THE
CHINA
Established 1845
celebrates its 116th birthday today
•
EXACTLY 116 years ago today, a double sheet of printed
paper was pulled off a bed of type.
It would be held
at arm's length while it dried, and then the editor, Andrew Dixson, scanned it carefully, pronounced it all correct, and the Chinese assistants began to run off the hundred or so copios for the very first edition of the China Mail.
The few hundred British
residents in Hongkong gave a loud guffaw; the editors of the rival English language newspapers gave little hoid
why should they?
M: Matheson's Canton Res gy, E the tins, the Hong- Kong Register, had little to fear. The merchant elas were well behlad him and his paper which bi-weekly ure strips off Gov-
ernment!,
Nor did they worry too much. at the Friend of China whose reitorial offices" were first at Canton and then at Macao, de- pending upon prevailing elreum- stances and the mood of the Conton Commissioner.
But along at Queen's-road Central, where the China Matt office was situated, they were feeling preu delighted.
"DOG-FIGHT"
In the first place, the infant paper looked "nice" Gs Tront inge earrying a lively haut of advertisements was surmounted by cypher which looked sus- piclearly regal.
A Happy-faced lion and a pretty unicorn faced each other
Cross
rid hearlig thr stambards of Britain, which pro- bably took it as near Royalty as il dared.
But tongkong residents were unimpressed, and referser 10 this piece of heraldry JS the "dog fight."
Established 1845
Sir John Davis came in for geurrilouts aftacks, the editor of The Register
that suggesting
his Queen Victoria withdraw title for the mess he had made of governant the Colony.
We and the following notice nedresse to the Sherift of Hongkong in the pages of the Register:
"We the undersigned 'request you to call a Public Meeting of
the Inhabitants of Victoria, al: an early date to afford them an opportunity of stating thelr prospects of 11e views Colony."
Tas objce! was to send
3
letter direct to Her Majesty's Guvernment, ignering the re- ritieni (invernor of Hongkong.
This was signed by Dent & Co. and Jardine Matheson & Cn., as well as other prominent mer- chanis of that time
The China Mail kept to the middle of the rund for a long time, but as Governor after Governor kept the merchant class at arm's length, the China Mail began its critical enquiries. Eschewing the rhetorical and It might be asked what place emotional outbursts of rivals, it the China Mail could find ta a became more objective in its Held already served by two reporting. English language papers, Fur This face about was frowned while The Friend of China upen by Government, and the served a missionary and a China Mail had a hard time to Times an academic cause; will keep going. but refused some spicy insets, the Hongkong change course. Begister came down heavily on The side of the merchants, and hitfor in Its attacks
WIN
on the infant Hongkong Govern- Juent.
For this was the situation. All
merebants The
Wanite! Was
their go-
SUCCESSION
10
the
were
At one time, reporting objec- sentething like they had a Chan- tively on a certain war ton. (fort anclimate, suiticient up, it upset the feelings
that national section in sound to contai
Advertisements downs, and reasonable houses to Colony. enable them try live in the style withrawn and the China Mail of mes chant princes. They want. had to think about closing shop.
But that passed, and a el no Colony, and least fall an tetsome governer with governs cession or tine ditors kept it ment fadldings and the uecom- panying taxes to keep them going.
In front,
Ste-
THE CHINA MAIL. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1961.
A NOVEL THAT
TAKE "FEETO
Frou!
HAVE A
YOU'RE
NATIONAL
HEALTH ESCRIPTIONS
INCREASED
CHARGES
EACH ITEM
'Madam, I haven't the faintest idea whether the extra charge for your cough mixturo is going to be frittered away on somo fool Government scheme to send monkeys to the moan."
London Exercza Bervice.
COULD WELL HAVE BEEN INSPIRED
1
BY, THE SANTA MARIA DRAMA .......
Eichmann's
The man who wrote long wait
last month's
news
year
ON
ago
N this Saturday in deep winter I offer you a story from the warm, romantic beaches of the West Indies. It concerns a beachcomber who lighted upon one of the strangest literary coin- cidences of the century.
It is the story of a man named Popham. Not a very romantic name, it may seem-especially at a time when we have had the colourful names of the Portuguese ship-seizers dinned into our ears for days on end.
in
Yet the British Popham, his own way, is not only at as Captain Galvan interesting and his men in the 8.5. Santa Maria. In a sense he is linked with them too.
At the beginning of this cen- tury, the South China Morning Post came into being. A large
For Hugh Popham subscription of capital, up-to- date equipment, and certain written a novel, to be pub-
this
calitied spring. privileges places it to the fore. tished
The China Mall
It tells staggered THE SEA BEGGARS.
has
So there developed a feud which lasted long after the birth of the China Ma!!.
