1937-05-07 — Page 6

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPII, FESDAY, MAY 7, 1987.

Dukice

In handy alze sprinkler fins

Dulcipel

POSSESSES WELL

(REGD.)

KNOWN ANTISEPTIC AND HYGIENIC PROPERTIES IN CONVENIENT FORM. FOR GENERAL USE.

Entirely eliminates the odour of perspiration.

SOOTHES AND CURES BLISTERED TOES AND FEET.

75 CENTS

A. S. WATSON & CO., LTD.

"THE HONGKONG DISPENSARY

Estd. 1841.

It only requires a deposit of

$5000

to furnish your home with "MOUTRIE" piano..

a

We budget the balance of the purchase price to suit individual requirements.

Every "Moutrie" piano is fully guaranteed and backed by over fifty years reputation for quality and durability.

May we send you catalogues and full particulars ?

S. MOUTRIE & Co., Ltd.

-York-Building- Chater-Road:

HONGKONG

HOTEL

CORONATION

WEDNESDAY

12th MAY

1937.

Early Dinner: $4.00

(from 7.00 to 9.30 p.m.)

CELEBRATIONS

SPECIAL DINNER & SUPPER DANCE

ON FIRST FLOOR "GRIPPS" 7.30 p.m. to 3 a.m.

Dinner Dance: $6.00 Supper: $9.00

GROUND FLOOR LOUNGE OPEN TILL 2 A.M.

ADDED ATTRACTION SZITA & ANIS

SATURDAY

15th

MAY

1937

CORONATION GALA NIGHT

IN THE "GRIPPS":

9 p.m. to 3 a.m. Dinner Dance Non-Diners

$7.00 $2.00

FOR RESERVATIONS PHONE 30281

HOME DELIVERY

MOTORS

of the

now

1937

Vauxhalls

If you are going home on leave, this will interest you.

You can arrange now to stop ashore at home and drive away in a new Vauxhall,

The

Pagan Month of

TO-DAY Cornishmon dance the Furry Dance, one of the most famous of Eng. Jand's ancient -pagan cere- monies.

May

einted with the arty crafty folki- poles and the odd heathen core- By JOHN BETJEMAN ness that turns even a middle- monies not taken over by early

brow sick. For, despite its half- Christianity became so licentious This is said to be a survival of. timbered associations, May is that the Puritans of Cromwell's the festivities of the goddess the month in the year when Eng- time made strong efforts to put Flora, who was ever young and land's original nature worship them down...

whose human frailty is well ex- comes uppermost to the surface. There are not the signs of plained in dictionaries of mytho NOW that there's so much cul- Little girls dress themselves licence In these old Pagan cere- logy."

ture about we express the up in ribbons and flowers; hobby- monies that there used to be. Hobby Horses, which have with magic, same things differently. With horses, Jack-in-the-Greens, mor- The vigour of the Puritans and some connection something of a shock I read the ris dancers, teazes, and furry the respectability of the 19th still, survive. The best I saw following notice on an elegant dancers caper about. All sorts century put an end to them. was the one at the little fishing We assist you in this connection piece of cardboard in a tailor's of people get a kiss who are not For instance, there used to be port of Padstow, in Cornwall. without any trouble or complica-window in the Strand: "There expecting one; the very churches a ccouring of the White Horse in Here the first of May is herald tion to yourself

is a definite psychological are decorated, and if Easter falls Berkshire (not, incidentally, à ed in a beautiful morning song to you at home and subsequently stimulus in well-tailored clothes late enough for May flowers, May Day celebration), when all sung at midnight in the streets. In Hongkong.

but never more so than during moss, cowslips and primroses the district used to attend re- of the town. spring."

hide the font, pulpit and window- vels on the White Horse Hill. One of the many verses. I can hear the yokels in elm- sills of the most ill-attended This was stopped in the 'sixties haunts me still

because it became so unrestrain- embosomed villages throughout country place of worship.

Catalogue & Full Particulars from

delivered

*

the country croaking agreement. May ceremonies are almost all ed. Hongkong Hotel if they are cultured enough to

Stubbs Rd.

