1937-07-19 — Page 22

10

THE

HONGKONG

TELEGRAPH. MONDAY,

JULY

19,

1937.

THE GREATEST THING IN LIFE

IN

Views Collectod By Lillio Ross Clyno

a popular novel I read recently the following paragraph:—

"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 i must be based on selfish- uf ness. Love may be the greatest human emotions for those two, but to the world at large it is sometimes comle and occasionally tragic."

uf

71

views Here now I give the several eminent people on what they regard as the greatest thing in te. Robert Blatchford-Should I not be justified in saying "Life" and vanish- a harlequin ing with a flick like jumping through a shop window? Never mind, I will behave te Rentleman. Though, mind you, your question "What is the greatest thing in Life?" is the kind of question "What is the greatest thing in Life?" is the kind of question for which the largest circulators offer a prize of 1,000 guineas, a grami plano, and a ticket for the dog show.

I might The greatest thing in life? say hoppiness; but I feel that what n

(eel 1

fellow itke iltler would regard as happiness would make me ought to be hanged.

And you know as well as I do that Another the thing one man coveLS despiser, A politician may perhaps think the greatest thing in He would be Cabinet rank. 1 leave him to supply why.

What is the greatest thing in Wer It's like asking o man which are | the best hundred books, or who is the greatest fool in Germany. There are many great things in re; for instance, marriage. Being married is a wonderful experience. It is a sufficing thing, a thing, enduring and remember. lovely to know and to

And why is it all that itis? Simply because men are men and women are women and marriage is t natural fulfilment.

Friendship! The man or woman Kreat who has friends is rich in possessions.

Perhaps the the right lipstick, a brilliant son, n beautiful daughter, a rleh, good-natured, foolish husband, or 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.

But for a woman? right bat,

Health Before All

Marjorie Bowen-1 think the krentest thing in the world (as far as one dare make such a generalis- ation) is health-in which I include perfect senses. A physical handicap requires more heroism to overcome Chan most of us can manage, and there la none of life's blessings that by ill-health or is no! marred by inadequate senses sight, hearing, &c. Next in importance I would put

money-and for much reasons, persistent poverty

acvere

the

saine 13 tov

handicap for any but a saint

or a hero to overcome, und lack of. suficient means lead a reasonably easy existence must frustrate polson most human beings.

and

Ian Hay-Shall we say rather more work than one, can confortably, do, and health to do it?

I

THE CANNIBAL SMILE

"Some men are noted flesh- naliver TCCOO- lovers... the

nise a pecullar greasy look about the eyes which charac- terises auch men."

From "Buvage Civilization,” by Tom Harrisson, published by Gollancz, which will be reviewed to-inorrow.

WOMEN

WOMEN WHO WORK

By Joan Beattchamp (Lawrence and Wishart. Es. (8.) THE POSITION OF WOMEN IN THE U.S.S.R.

W

ity G. N. Srebrenikoy

Callancz, 73, 6.!

OMEN WHO WORK is n challenge to complacency: a shock for all those who comfortably believe that women's emancipation was achieved with: Buffrage success and Lady Astor's election to the House of Commons.

This is a factual record of exactly what women have achieved in factory and office, shop and tome. grim record 1.

And a

Here are pletures of women working not to the legal Bits but to the nits of human endurance and the infce- quent visits of factory inspectors): doing men's work for half men's pay. in the familiar "blind alley" Jobs, struggling to maintalh output on point and tuning systems.

Pay? Worn weavern in Laneanhire do well to get 305. a week, running six loom. In engineering, for the same sum, they do the work for which skilled men were formerly paid £5. A shop manageress takes home 18s. every Friday. A kitchen worker's pay packet is a princely 121, 1d.

Hours Fifty, sixty, seventy a week. No wonder they "fall asleep on the bus going home"!

There are 24,000,000 women 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 6,000,000 are a sarial prob- lem of first importance for all who work.

