our tour of the Whitechapel murder sites.

Through the darkness the lights glittered from the East End's jellied eel stalls. On grey walls the posters announced important local wrestling con- tests for the coming autumn.

But our Bitte party, led by the author, was not concerned with the autumn of 1959,

Bernera

As we set off down Street towards the London docks we were back in the early autumn of 1838. When Umid long-bearded Jews, just

fted from Russian po- promos, jostled in thou-

throughout

Fast End.

the

►

Robert Pitman

Wilson talked on. As' ho id. She was wearing 4 new talked I could almost see the hat. So she said: 'I'll be back Resticulating hands through with the money. See what i as the fine bonnet I've got. I shon't those lighted windows East End Immigrants discussed be long, Pathetle - her zmart Socialism or the problems of new hat" Jowry in 1808. And I could soo Wilson looked at the sito

Anne's the hands jerk still in horror where Mary

bonnet ns the lerrified cart-driver ran finally came to rest. He said: upstairs yelling, that the Ripper "When Joy's father took my. Tad truck again.

diary he saw my note on this

We moved on "The Ripper murder. Obviously he thought must have walked back along I was a manioc." the Commercial Road like this," sald Wilson. "He had not com- pleted his murder ritual that

Possibilities

than

The weather was more

Past midnight, looking

night. I suppose he felt he must warm. ON NEW BOOKS

And when fear of a nien with a long kalfe lingered in the warm nights throughout August and September.

The author who led us was young Mr Colin Wilson, now 27, the man who wrote The Out- rider.

And the rubjost of our night tour was something which has obased Mr Wilson dince the age of 19-lie brief arid memorable East End career of Jack the Ripper.

Long essay

Unless you are very well up in your Wilson that obsession

ma surprise you.

his

Look, for example, at latest book THE AGE OF DEFEAT. published recently (Gollancz, 10s.).

It do not deal with mass murder at nil. Like Wilson's first book, The Outilder. It is

lag asay of complaint about the ideals of our age. It argues thai moden novels and fileris auí radio programmes are too concerned with the ordinary weak, unsuccessful mati. A praiseworthy exception 'accreti In to Wilson--Room at the Top. For the true hero, naye Wilson, should be a men who does his damnedest to slipe his own life and fate.

The Aur of Defeat is Intelli- gent, provocative, I do not blame its publishers for being proud of it.

But I must also report that the book does not cxcite any special pride in Wilson. His hopes of fame ure based on quite

a different kind of book-on a book which had Becretly dominated the whole Colin Wif son story,

Do you remember the outlines

of the Wilson story?

It began just after Christmas

ol

1955 when iwo out-of-work young men in different parts London got neh jobe with the Post Office. Within a Iow months both were famous. Оде was John Osborne. The other was Colin Wilson.

On television Wilson, chewing calmly at a pear, told the nation about his book The Outsider.

But the book which really interested him was his half- finished novel, (titie: Ritual In the Dark) in which a scries of murders very like Jack the Hipper's occur in modern 'Lon- don,

For the Ripper fascinated him. His first London excursion when, he came from his working-class home in Leletler had been cycle-trip to the area of opera-i tions in Whitechapel.

Angry critics

Then,

8

WETE

after Wilson's dazzle of success, there troubled months. • The critles, piqued to see that their praise ví The Outsider had made Wus more famous then themselves, fell angrily on his second book ut essays.

There were private troubles too. Mr John Stewart, a Bed- ford.accountant, tried to horse- whip Wilson bocinise of his friendship with his daughter Joy (who is now Joy Wilson). Mr Stewart seized some-start- ing pages from Wilson's Diary. He cried: "Read It, and wonder how I feel as a father wha daughter is in love with man."

this

But Wilson was unconcerDNA, His only anxiety was that his publishers refused to print hái huge 180,000-word novel abouti a intern Ripper: The very sub- jest esemed to shock Mr Göl- Janez.

For three years since, Wilson has worked to get the book into print: He hes rewritten it. He has tried other publishers-who wanted to cut- If by two-thirds, Then, just a few days oğu, otme the best news of Wilson's career. Out of the bluo came a mQ:SAGE from Victor Gullanez informing hlin that his novel. Ritual in the Dark will be published in full next Menchi..

What has medo Mr Gollancz change his mind? Perhaps ha

has grown less squeamish Intely. Perhaps he has suddenly, soch

commercial possibilities in rewritten boek, b

tho

For

In any case he must be REA pecting a huge demand. The book is the length of Goné with the Wind." "Yef ho will sell 1t at around 10%. a copy...!

Wilcon's

Are much hopes for novel Justined

For an answer I take you back to the conducted tour which he arranged for me in Whitechapel. Wilcon steered 313 small taloon

along the dark back streets. Joy Wilson followed a well-marked street

map. We of stopped by the gaunt walls on LC.C. wchool."

"This was the night of the double murder," said Wilson. There was a "A Saturday. working men's club here, Mostly Immigrants. They had been discussing politics un

his for our final site, we heard a

... све

bent дена of his career.

