10
THE GREATEST THING IN LIFE
IN
Views Collected By Lillie Ross Clyno
a popular novel I read recently the following parograph:-
"The love of a man for a woman, and a woman for a man may be the most powerful, but it is neither the best nor the noblest thing in life. It is a purely personal thing between two people. These two people are often the only ones who benefit by it, therefore it must be based on selfish- Tess. Love may be the greatest of human emotions for those two, but to the world at large it is sometimes comic and ocensionally tragic."
views of 1ere now I give the several eminent people on what they regard as the greatest thing in c. Robert Blatchford-Should I not be vanish- justified in saying "Life" and vani
ing with a flick like. a harlequin shop window? Jumping through a
I will behave like a Never mind. I gentleman. Though, mind you, your "What in the greatest thing question
Life?" is the kind of question "What is the greatest thing in Life" in the kind of question for which the largest circulators offer a prize
in
of
1.000 gulnens, a grand plano, and a ticket for the dog show.
1 might The greatest thing in He? say happiness; but I feel that what a fellow like itter would regard as
feel happiness would make me ought to be hanged.
And you know as well as I do that the thing one man covets another despises. A pollticlan may perhaps think the greatest thing in life would be Cabinet rank. I leave him to supply why.
What is the greatest thing in life? It's like asking a man which are the best hundred books, or who is the greatest fool in Germany. There are many great things in life; for instance, marriage. Being married is wonderful experience. It is a sufficing thing, a thing enduring and lovely to know and to remember. And why is it all that it is? Simply because men are men and women are natural women and marriage is fulfilment.
Friendship! The man or woman who has friends is rich in great possessiona.
But for a woman? Perhaps the right bal, the right lipstick, a brillant son, a beautiful daughter, a rich, good-natured, foolish husband, ar better lupins than the lady next door. Oh, go on! You know. The greatest thing in life is the belief that you have got it because then you know the other fellow hasn't.
Health Before All
or
Marjorie Bowers 1 think The greatest thing in the world (as fur as one dare make such a generalis- atton) is health-in which I include perfect senJOS, A physical handicap requires more heroism to overcome than most of us enn manage, and there is none of life's blessings that not marred by ill-health Inadequate senses sight, hearing, &c. Next in importance I would put money-and much the same
for
is reasons, persistent poverty 100 severe à handicap for any but a sainti or hero to overcome, and lack of suficient means to lead reasonably enay existence must frustrate and polson most human beings,
lan Hay-Shall we say rather more work than one can comfortably do, i and health to do it?
the
Ruth Fry-I believe that greatest thing in ite is the love of
God. Without the anchor of a sense
of our relationship to the Divine
feel life loses its peace and Inner
THE CANNIBAL SMILE
"Some men are noted flash- natives recog- lovers... the nisc G peculiar greasy look about the eyes which charac- terises such meni,"
From "Savage Civilization, by Tom Harrisson, published by Gollancz, which will be reviewed to-morrow.
WOMEN
WOMEN WHO WORK
By Joan Beauchamp
(Laurenér and Wishart, 23. Gd.)
THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN THE 11.8.8.1.
W
By G. N. Serebrennikov (Gollancz, 74, od.)
OMEN WHO WORK is a challenge to complacency:
a shock for all those who comfortably believe that women's emancipation was achieved with suffrage success and Lady Astor's election to the House of Commons.
This a factual record of exactly what women have achieved in factory and office, shop and home. And a grim record it is.
Here are pictures of women working not to the fegal limits but to the Bmits of human endurance and the infre quent visits of factory Inspectors): doing men's work for half men'ʼn pay. in the familiar "bind alley" jobs, struggling to maintain output on point and timlig systems.
Pay? Women weavers fu Lancashire do well to get 30%, a week, running Mix looms. I engineering. for the same sum, they do the work for which skilled men were formerly paid £5. A shop manageress takes home 185.. every Friday. A kitchen worker's pay packet is a princely 129. 1d.
Hours? Fifty, sixty, acventy a week. No wonder they" fall asleep on the bus going home "i
There are 24,000,000 wonten and girls in Britain: 10,000,000 of them house- wives, 0,000,000 of them doing some kind of paid work. And, because the proportion of women to men employed has increased tremendously since the war, those 0,000,000 nre a social prob Tem of first importance for all who work.