Miss Beauchamp shows what the problem is the exploitation to be ended, the improved conditions to the fought for-and sonte methods of solv. ing it. Women Who Work is an invi tntion to action as well as a han document.

Mr. Serubrennikov'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 inillions who, in Tsarist days, could never hope to leave the "stupefying Not atmosphere" of the kitchen. even the masses of statistics which Mr. Berebrennikov uses can dim this story of high endeavour,

G. E. R. W.

BOOKS

OF THE WEEK

Edited by Roger Pippett

T

MEN-LIZARDS

WAR WITH THE NEWIS

By Karel Capek

fAllen and Unwin, 78, 64.)

HEY were about a yard high, with the faces of grotesque children and lizards' talls. They swam in the sex and awayed to and fro on their hind legs on land, making a queer hissing noise. And-at Arst-men found them friendly little creatures,....

An old Dulch captain saw them on an island off Buriatra. He taught them how to open pearl-oysters-and grew quito sentimental over them,

They are very good and sensible," he would any. When you tell them something they alt up and take notice like dog when it listens to its master.... If only the sharks wouldn't Bo for them!"

He went on tour with them.

-Cap- tain von Tochi and His Traurd Newti' made a great sensation. Flim mag- natės

The naw their possibilities. Press adapted them. "Men-Lizarda.” Have Newta Got a Future?" And so

Then an international syndicate ex- plotted them as cheap labour. They were extremely useful, building dams, breaking rooks, dredging harbours and tanking canola. Remarkably adapt able, those newts. And remarkably profitable to their owners,..

Economists waxed lyrical.

"Never

In the history of mankind has so much been produced, built and pald out The An in the great Newt Era, whole future of the world lies in the continuous increase of production and consumption. Therefore there must

be all more Newta 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 allacked them with the slogan, "More Dis- Water for Newis to five In!" turbed and then terrified at the news

MISFIRE

KINGDOM COME

By Rupert Croft-Cooke (Jarrolds, 73, Ga.)

11AT is personality? What

Mr. is charm?

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 What asked? What did he want? was he up to, anyway?

As many of them had nkeletons in Their cupboards, the disturbance caused by this weomer in their relatively quiet lives rapidly hardened into aus- Belon. He must be a police spy, try- ing to trip them into fatal admis- sions.

So. when, to their amazement, he wanted to climb 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-lold tale with an unusual

R. P. theme.

of mansaeres, aubaidences and mass inroads on the land. It was war with the newte with a vengeance,

And then? I must leave Mr. Capek to finish his story, ie is in great form in this tale, which stages to best idea that has struck him since Lo in R.V.R. Invented these tobots Quietly and almost quizzically, he sets his newta swimming and toiling and destroying until at last all you can hear is an immense dark swirling ns of rising waters."

And, because he is an author with a social conscience, he has written a great, satire as well. For mankind's on the self-complacent comments newts, expressed in a range which 'civilised" act!- covers most of our vities, become devastating comments on mankin self.

It is as though Mr. Well hand re- A thrilling. written Penguin Island, acientific nightmare-and a tremen- dous warning.

R. P.

COUPLE

THE BILIMMING LAKE By Ashley Smith (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 78. éd.)

·AGNUS HAGERTY was a Socialist-and he let every-

M

-body know it. He talked and preached incessantly. There was no escaping that stream of propaganda,

At last i was rewarded, by being brought from his home in Yorkshire to a munisipal 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 was unufted.

Ever since Magnus had entered the grey buildings which housed the muni- elpal offices a feeling of worthleas ness had possessed him, That was in- cidental on the boullessness of his task, the abstraction of hts functions, but now deeper processes were eating, not only into his office hours, but into his life and sense of-valuća."

But his wife, Deirdre? Once a com- fortable housewife, concerned only with her home, her husband and her child, ignorant and careless of politics, his wasted and unvalued idealism 11 gradually penetrated to her. cloudy vision became to her a practical plan.

It brought her death in childbirth, but it reaffirmed that there is, purpose and meaning in 14c.