Government which developed the town, buill courts Bulldings, established police long but kept its paper going, how a group of desperate men, which force, un impresed taxes to keep Ali iis contemporary rivals had defying the dictatorship them going, was attacked in a fallen by the way.
rules their homeland find them
and
money which one could scarce- ly credit.
Only during the years 1941- selves on board the 6.5. Saracen. 15 saw it cease publication,
Editors went to jail, came out in and renewed their at
but it soon opened shop again.
theks, and were returned to jail.
So here it is now-110 years
ld today with Hongkong grown
in return was promised so much and Government printing and the popular, publication of Government Or- dinances,
becoming
One Hundred and Sixteen Not Out!
CHASED
By ROBERT PITMAN
13
HUGH POPHAM
11
Involved in a gentlemanly inuting In the West Indies.
an American yacht-broker who they have much of the Alistair had formed
extraordiauty McLean, netion-packed manner. business syndicate.
Indeed, If you enjoy MacLean, I advise you to try Popham's "It included ፡፡ fateground The Sea Beggars (published in barker from Canada; a private April, Casselt 16%). detetive from New York-end a huge, fat German who WAS continually buying nad selling hotels.
PERSUADED
MORE FACTS
for trial
No newspaperman has yet been allow-
ed to penetrate into the heavily-guarded prison compound of the Teggart Fortress, near Haifo, where former S. S. Obersturm- bannfuhrer Adolf Eichmann is awaiting trial for his part in the annihilation of European Jewry.
Within the grey concrete walls of the fortress prison, police officers say, the daily routine of this balding, stooping, middle-aged man who is today Israel's prize prisoner, is "extremely monotonous.”
"....I shall try to give ex-
Day after day, since he was brought here after his capture pression, without any embroidery, the end of a 1-year manhunt, to the inets relating to my last Eichmann has delved into the years of service to Germany, to past to record his version of that a true picture of the events events.
be transmitted to future meny generations,"
In the early stages, he took pencil and paper to write down his necount 'ct the "Anal solution
Jowish of the
problem," na practised by the Nazis, and his own role in its implementation.
Obscure
Diligent
He had since worked diligently on this undertaking, But the asture of the "picture" which he has been drawing is still one of the best-kept secrets in the More recently, a police officer, country. And it is likely to re- always the same man, has been main a secret until Eichmann's But the story of how he came
interrogating the prisoner to elgar cecount of events la submitted The Sea Bergara to write
up obscure details, to obtain the in evidence at his trial in prisoner's comments, to pred his Jerusalem next month. quite as exciting.
MOTOYS with documents and
The prisoner's only relaxation in 1857 It began
when
with reports from other sources, is said to be brief periods of Popham saw an advertisement
The interrogation is fully tape reading-German-language light offering a trip to New Zealand
recorded as well as being taken novels which are brought to him: In a fishing-boat for £100.
In the meantime, perhaps I down in writing.
from the police #brary and care- Popham wanted to write a book
should add two more facts, back-
From between four and eight fully checked on arrival and de- The editor of the China Mall beyond is wildest dreams and
when The Brst is that Suddenly, at pistol point, they with a New Zealand
he hours a day, the prisoner is thus parture promised to back up Govern- most optimistic utterances.
weturned to Britain, Popham living in the past," But ne ment, to report objectively, and
His dolly exercise is taken in a Sprightly, cheeky, pertinent, take over the Saracen, injuring ground; he also wanted to visit
"Somehow or other the yacht- saw a newspaper cutting about cording the same police officer, small courtyard specially fenced- Increasingly some of the crew and keeping some New Zealand friends.
broker who was the splt image the Summer Bose, the others under guard, With Some weeks later having of Bogart had persuaded these bort which he had left at
the firbing Eichmann returns to the past up for the purpose. the ship under their control been chosen, with a few others, range people that there was a Jamaica.
even when left to himself, and Onco fortnight, the daily the It stated that They make for the Caribbean.
from several hundred applicants fortune to be made from the best, with its owner, had been on which to jot down notes regulary interrupted by the arrival often miks for pencil and paper routine hos thus far been re- Among the Caribbean islands he set out from Aberdeen in crayfish off
But Jamaica,
of lat at sen near Cuba.
lated to subjects of the inter- at the prison of o Haita magis- they are chased by American the 70ft. Summer Rose.
Popham never reached New
·trate, Dr Alfred Buch, who has and cutters, but
fact Navy planes
The second
that regation. 你 Zealand.
"They were going to catch the them.
Wie
Commander Avraham Selinger, repeatedly renewed the remand Tyler
only they evada
crayfish in thousands; cut off Cassells were not involved in arguments about the
their tails; freeze them and sell Publishers to be offered The Sea head of Bureau 08, has revealed order. taw of piracy....