Miss Benuchamp shows what the problem is-Wic exploitation to be ended, the improved conditions to be fought for and some methods of noly ing it. Women Who Work is an lovi tation to action as well as a human document.
Mr. Berebrennikov's is a more cheer-. ful book,
Equality of rights, equality of pay- in a word, substantial economic inde- pendence--is now the heritage of millions who, in Tsarist days, could never hope to leave the "stupefying atmosphere" of the kitchen. Not even the masses of statistics which M: Serebrennikov uses can dim this story of hight endeavour.
B. E. R. W.
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. MONDAY,
BOOKS
OF THE WEEK
Edited by Roger Pippett
T
MEN-LIZARDS
WAR WITH THE NEWTS.
By Karel Capek
(Allen and Unioin, 78, 6d.)
HEY were about a yard high, with the faces of grotesque children and lizards' tails. They swam in the sea and swayed to and fro on their hind lega on land, making a queer hilasing noise. And at first-men found them friendly little creatures...、
An old Dutch captain saw them on an island off Bumatra. Ho taught them how to open pearl-oysters-and grew quite sealimental over them, They are very good and sensible,” ha would say, "When you tell them something they sit up and take notien like a dog when it listens to its master.... If only the sharks wouldn't go for them!*
He went on tour with them. “Cap- tain von Toch and His Trained Newtá made a great sensation. Film mag- nates saw their possibilities. The Men-Lizards," Press adopted them. "Have Newis Got a Future?' And so on and so 011.
Then an international syndicato ex- piolted them as cheap labour. They were extremely useful, building dams, breaking rocks, dredging harbours and making canals. Remarkably adapt- able, those news. And remarkably profitable to their owner, N
Economists waxed lyrical. "Never in the history of mankind has so much been produced, built and paid out
In the great Newt Era.
The whole future of the world lies in the continuous increase of production and consumption. Therefore there must be still more Nowis to produce and to devour still more."
But even a newt can turn. And men were disturbed when a teeming, highly organised and lethal submarine world, attacked them with the slogan, "Mare Dis- Water for Newts to Live In!" turbed and then terrified at the news
W
MISFIRE
KINGDOM COME
By Rupert Croft-Cooke (Jarrolds, 73. tď.)
HAT is personality?
What
15 charm? Mr. Croft- Cooke's hero was surfeited
- with both, He was a flim star adored by millions, until he could bear the publicity no longer and fled to a remote village in the Andes.
Strangely enough, the famous charm didn't work there. Who was this queer young man, his neighbours asked?
What What did he want? was he up to, anyway?
As many of them had akeletons in their cupboards, the disturbance caused by this newcomer ln their relatively qulet Ilves rapidly hardened into sus- picion. He must be a poltec spy, try- ing to trap them into fatal admis alons.
So, when, to their umazement, he wanted to climb a mountain peak. they engineered an accident to get rid of him. He was saved, but it was a thoroughly disillusioned man who re- turned from his. treacherous Eden to the comparative safety of London and Hollywood.
A well-told tale with an unusual theme.
R. P.
M1143
of massacres, subsidences and inroads on the land. It was war with the newts with a vengeance.
And then? I muust Irave Mr. Capek to finish his atory. He is in great form in this tale, which stages. the best idea that has struck him since o invented those. Robots in R.U.R. Quietly and 'almost quizzically, he sets his newts swimming and toiling and destroying until at last nil you can hear is an immense dark swirling as of rising waters.
And, because bells an author with a social conscience, he has written a great satire as well. For mankind's self-complacent
1/10 comments 011 newts, expressed in a range which covers most of our "civilized" act)- vities, become devastating comments on mankind itself.
It is as though Mr. Wells bad re- A thrilling, written Penguin Island. scientific nightmare-and a tremen- dous warning.
H
R. P.
JULY
19,
1937.