Garage

The young men of Padstow they might if they would, For summer is a come unto

day,

They might have built a ship and gilded her with gold In the merry morning of

May.

survivals of earth worship. Baal In most places where May get the hang of the sentence.

was the sun god worshipped on celebrations still continue there If we are still Spring wor- the tops of hills. Baalath was is a sort of official approval of shippers in the big cities, how the earth god, worshipped in the them. Phone 27778/9, much more are country people form of trees and flowers.. At Helatonin Cornwall, to-

Spring worshippers?" The psy-

Naturally May, when the earth day's Furry. Dance is run by a chological stimulus" is as definite seems to come awake again, is committee. The Furry Dance, The tune, with its extraordi- as the richest tailor could wish. particularly sacred to the earth despite its committee, has still nary rhythm, can never be re- It is unlucky that the merry god. The ceremonics connected plenty of life in it, and the dan produced except by Padstow month of May should be general- with the earth god are also con- cers, in steeple hats, go in and people. It seems as though the ly written ye merrie monthe of nected with fertility; indeed, the out of the open doors of houses pagan gods are looking down on

(Continued on Page 5.)

The

Hongkong Telegraph. Mate, and that it should be asso- fertility, ceremonies round May- singing.

FRIDAY, MAY 7, 1937,

AN AMNESTY?

D

"BABES-IN-ARMS"

has now a new meaning

There was a small item in the cabled news yesterday of which the Hongkong authorities might well take note. It was to the effect that the Rhodesian Government 18 declaring a general amnesty, of all first of- fenders who are serving prison terms of three months or less on Coronation Day, and that the South African Government is expected to take similar action. It would be an appropriate ges ture if the crowning of the new

could. King and Queen

be marked here in Hongkong by an amnesty along the same lines, There are at the present 'mo- ment some 2,600 prisoners in the gaols of this Colony, a re- cord number. So congested have the prisons become that it is stated that Laichikok Gaol, recently closed down, is to be reopened, both Victoria Gaol and the completed portion of the new prison at Stanley having their maximum number of Inmates. It was the Govern- ment's-intention-to-make-tom---taken as Gospel.- porary use of Victoria Gaol as a market, pending rebuilding of the Central Market, but it would appear that this plan will now have to be abandoned. To what extent an amnesty on the lines declared in of that being Rhodesia would relieve the pre- sent congestion locally, we do not know, but it is common knowledge that the overcrowd- ing of the Colony's gaols is in large measure due to prison sentences being passed for pure- ly petty offences. It is to be conceded that an amnesty, how-

prisoners many

were effected, would only bring about a temporary relief in the post- tion, but conceivably it would enable the authorities to tide over the situation to such an extent as to permit the com- pletion of Stanley Prison with- out any necessity for re-opening Be the Laichikok institution, that as it may, the Colony's prisons are becoming so over- crowded that the time has come when the Government should consider the whole question of imposing prison Magistrates sentences for the pettiest of offences. In this connection, the disparity in punishment so often revealed in the Police Courts suggests the desirability of drawing Magistrates solely from the legal side of the Government service, a reform which, we belleve, is being undertaken in Malaya

ICTATORS want more

babies. They always

have done.

Many people in this country also want more bables, although their motive is merely maintenance of the national population at or near present levels.

Authorities ponder gloomily over statist.cs suggesting that if each married couple do not have an average of 3.7 babies, the population of England is going 'to be about four million in a few

decades' time.

If war comes perhaps that low figure may be reached for earlier. But even if not, it is hard to see why everything a statistician says ought to be

How many such statements have you heard before? My first illusion-shatterer was in one of grandma's history books. Pub- lished when Queen Victoria was ✡ "resolute young tit" Creevey's words, not mine-it said that by 1850 London would stretch in one unbroken mass down to Brighton.

ever

A bit before that, Malthus had prophesied that the growth of population was shortly to out- distance the supply of food, whereupon world famine was presumably to become due.

That mankind to-day should be starving in the midst of plenty would have astounded him. Many of us can remem- ber Mr. Bldney Webb's prophecy in the early days of the last war that dire unemployment would' soon result, and that therefore public schomes would have to ba pushed on with; whereas it be- camo necessary to concentrate nearly all the national energy." upon war prosecution,

Prophets have a wonderful way of missing the target. Possibly the only prophecy cer- tain to be accurate is that if any futuro event, whether it be the end of the world or the name of the next Derby winner. be ut tered with sufficient prophetic To re-emphasis, there will be no shortage in the supply of the credulous standing around ready to bellove it.

turn to the "point of the declara- tion of an amnesty, it will be conceded that the majority of the short-term prisoners who would be affected thereby are not criminals; some are poverty- stricken parents of children whose lot, in the absence of their fathers or mothora, must bo even harder than usual. It would therefore be a merciful given their freedom on a day of general rejoicing.