Another firm read that Adolf Eichmann's Interroga For this occasion, Eichmann is them to hotels in Miami. But gars. cil they caught while I was there this story about piracy in the tim covers by now more than led from his cell handcuffed, for Caribbean: about -how the 1.000 typewritten folio pages, the short walk to snollier room wan one crayfish. One tall."
double-spaced, seized ship was supposed to
in the prison-compound. By the time they touched the
At the time of his capture, in patrol planes max cutters. Its realised that the owner of the Beppura?" I usked.
comment: Argentina, back in May, Eich-
Attention was
the
"Too
document in wildly impossible for mann stoned a Sort would accm-except for Summer Ho
tohich he said, "I am coming to that," said publication,” hod
among other the fact that Hugh Popham practical pioneer
-(London Express Service). things: Anished this more than a year supposed. They saw that they Popham. You see, one beery in all afternoon in one of the hotels ngo. His publishers were sending would soon be involves
commitments and the German was thinking of out proof copies several days kinds of
a fascinating before Galvao had even boarded debts; so they staged a gentle- buying i was told
monly mutiny and quil-Popham story by the yacht-broker. the Santa Marta.
among them.
"He told me how a party of Popham told me of the crew's refugees escaped in a freighter
Estonia, 110m
Which they reached America an enormous "Out of the entire 10 of us ne was demanded from the
ATTACKS
So in order to how what Government was about, the re- slidents had to buy the China Mail. The Friend and the no- gister bought it also, copied the Government announcements and then took time to attack bath Government and the China Moil.
-By- JOHN LUFF
FLEA CIRCUS
**Bad news! Our leading lady'a eloped and gone
are
"But wait," you will say. This has all been lifted from
of the Stata Maria opisode,'
THEY QUIT
the thre
the news, It is a direct copy West Indies the volunteer crew "But what about The Sea evade modem
How then did Popham hit on
such a tale? When the Santa plight:-
Maria affair was reaching tus climax I persuaded him to come and tell me.
t
SMOOTHER
not
they
_____Just Fancy That!
An oMelal who witnessed one of these occasions described it to mp thus:
In the bare room, the regis iralo eat at a table. Behind him. the blue-white flag of the state of Israel draped the wall.
"Elehmann, was brought in by two guards armed with pistols.
"He stood at attention before the magistrate, wearing a frozen expression on his face.
"He seemed to be. Tollowing carefully tho translation Into German of the words of the pojico officer and of the | magistrate.
Throughout the proceedings, Eichmann uttered just one single
ARM worker Raymond Plummer, aged 27, was only one eventually reached New captain for bringing in illegal |
accused at Southwell, Nottinghamshire, of steal- Zealand. Most of us soon had immigrants. 50
simplying hir own shotgun, value £10—“a fantastic charge," nothing left. I had to take up eteamed off on his own,
said his solicitor. The prosecution said Plummer stole beachcombing. TWD others knew he would be arrested worked their way up to Corada. whenever he landed: so he just the gun by running off with it after a policeman seized But things turned out wonder stormce around, even burning it under the Poaching Prevention Act. Case dismissed. On the dust-jackets of his fully for them. They got work up his cargo.. books Popham is an alarming at e uranium mine. Mind you,
that there "I suddenly saw figure flo clutches ship's neither of them had been inside was a wonderful story to be wheel in massive hand); n Captain Hooks beard fringes his mine they went.
its armed force of 11 policemen recently. Total: Within a year simply sailing around like the 300 pesetas, which fa less than £2.- they had earned enough to visit Flying Dutchman at netk elenched jaw.
Jamaica again and then take a yacht-broker friend bought the
The money is for shooting practice. first-class Cunard passare Estonian freighter, by the way,; home."
when it was fineilly cought."
RUSSIAN named Alexandre Khrushchev was col.quest from the police officer to "And The Sea. Beggare?" 1 The Hugh Pophamn came to narod.
write bli odży prophelle novel.] lected from London Airport the other night by He has written other novels: Sopiet Embassy officials. Any relation of THE Mr K2 "am coming to that," said and--looking backs at that small No," raid an official. "In Russia Khrushcheu is de Popḥum, “You see, Wisdo was ranplę, of Popham's life-you | beachcombing in Jamtalen i inét may think f no wonder that common at Jener,”
a mine before; but down the written about Stateless people | A PORRA, the tiny Pyrenees republic, budgeted, for which lasted only a few miles,
Ashore in my drawing-roomi I am glad to say he appeared distinctly smoother. But ho brought a tang of the sea with him. Soon Buch words as "poop deck" and "Etanchion" 100 echoing smong my potted planta." Soon Popham" traŭ tells Ing sea yarn after ses yarn.
My
Word Neln (No)- in reply to..
direct question from. the
裁
magistrate whether he had any remarks to make about the re extend" tils remand in custody. "As he left the room, he bowed to the magistrate, was handcuffed again and led back to his own_quarters,” China Mall Sprecia),
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