COUPLE
THE BRAIDING LAKE By Ashley Smilla
(Eyre and Spottiswoode, 78, 68.j
M
AGNUS HAGERTY was n Socialist and ho let every-
body know it. He talked and preached incessantly, There was no escaping that stream of propaganda.
At Ihat he was rewarded, by being brought from his home la Yorkshire to a munielpal job in East London. Now both London and Magnus would begin to look up. But the work was clerical, to which a man of his energy wis unsulted.
"Ever since Magnus had entered the grey buildings which housed the munt- elpat offices feeling of worthless-
ness bad possessed him. That was in- cidental on the bodilesanesa of his task, the abstraction of his functions, but now deeper processes were eating, not only into his office hours, but into his life and senso of values,”
But his wife, Deirdre? Once a com- fortable housewife, concerned only with her home, her husband and her child. Ignorant and careless of politics, hin wasted and unvalued idealism
her. HLA gradually penetrated to cloudy vision became to her a practical plan.
It brought her death in childbirth. but I reafirmed that there is, purpose and meaning in life
A novel that is passionately felt and full of close observation of a side of working cines ife which is seldom noticed. And a haunting atudy of two people you might casily pass in the street-two characteristic though in- dividual drops in the brimming lake of a modern city.
R. P.
LORE of the LAND
GREAT FARMERS
By J. A. Scott Watson and
May Elol Hobbs (Selwyn and Blount, 125, 64.J
ERE is a veritable caval- cade of eighteenth, and -nineteenth century agricul- tural history. These were the people, attractive and picturesque. who laid out the contours of our present countryside, the size and shape of our felds, hedges and ditches, crops and entile.
Who were they?
In 1720 Richard Tomkins, yeoman descendant of an impoverished Royal- 1st family, was gathered to his fathers and left, by his last will and testament, to his son Benjamin, "one cow called Silver and her call
From then until 1859, when Richard Tomkins' great-grand-daughters finally dispersed the herd, there was continuous careful selection for those qualities that have since made the white-headed Hereford breed world. famous
Then there is the fascinating story of that Zeelander, Cornelius Vermuyden, who came over to drain the Fens. By 1842 Vermuyden writes that the Fens were "so far improved that there were about 40,000 acres then sown with coleseed, whent and other winter grain, besides innumerable quantities of sheep and cattle and other stock, where never any had been before."
And what of the tales behind the coming of the first ogricultural machines, of men like Jethro Tull, who brought in the corn drill towards the end of the eighteenth century? What neighbours' scorn and ridicule he had to live down! Even a century and a half later, lutovation is still sus. pect in our rural areas.
And who had heard before about courageous George Hope, the Lothian farmer, who, against his interests, so they thought at the time, gave Gobern and Bright all the practical facts for
ATTEMPT
NO ESCAPE
By Randall Swingler (Chatto and Windus, 78. 6d.)
FO
THE PERFECT SCHOOLBOY Rents Lake others of
By A SCHOOLMASTER
happiness. Our love of God is the DON'T mind whether a boy is if they find that their work, however
to conquer self and to love and serve our fellow men.
what is called clever, or whether sympathetic, 19 absolutely un- inspiration to make our lives the most beautiful and the best possible, he is merely averagely successful, rewarded by any attempt at self- but there are one or two qualities help on the part of the boy, there is that I consider are essential to the a great temptation to give up trying. That, briefly, is my conviction of perfect schoolboy. And I think that
Must have a will of his own with the greatest thing in ite-the greatest it you asked a number of school-
would out being arrogant. No one likes 10 possession that man--or woman-masters their opinion, they.
Sir Dan Godfrey-I think the tell you that most of the characteris. teach a spineless, sycophantic being tics of their ideal pupils are in my whose only thought is to get to the top of his form. The boy with spirit is he who will go farthest in after,
can have,
greatest things in life are true friendship which bears the test of list.. adversity, and love of Christian truth which enables us to "do unto others as we should wish other to boy
do to us."!
Love, the Builder:
Very well, then, my perfect school-
life.
