1959-11-18 — Page 6

THE CHINA MAIL,

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1959.

A walk round the West End with Wolfenden

JUST THREE MONTHS AFTER THE ACT TO CLEAR THE INTO FORCE, AND HE GETS A NEW SORT OF INVITATION

ANTHONY the Wolfenden-inspired by

THE other night I took a walk through the streets of London with Sir John Wolfenden-through dark streets, sleazy streets, the under-side of the city. It's now almost three months since Street Offences Act came into force. We thought it might be interesting to retrace the tour which Sir John, armed with a round-the-clock vice map of London, made when he first began investigating the problem of prostitution.

And

STREETS CAME

TO STEP INSIDE..

But this sort of, thing re- tremendously relieved at the quires organisation and way maglatmates have been im-

tho plementing

Ac They qués are still being worked coach-and-four right through it,

arrangement and the techni- could so easily have driven LEJEUNE

There used to be scores high degree

of prostitutes all along among them?"

there route. Now

"hostesses" talk to them. very often that's all.

We heard of ane club which that touk £90 In the course of tho me." he said. "Or I get

"I hope they don't recognise now "clubs." Every few night without a single customer ayarda, It seemed, we having gone to bed. To put it knife in my back."

n dingily it door. rudely, it's more profitable passed way in which stood a girl sell fruit juice than girls. or, less often, # tough- looking doorman,

"Let me

be repeat," said. "that this Act was never meant to abolish proditution. We had First, to premote two obgrets. publie der and decency. The streets cenfly were rather oblec- }

Soho was crowded, of course, Second, to protect A jostle of people. a babel of Donable. from exploitation those who languages, rany, coloured sught to be protected—that is, lights reflected on

shiny pave young people.“

ments. So we set out. And there cart he'

domibt еб

about 20: the difference is astonishing.

We began in Mayfair, We walked alon; streets which were ance solurions but were now”

holy

in

Here we had a surprise. We looked at some of these notice-boards with cardo them which announce "Miss X French Lessons Given," 01 "Miss Y. Special Masseuse," or deserten except for an occasional Miss Z.

Photographic Model," We strolled through We thought there notices would policeman. Shepherd Market. Three months have increased. certainly have ag we would

They haven'1. They've grown been solicited a

dozen times, fewer. Some of the boards are Now we didn't see a single girl. half-empty. The reason seems

Then we did see one. She

to be that Jandiards are fright franed out of H second-fluor

ened by the stiffer penalties window, inviting us up.

There was a test case about to seven years imprisonment that a few weeks ng raid for living on immoral run Wolfender. thee."

The

ings.

irl Was

What we did see the mushroom crop

We headed towards Soho.

"Coming in tonight,

gentle men?" they said, or Would សាររំ look you like to come in

and rounds

"Come, in meet some nice girls."

r

The mugs

Somewhere near by, though we weren't always able to spot I, would be a car in which sa the syndicate ponce, watchior the door, eniculating what the night's take should be.

Prostitution takes place from these clubs, but not as much as you might suppose. The mugs are lured in and sold fruit juice of at on exorbitant price and the

Was

LETTERS ARE SENT BY ROCKETS NOW 'Peaceful missiles fired by Germans” ROCKETS are carrying mail regularly over part of the North Sea. The missiles-peaceful versions only 4ft. long-carry letters and postcards in their "warheads," and come down gently by parachute.

They are being red from the German reaport of Cuxhaven over to a group of offshore Islands.

Later they are retumed by buat, then refuelled and reload- ed.

Behind the idea is the Ger- man Rocket Society.

was the work of this Ger- man society between the two world wars which paved the way for all the Sputniks, Luniks and Pioneers.

Royal visit

The World

of Science

By PETER FAIRLEY

one

book into Braille in hour. It does a job which would normally take several skilled translators a week.

How it converts words into 63 OR three years, the only binations of six raised dots

Forte reach Britain's would take three pages of ex-

wonder radio-telescope at Jodrell Bank was along a bumpy, potholed cinder track.