THE HONGKONG & SHANGHAI HOTELS, LTD. gesture if these people could be

It may be fairly safe also to guess, even in a world contain-

....................................... WORLD ARMS RACE ...................

is linked to a prospective baby race, and in this article women are given SOMETHING TO THINK OVER

*****------------RT-IX-X-TXEKBELULELWIJERENIGIN

ing Marie Stopes, that there will still be a reasonably adequato population in the future-that is, always supposing the War. Lords permiti

No doubt you recall what Napoleon said to the Marshal accompanying him on a night

by Helena

Normanton

-ride-over-the-corpse-strewn-Baby-Race which can only be

plain of Austerlitz. "One night of Paris will replace ali this! "...

But they are not quite so con- adent nowadays, these War Lords. The supply of cannon fodder is running short as the

supply of tropical lands await- Ing imperialistic exploitation. Marriage subsidies, free. furni- ture and family allowancen have done a little in Germany, but nothing like enough to supply sufficient future wearers of Brown Shirts.

Family allowances, all kinds of beneficent distributions at the local Fascio, donations to fathers of large families, medals, and prestige by the cartload for wholesale progenitors—all these boons fall to alter the fact that the birthrate of Italy is declin- ing.

I

As contraceptives may not be vended there, and as Italians naturally have a high fertility rate, one wonders whether the abortions of which Juvenal com- plained in classic Rome are not as frequent nowadays as they were under Augustus in check- ing the number of viable births.

Japan plunges madly down the slope of colossal birthrate towards some disaster, whilst Russia with a quarter of the world to fill increases her birth- rate perhaps not so unreason- ably.

But what is the sense of any new entrants coming into a

-THOUGHT FOR TO-DAY-

When I was born, I did lament and ery; And now each day doth show the reason why.

-RICHARD WATKYNS

looked upon as a parallel to the Armaments Race?

If the women of Latin States are alive to the advisability of proving Dictators' assertions concerning expansion of popu- lation to be mere nonsense, why should British women go out of their way to alarm them into in- crease?,

I can woll imagine Hitler or Mussolini arguing to the womenfolk of his nation: "Don't you be gulled by perfidious Eng- land once again!

"Just as they are going to spend £1,500,000,000 of arma- menta,

their organised womanhood advises a sharp in- crease in the birthrate. They say it is needed for fifty years hence. Now, German (or Italian) women, see that your cradles are full to meet this fresh British monacei ",

OF

And so the weary struggle will go on.

The old truth can never com- pletely vanish that behind all the weapons there must be the * human beings to use them or to direct their use. The shortage, present or prospective, of the human material, the making of life precious instead of super- fluous, is the only short-range and long-range answer which matters in a world so mad as to-day's is.

It is the only reply which can be given Internationally. A birth less in Italy cannot be re- placed easily by a birth more. elsewhere-babies cannot be purchased from abroad like tanks or bombs. It is the only answer to war which is quite, unanswerable.

How well does one recall the plan: of Jaures and Keir Hardie to damp. down war by an international strike of labour, and the sad way in which the workers of all ́lands

...

And it looks as though it ought

to be rather a nice world!'

wore caught in the nets, each of their own land's propaganda..

You can't catch unbom children by War Lies-It seems almost too. obvious to say that they are not there to be trapped.

∙ro-

If every time a war-mongèr made a war-provoking speech, the national census 'authorities. ceived a few thousand postcards, signed or otherwise, from mothers saying: "That means ong child less that I bear for this State "; there would, ono reels, be a rapid dimi- nutiori in loud-mouthed oratory.

war

If every budget where arma- ments rose had as an inevitable accompaniment a relativo decrease in the birth-rate, what could our politicians do? Supposa every bride on her wedding day wrote to the Prime Minister of her country". and said: "So long as you keep. this country actually and prospec tively in peace, I will endeavour to bear a child every two or three years until I have four or five, and ing soon as the skies 'darken with war clouds I shall bear no more until the skies are clear again " what would worried Prime Minis-

•ters do?

Are not women who blindly sup- ply cannon fodder the biggest war. makers of all? At any rate, they provide one of the biggest excuses for war. We must expand! We must have inore room for our fast- growing people! Foreigners-out. of our way!

Think it over, women of alt - nations. The biggest stay-in strike in all history and the greate est antidote to war les within your power. Why not make the world, safe for the fewer babies you do beat?