Must be responsive.. School- Straight.
masters are but human after all, and
Must be truttiful. We know that- the heroes of the schoolboy tales of Professor A. AL. Low--I still think in life; none of them would be much our youth were always very upright the greatest thing in 11to is love. Not good unless they were obtained for and willing to take other people's the lurve" of the admirable Cheva-something greater. The quaintest ller, or of expensiva restaurants or point of all is that everyone knows faults on their own shoulders, but Aims or novele. I mean the real, I am right in this discussion, but very there is a good foundation for the honest-to-goodness article. Do not few have the courage to give any popularity of such characters. A lot us Imagine for a moment that it thing
away unless they are quite straight boy is usually on intelligent Is a function of Jim or Angelina sure of making a successful bargain; boy, and one who knows just how alone. I mean love that bullt the that is why fools say that love is
Of transgress the rules world. The love which makes even | selfish. animals selective in their passions
far he can {authority.
.
and
ANDALL GWINGLER is modern poet,
He
still, sad music of humanity." knows that writing poetry is not merely a business of stringing rhymes,
Consequently his first novel is not just a pretty pattern. It is concerned with vital modern problems.
As he gets older, should become discriminating, and cultivate a liking sake. I for learning for its own admit that such an attitude can be encouraged by enlightened teaching. Nicknames
Should not be afraid of me. After all, in many cases a schoolmaster is not so much older than the oldest of his puplis, and has a far better re-. collection of his school days than Is commonly supposed. It is discon- certing to be approached as if one were a being of different clay from. ordinary run of men, and while I deprecate undue familiarity, I prefer 'my pupils to regard me as an advi
ser as well as a teacher.
and which has made the universo go Havelock Ellis-I think those are forward instead of "backward. right in putting Peace amongst the If he is good at games, should
Should use my nickname, since it If there is a power, which controls | greatest things in life. Many people never allow that fact to go to his every invention, every brigade, every expect too much of life."
head. I have seen many boys, quiet gives him a feeling that he is some- war, every art, every flower, is it not Sir Ben Turner The greatest a great thing? There
reasonable enough until they how getting on equal terms with me, I think thing in life is love. Loving your la
but should always be under the their colours, who have fond impression that I haven't the nothing else worth having. All the fellow man. Nothing surpasses it. obtained good things are free when they last, It comforts old folk, it helps the then turned into little lords of crea-
faintest idea what the nickname is. like air, sunshine and beauty. Even young, and it is a blessing all round. tion, expecting praise from their pence is a matter of love if it is to be Gubert Frankau-Love and Sol-fellows and privileges from
Should above all not try to in- obtained without the aid of twelve- vency are the two greatest things In
gratiate himself with me. It puts inch guns and poison gas. I think life, Indeed, the only things which masters. To pander to such an at-
me in an embarrassing position and that love is the only perinonent thing | make life worth living.
titude is bad for the boy, and it also of time. I believe that good thought Siir Harry Lauder-Love and resets unfairly on those whose chief himself in a dangerous one, that is is mostly love, and can no more be Good-health. We cannot enjoy love activities lle elsewhere than on the if schoolboys are the same towards destroyed than any other form of without good-health, nor can wo
field. The swollen-headed · "suckers-up" ar they were in my positive energy
derive the real personal joy which ports could argue that money, power, good-health should bring if we have schoolboy sportsman is usually the day! and one's self are the greatest things not love in our hearts.
bad sport of later years.
the
Must not be perfect!
their victorious enmpaigns against the Corp Lawa?
But Hope lived to found the for- tanes of the seed potato, and to die honoured as one of Scotland's ever- ploncering farmers.
You can zee John Benzles, the herds- man, who, when asked by Queen Vic- toria how it came about that is Polled Angus prizewinner looked só At, answered. Just esther bloom, heather bloom." Herdsmen then, and herdsmen now, have never given their feeding secrets away.
Amos Cruickshank, the sober old Quaker farmer, patriarch of the beef Shorthorn cattle breed. Gilbey of Elsenham, the horse lover. Bates of Kirklevington, the breeder of a wonder strain in cattle. And a picturesque
of quartet
ancient Oxfordshire labourers. They all weave in and out of this chronicle ns contributors to our distinctive rural heritage.
This book is not the dry bones of modern marketing schemes nor a mere Hoving record of fat stock prices such a vast gallery of rustic and farm- ing characters to draw on, even the non-agriculturist will revel in its pages.