Believe me. It does il.

Another "robot brain" will work aut the programme for a massivo U.S. scientific conter- ence next April. This year, some

Recently it has been given 3 2,500 papers were read at the conference in 200 different

smart trip of tarmac.

Prince Philip visited The telescope on November 11. Man- The Hon. Sec.'s Dream." chester University Says thr

sessions. Title for the machine?

timing of the new road is "pure Proud Russians

coincidence."

The easy way

THE

mally about half a trawler's catch has to be salted, be- cause ordinary ice will not keep the fish fresh for economically long voyage.

an

By sprinkling 1121 ounce of antibiotie drug with every six lors of ice alt the microbes which damage the fish can bc killed.

of

Britain's Department Scientific and industrial Research found this out three years ago.

But our law does not allow q drug to be used as a preserva- tive Minute quantities of the antibiotie are still left in the ish after frying.

Mighty telescope

T Leningrad, the Rus

stans have just bullt a mighty telescope. Taller than a seven-storey build- ing, weighing more than 100 tons, with a mirror 99 inches а стола.

But it la not the biggest. That THE Russians are rather lies of Mount Palomar, Cali- fornia. It has 2 reflector of their latest 200 heches across. proud

With it you MOMPUTERS never cease iden to ensure that fish ar- could see a candle flickering

COMPUTERS never case idea that is als

is one to convert a 300-page fresh-antibiotic ice,

Mid Week Selection by Friell

"This international rivalry is getting me down · —for a moment I thought that was General de

Gaulle,"

Christmas

"I want something non-committal. I'm not pre- pared to declare myself yet.”

Nor-

Britain's biggest is a 36-inch | reflector. But a 08-incher is soon

to be bull AL the Royal

Observatory, Hurstmonceux.

out,

simply by going on imposing two-guinen lines.

pro-

Meanwhile, I'm told, the price

while "And the police aren't harry- of unemployment of stredi gitis has risen

the price of call-gitis has reg the girls. I'm glad of that, I mained stable. In other words, always said I hoped na We discussed that. My the demand on the streets now stitutes would have to be sent to prison. One or LWO have was none.

own conclusion is that two excords the supply,

been. I suppose that WHA Inevitable. groups have probably left We turned right towarda to Paddington and saw our only the profession altogether:

older

who old-fashioned loltering prostitute the

women, too tised

There 10 pave. We returned to Mayfair then, of the entire evening. She was were

lounging against the railing in ment work 10 try the kerb-crawling front of a flaking stucco house looking for

new ble

anw the other night; cats we'd heard " fot about and she looked bored.

reels of London We couldn't find a. We

than they have ever been before, peered Inside rows of parked

WON deter (2) Anyone who cars. They were empty.

Then we saw our first pick-

up.

It was a neat job. The girt was walking briskly long the street. We followed

The risk

"We

techniques, and

the

were extra

The evidence

"You must admit,”

he

deductions from what we we've

are two incontrover, said as we paried, "what scen-the negative (1) The evidence-is pretty impres are cleant give."

married women who only doing it for money and aren't prepared mined to find a prostitute could

still do so. This iz

situation

which

I do admit it. It was,

I walked home through Soho, thinking what a thoroughly nice

to face the risk of guol

organised them- Wolfenden finds fairly satisfac and humane man Wolfenden is.

A lot have

selves into groups and syndi-

tory.

the streets were

now, left strayed revellers

to

the

It seemed a good idea then to her, call at a West End police station She stopped, ostensibly to look and get the views of the man

don't consider

Even here private in the window of an

antique on the beat.

cates, taken flats and become

empty shop. A car pulled in

morality my business," he said, almast. a Hile

"We're delighted with the call-girls, or else they haunt r, Generally speaking, the beggars and way ahead, its engine running effect of the She sized it up for a moment, superintendent in charge.