They Called Chief

THE CHIEF. By Robert

·Jackson, Harrap. 218.

SOMEWHERE in the capacious rag-bag

of my memory there is a

By JOHN CONNELL

mental snapshet, dated the one and Robert Jackson is account of Lloyd George's wel

(I should think) about 1938 or 1934. A police man was holding up the traffic in the Strand im- mediately opposite the Law Courts.

A sturdy, compond, mildly tolund elderly gentleman made his way across the road under this protection.

the other

like manoeuvrings, which judgment of Cossels, J.

Connell, J., concurs in this most exciting and revealing. He Not is a little hard, I think, on Lord becuase the book is written with Reading, who was an obviously Lloyd any profound and penetrative George's goings-on, but had ony great distinction of style or unhappy accomplice la insight, but because it is com- been Howart, I am certain that petent, workmanlike and honest, I should never have spoken to Hewart was the son of a pro- Lloyd George in my life again. sperous draper in Bury.

ho

In his eighteen years as ÏCJ, Hewart was as outspoken off the After some years in journalism Bench as on it. He commented he was a leader writer on a freely on public affairs (it may London eventing newspaper bo noted that Lord Parker la I was with two friends who was called to the Bar. worthily maintaining this tradi

where fiad just been called to the Bar.

success came to him ton); he conducted, with rather swiftly. They took off their hais and

more zest than discretion, a He was diligent, conscientious, long, running fight bowed to the ald

with

Sir gentleman.

and a Hurriedly, I did the same.

fluent and energetic Clase Schuster, the Secretary advocat. Like many others in, of the Lord Chancellor's depart his calling, before and since, he ment wira he Busparted, was drawh to politics.

cherished a almister desire to He fought a by-election or two, establish a Minetry ok Justice. and entered the House of Con- Hewart emerged, victorious. mons in 1919 as a Liberal:MP - for Leicester.

At the top

In

Traces of his earilor Liberalism were few in the last yenis of Lloyd George was close, and for kindly off duly he could be ex- Bia political association with Howart's life, Mellow, gay and many years friendly. He was ceedingly stern in passing sen

at Sollellor-General and later tences. Mr Jackson teila - again.. Attorney General In Lloyd vividly and economically, the Georgo's war-time and part-war story of the trial of the four Coalitions,

go on. You can imagine

"Who is he?" I naked. exeltement mud fear,

laugh: "Detcher they're looking neys-I could see the popular

"The Chief;" "Then of about 1.30 a.m. he for the Ripper!"

possibilities of that theme.

they said, Eddowes. She inet Catherine

when I looked at acocists of youthful awe. It came from a woman shop-Later,

He was Lord Hewart. He had had just been let out of the keeper, sitting, big and blonde, Wilson's manuscript, I raw that

11 in a way been Lord Chief Justice of collec-station cells at Bhops on a chair outside her shop, he has tackled

neighbours chatted with that may excite the intellectuals England then some if or 12 gate where they had taken her Her

The intellectual voiced too. Not since Dickens bas af years, and was at the summit of for drunkenness. A pity for her her.

Wilcom Joined them. In a British fiction-writer dealt with his fame and authority. the was not more drunk,"

cluster on the pavement they murder in a book of such size keenly exchanged theories about and seriousness.

Not perhaps the greatest man

"Mayfair men" ;. who 'lured an that terror-ridden putumn 71 And

that 1 decided

that to hold his high office, not

elderly Jeweller with a tray of years ago.

young Mr Wilson may be on always the wisest of judges, but

valuable rings' to a room in the the verge of as big a step for- a fascinating, subile and many-

Hyde Park Hotel, cobbed him and sided character, as Mr Jackson in this biography makes clear. The great crisis of his life almost beat him to death,

The chief of these ruffians got Mr Justice Cassels, in a brief occurred when the first Lord

Reading,

then

seven years and 20 strokes of Lord Chief the "cat". Was Hewart a sadist "A good subject calls for a good of India, and Lloyd George, as such as this on blographer; Gordon Hewart was Prime Minister, sought to pre- educated public-school boy?

Still the same In an -t courtyard, which remain the same to this day, we stood reverently at the spot where Catherine Eddewes was takon Into eternal sobriety,

The tour proceeded. In n cobbled street Victorian warehouse we stopped again in the shadows.

JACKYS DIARY

by &* Jacky Mendelsohn

Age 322.

near

Already on our strange tour

I had heard the evidence of ward as he was when he was Wilson's Imagination and an unknown temporary postman humanity when stirred by the less than four years ago. A step

The crisis

4

a vam Ripper theme. Now, as they which may put him far beyond and spent foreword, observes, Justice, was appointed Viceroy because he imposed a sentence

talked together in the darkness ex-postman Osbourne. -the Outsider and the cock-

Yester Day Mommy needed some food To Cook Super, So We went to the Super Markit

When You first go in They give You A Little, Baby CarRidge to Push. ONLY THEY DONT give You any Baby You Gotta bring Your own.