JOHN MORGAN,
IRON
RATIONS
A startled surgeon in Bombay recently fished the following items from the stomach of a Hindu patient!----
Eighteen penknives. Two door keys.
Five at steel blades. Three naked knife-blades. Four steel hooks.
Two steel loops.
The sides of two knives.
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A number of small steel rivets, The patient was a magician who for fifteen years had made his living performing before India's nabobs. One of his acts was the swallowing of penknives which he disgorged
privately.
later
Д Was
A few months ago he discovered that
he
stay-down-strike victim. Though deserted by his regurgitative skill, ho continued performing, but soon complained of gastric uneasiness. X-rays rovenled the source of his trouble
and parotomy was done. Now minus his hardware and recuperaing from a twelve stitches incision, the Hindu plans
return hopefully to
to hla
magic.
n
1,203 ITEMS OF HARDWARE The real records for odd stomach contents, however, are held by amateurs who do their swallowing | non-professionally.
In five days time, while she worked In the notions department of a New York store, Miss Mabel Wolf swal- lowed exactly 1,203, items of hard-
ware.
When she felt depressed, she said, sho cheered herself up by indulging In a lille nut-and-bolt snack,
Finally, after one week of hard- ware lunch, she began to feel pairs in her stomach. In March 1934 she went
to King's County Hospital, Brooklyn, where an operation was performed with the following in Ventory:-- 183 fine upholstery a picture - frame
tacks,
hooks. | 144 Carpat tacks.
2 chiatt tacks. 1 round headed
thumb tack. 3 ordinary thumb
tacks.
40 small screws.
O anedium screws.
2 large bent safety-
pins,
1 small safety-pin, I head of a hall.
63 pins.
opina heads.
without
I matted many of hair containing screws and pina."
50 samrted beada,
4 pieces of wire.
1 hook-shaped
roat-hanger. 30 small 47 larger bolts.
ກ ກາມ
1 leacup handle. The collection was put on display
Od places of glues.
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OUR BRITISH CROSSWORDS
19
1
ACROSS
1 Here's a nation devoid of heart, and that last touch that means so much.
5 A scarf gives rise to a brawl. 8 An age looking back.
"Though on pleasure she was bent, she had &
mind." (Cowper's John Gilpin.)
18 How one can make oneself. 11 Fare like an oarless boat and a
doctor with one little foot.
12 Where mistakes are freely ac-
knowledged.
14 A half a dozen in nine inches
may mean may
trouble for your gee.
18 No heart can produce a second
one.
17 ER Melba.
18 Leiter (anag.)."
10 Might like your hand as an
alternative to a case.
23 Arush, or you may think it so
when you pay it.
26 Day-dream.
27 One kind of edition.
28 Floors.
29 There's a brief autumnal open-
ing
to this composition.
30 One of a European race. for incredulous medical studenta, 31 A game lot.
DOWN
mute testimony to the resilience of 32 This 31 Across sounds rather the human stomach.
an Indefalie hour for a singer. The hardware had been consumed 33 Have they wardrobes? five years before the operation, ac-34 No dole for such a emiploton. cording to the attending surgeon. Meanwhile, the patient had been doctoring herself with various medi- cines. Recovery was uneventful, the only prescription being rest and a more orthodox diet.
1 More than love.
3 Silting on the fence,
3 A War Minister of the past,
Turn aside.
5 The roue and the tennis plyner. may be in it (2 words, 4 and 3)..
6 A light smiling-vessel
7 According to Antony, ambition
should be made of this stuff. 13 They'll give you fis--perhapsi 13 Always looking forward
Things
19 In all his glory.
to
20 Numbers, for example, in
Bury.
21 Back-answers.
22 Anything from dual to an
assembly for worship.
23 A vessel that chids like a 'ship. " 24 Taken away.
23 All that makes a thing what it
js.
1
Saturday's Solution,
ROUNDHE A D ̈T-HAM P
M A LIBERIAL
8 NAY
TUESDA
H
GRA K
་་་
OD BALOR OG LE
TING MABINER
~DBO·MED ARY
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