Act," said the known cafes or work in the new Government's business. That, and a cat slinking among then walked quickly across and

really are. For one thing, you got in. The car drove of.

know about the shortage I made Wolfender and

our police? Well, think of the way through Hyde Park, where amount of time we're being we saw nothing in the shadows saved." but trees, and down the Bays- water Road towards *In

Notting

"Where have the gone?" I asked.

"Is

Only In dourways some Those who still go un although

people don't rubbish bins. "clubs."

three seem to have understood it, was at the "elube" the girls the streets walk two or of

together, taking turns to solicit, the consistency between the two stood, huddlert Or soniulimes the girl walks parts of our report, the part coats against the cold. with ber ponec, „who falls about prostitution and the part behind or look in * shop- about homosexunis,

"Public arder and prostitutes window when a likely customer

* approaches.

there

that

in their

fur

They looked very lonely

decency, and rather sad.

our business. I'm

PAGE SIX 'catches' Maugham on his sentimental journey

A Colombo

Hongkong A

A Singapore

THREE STOPS ON A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY FOR SÖMERBET MAUGHAM. WRIST BOUND AGAINST WRITERS' CRAMP,

JUST before Maugham set off he talked to me

about this journey of his into the past.

"It is a wonderful feeling to be free. I have finished with writing. And before I die I want to see again those places where I lived years ago. I want to remember vividly my impressions of the East.

-(London Express Servicx)..

Yokohama Harbour," RECENTLY,

French liner Laos docked at As the Somerset Maugham gazed on Japan for the first time in over 30 years. He has been travelling for the past month on his sentimental journey to the East, reliving the settings of much of his own life and work and lifetime ago. kindling in his mind once more the memories of half a Behind him lio Port Said, Aden, Bombay, Colombo, Singapore. Saigon, Manila, and Hongkong.

by JOHN CRUESEMANN

"I claim," he told me, "that no writer

write can

about people without having models."

Birth and death; love went off qutally to buy a set activity,

and the an

At Hongkong, the last stop of Chino plates similar to the and hunger; these before Japan. MINE BALCO

ones he had butight years be affairs of men," he said about these lolands in his "A Writer's into questioned on

fore, which wero cracked or space to test Einstein's | "Actually" be answered, “any-

lost. "In life," he mused, Notebook" 40 years ago.

And one who recognises himself "everything that's breakable is theories that:

books pretends to be eventually broken." Annoyed. But secretly he is de-

MERICA is to hurl

"atomic clock"

TIME passes more quickly in my space than on earth.

SPACEMEN would age less lighted,"

Back to earth

WWE

this tople.

The clock will be synchronised Maugham set the story in with an identical one on the netitious country. ground. Its "tickings" will be radioed back to earth to show, scientists believe, that the space

clock is working faster. Albert Einstein's

theory,

The truth

4

A drive

the heart of the city,

Pointing

and

that some

mentarica CO Living** and an exotic air. "What the Buddha Taught" by

Rahula, the Reverend Buddhist scholar priest,

that, the sun- rise and the sunset."%

• Quotations taken from "The Collected Stories of Somerset Maugham

\Somerset

Note. published by Whitam

~London Express Saroles),

"I would not have got so Maugham's "A Writer's

platel these Heinemann. if I had not much material for my stories book." places," he said.

"Now," Maugham went on, "my powers of invention have deserted me. After all, these cannot last for ever."

Glory

He has been writing for 02

TALKING

POINTS

But Maugham is a man who Life is an exciting busl

most exciting does not repine or regret. When iness and his life again, he asked if he would like to when lived for others.

answered:

*No, I would not. By Jove, I

-HELEN KELLER.

*

Beware of inherited wealth. The job of getting is better than spending.

-ROBERT YOUNG.

*

was of these that Maugham wrote in the 30-odd short stories; some of his best, Fame which will surely endure. But even as Maugham wrote rapidly on a long trip than those; Thirty-five years ago, when

the introduction to them after they leave behind.