That's how MET THE MAN WHO OWNS THE Super-Markit.

BOY WHAT A grouch!

No Baby

-(London Express Servicė),

SUPER MARKIT

its called a Markir on A Count of when THE food comes There it' Don't Have no Price on it, so they gottA Mark it.

254 Sucker TаSH

Tinside they got ALL Kinds of food You CAN PICK OUT, SOME OF its in CANS & SOME is in boxes... Which I Like Best, CAUSE YOU CAN OPEN THEM & Taste whats inside before you Buy!

its

Cookies & Crackers

|

They also GOT A PLACE WHere They also They SOT PART WHERE THEY Sell Babies SELL ROAT VesTables*

Food... Bizness wasn't very Good There AS i didn't see A Single Baby buying any THinG.|

VegTABLES.

*They're CALLED THAT CAUSE if You CAT LOTS OF THEM YOU'LL GET STRONG Like A Lion

AraM

NO BABY here

Either.

BABY FOOD

1000

0000000000 0000000000

Then The Counter SAVE Mommy a whole Bunch of Tiny Stamps, Which aren't Any good, on a COUNT for mailed A Letter with one of it came right Back.

WHAT a GYP

When Your finished Shopping You GOTTA STEER THE Carridge over To A Counter Whose gor? Machine Which does ArithmaticK HOME-Work When The Answer comes our Thats how much Money You pay 8-23

POSTAGE

e supposedly vent Howart from succeeding Reading.

Or was he fulfilling. his own belief that is of fundamental. Lloyd George wanted to keep importance that justice should Hewurt in the House and in the not only be done, Government, and was not at all manifestly and undoubtedly bo scrupulous about how he did it seen to be dona"?

Mr Jackson gives

⚫ detailed

but should:

--/London Express Service).

If you've ever been puzzled by teenagers...

-HERE'S WHAT THEY THINK ABOUT YOU ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS. By Colin. Macinnes, MaçGibbon.

and Koo. 15%.

HERE, you citizens, taxpayers, oldsters, you conscripts, sordids and squares (which means you and me, dear reader) dig this; this is what you and your city and the civilisation you have made, there look like to an articulate teen-ager,

want to low,

It's not very preky, if you For what self-respecting cool teen-ager with money to spend And if you want to know wants advice from a square con- why, read Mr MacInnes's new novel which will tell you in the authentic language and rhythm of today'a young. And though you may not like it, you '-will

a

cript co me? Which is roughly where we came in.

A BIT THICK

wrtainly get how angle on BILLY LAR

odd way (as you probably think) they do tick. And you raay begin to understand them better,

Waterhouse. Mich·që Joseph. 131.

The crazy cat who tolls the THIS is another at- story is not himself typical of tempt to get into the the teen-ngers. But he lives in mind of an adolescent

the

middle of the teenage

xave, understands it and is on Billy Fisher is a young

their side.

to spend for the first time, ha says "Good luck to liem!"

Sechs them around in their man in the provinces tavourite haunts, with money who, being a white collar worker, seems to have Ân anarchist missed out on the teen- Himself he's an anarchist age rave, and has to find (non-mug is what, he calls it). Some other way of work- He has two conditions for

In his own time arid, twò, “even

These arise from a boorish

working. One, that pe does it ing off his frustrations, if you can't make big money suburban-minded family end every day, have a graft that, & fuille clerk's job in a doity lets you make it sometime.” undertaker's office, (but Len't

So he's

photographer this laying it on a bit toa "street, holiday, park, studio,, thick?), artlatić poses, and when I can'

Imagination is so find a client, pornographie.". active that he often carries his

This Job takes him around a fantasies over the border into. whole fat His novel has no reality;">

Billy's

story--that is its great weak- Humiliations ngas. It's a protracted, tour of He gets himself engaged to the contemporary London teen-

two girls at pazo when be #go, ECETC.

Bilro. ⠀⠀ Hu really fancies a persuades himself that he Ama

Job in Londets to go to, ON scriptwriter to a famous come- all he has s'un dion, when Cr.couraging letter.

He watches the cats and their chicks in their coffee bars, dise arcades.

and leen-age, drag at,098.

He gets Into the Knights taktge-Chelsea circuit where the debs and TV personalities

We go through a whole`day:

rúb up with the William of these fantasies and the mi Hickey sot

understandings and humiliations Ife chaves this chick. Crepe which stem from therma

TEE mental sad spiritual- Suzette, who is settling for. pocurity with a rich old pour squalor of provincial lowes from the rag-trade. And his middle-class life is well suga story ends with the riots at posted, and Billy' febrilner

protests are perm Notting Hill where he lives be-adolescent

and, convincingly cause it is cheap and no ques, reptively

done,

Tlons asked, maka

Elia shots of the riots are: passionate and vivid." Duit ho really should be a bit esteful- about, getting, preachy...VATIQUE his danger, I be waits my, nửa vide, walchi of tourão - hé, doesn't.

Richard

Lister