Maugham had been last in The clock-it will not lose one Hongkong-the original setting Ait Singapore Maugham sailed the war he began to realise how second in 1,000 years-will be for "The Painted Veil," which in during a monsoon. "I have things were changing. fired inside a 301b. satellite. I he was writing

"When I Trst visited those the time travelled," he said, “8,000 miles

countries the lives white men, years. will orbit about 8,000 miles above the

Sunrise Colonial Secretary there to see the Singapore earth at 18,000 mph-then slowly thought that

alt

mist I see js

and and their wives led differed but the man in the end fall.

Malaya and especially little from what they had been rain," fale, a rather sumorous character, was a portrait of himself. He Singapore, he explained, have 25 years before. They got home

leave once in five years artion. Sp

always been dear to him: "It is threatened legal

here I found the Inspiration 10 Aviation has changed öll that." write most of my claries."

And there were other changes "The countries of which Presently the weather cleared too. and Maugham drove off into I wrote were then at peace. It would not. Nobody's life is all

may be

of these Jam."

Even so, at the end of it all, to an old bulking he mur- people, Malays, Dyalis, Chinese,

were restive under British rule, with his lite nearly run, Maug mured: "That is empty formed more than 40 years ago, That Colonial Secretury, if he

but there was no outward sign has return to the East, and ramshaddle now, But in was that gravity slows down be alive, might well reflect on

his willingness to come back yet

America extra- clocks.

large himself once day it was the office of a lawyer of it." and therefore slows what Maugham

agal if he lives; It is there I down what we humans think of wrote:

kis not only friend of mine.

ordinary.

|friendly "dog", in a very Ds Time.

stranger than fiction, It is more sketched the plot for my short

Perhaps the reason to bo small room. Every time it Clock and satellite are now telling. To know that a tháng story 'The Letter.'

knocks "You do not wrilo, to meet a And so it was when.Maug found in a note he made him-wags its tail, It being built at the Hughes Air-ho adually happened gives it

You write because ham came to Ceylon on this self of the East when first, hoover a chair. craft Company, California, a poignancy, touches a chont demand.

Journey into the past, he re- went there over 40 years (ogo, '

ARNOLD TOYNDEE. Dr Louls Eseen, the British which a piece of acknowledged you must."

marked: "This part of the and sought, an matry another physicist

clock Action, malwer, and atomic export, said: “The will prob

world is very differesit from the has done, to give utterance to

Politics is perhaps the qbly be the most dellesto

one I knew. The ponters, the what he felt about it.. "It is to touch this, chord

Government officers and you try to think how to only profession In which midet accurate space experiment that some authors have done

As the Taos sailed past the business men all have gone, I descritte the dazzilng spectacle. no preparation is everything they could to give ever led,

$1 are Indonesian, and the Malaya feel very much The clock iteit is foot-long you the Impression they

stranger Its splendour a little unnerves

necessary. telling/tha plain truth":"

islands, Maughath must have here”.

you...but at the same: tline But However, no one complained remembered, the, Journeys, he

stranger though, Maug- I fill your own heart with when Maugham wrote this most took into the heurt of these ham dit aimed to be this glory. It in a death in which celebrated short story, "Hain," strange countries, and the urge time, hus Interestthe not there is no sorrow, but only ful- in Hoogkong. But thit, ab least, they gave him to write.

of a man nearing 80-In the leht was wet fly in the South

lives and religions of the people Bese

and

tuber down whileft is shot sireant of ammonia, gas. The atoms of the gas vibrate, giving

of tiny radio waves which, ard converted into “ticks.”

In this torm: they can picked up by sensitive equip

ment on the moundaun

*Clondint kaprint Karylos).

be

Change

· Again? No

is

is A

thought

R. L. STEVENSON,

A

"As you wander in the crow

an you linger watching, you get

That is what these. Eastern he had come amongst was vivi; titles can best offer you,

your.

Do thải slikty, though, there and Maghman

recession in what neighbour loses his depression is

their Joh a Cintos sentir od urgent 25454 At & bookmusik in Colombo be, hhrbours with shipping, tramps, when you lose YORKE Your device tilppers, kideende, Loughg Kelasmakuntzara Mooups: pakunger boats, Bohboman with