A novel lint is passionately felt and full of close observation of n side of working class life which is seldom noticed. And a haunting atudy of two people you might easily pass in the street-two characteristic though in- dividual drops in the brimming lake of

R. P. a modern city.

LORE of the LAND

GREAT FARMERS

By J. A. Scott Watson and May Ellot fobbs (Selton and Blount, 128. Gd.)

H

ERE is a veritable caval- cade of eighteenth and nineteenth century agricul- were the tural history. These people, attractive and pleturesque, who laid out the contours of our present countryside, the size and shape of our fields. hedges and ditches, crops and cattle.

Who were they?

In 1720 tichard Tomkins. yeoma descendant of an impoverished Royal- ist family, was gathered to his fathers and left, by his last will and testament, to his son Benjanin, "one cow called Silver and her calf

From then until 1850, wham Richard Tomkins' great-grand-daughters Bually dispersed the herd, there wan continuous enreful selection for those qualities that have since made the white-headed Hereford breed world- famous

Then there fo the fascinating story of that Zeelander, Cornelius Vermuyden, who came over to drain the Fens. By 1642 Vermuyden writes that the Fens were so far improved that there were with then sown about 40,000 acres coleseed, wheat and other winter grain, of besides Innumerable quantities sheep and cattle and other stock, where never any had been before."

And what of the tales behind the

flest coming of the

agricultural machines. of inen like Jethro Tull, who brought in the corn drill towarcia the end of the eighteenth century? What neighbours' scern and ridicule he had to live down! Even a century and a half later, lunovation is still mud. 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. Cobden and Bright all the practical facts for

ATTEMPT

NO ESCAPE

By Randall Swingler (Chatto and Windus, 78. Gd.)

BWINGLER 15

д

THE PERFECT SCHOOLBOY Rd post. Like others of

I

By A SCHOOLMASTER

Ruth Fry--I believe that the greatest thing in life is the love of God. Without the anchor of a sense of our relationship to the Divine feel life loses its peuce and inner

DON'T mind whether a boy is if they find that their work, however

absolutely Our love of God is the

19 happiness.

what is called clever, or whether sympathetic, inspiration to make our lives the

by any attempt at self- most beautiful and the best possible, he is merely averagely successful, rewarded

qualities help on the part of the boy, there is but there are one or two that. I consider are essential to the a great temptation to give up trying. perfect schoolboy. And I think that

to conquer self and to love and serve our fellow men.

That, briefly, is my conviction of the greatest thing in Ife-the greatest woman- possession, that "man-or

can have.

the

you asked a number of school- masters their opinion, they

un-

Must have a will of his own with- would out being arrogant. No one likes to tell you that most of the characteris- teach a spineless, sycophantic being ties of their ideal pupils are in my whose only thought is to get to the The boy with spirit top of his form. 11st.

Is he who will go farthest in after life.

Sir Dan Godfrey-I think

true greatest things in life are friendship which bears the test of

Very well, then, my perfect school- pdversity, and a love of Christian truth which enables us to "do unto others as we should wish other to boy-..

School- Straight be responsive. Must 'do to us,"

masters are but human after all, and

Love, the Builder

+

Must be truthful. We know that the heroes of the schoolboy tales of Frofessor A. M. Low-T at think in Ilfe; none of them would be much our youth were always very upright the greatest thing in life is love. Not good unless they were obtained for and willing to take other people's the "urve" of the admirable Cheva- something greater, The quaintes! Her, or of expensive restaurants or point of all is that everyone knows faults on their own shoulders, but filma or novels. 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 let us imagine for a moment that it thing away unless they are quite straight boy is usually an intelligent

function of Jim or Angelina sure of making a successful bargain; alone. I mean love that built the that is why foola say that love is boy, and one who knows just how far he can transgress the rules of world. The love which makes even selfish.

authority, animals selective in their and which has made the universe go forward instead of backward,

is t

passions

Havelock El-I think those are right in putting Pence amongst the greatest things in life. Many people never head. expect too much of life."

Bir Ben Turner-The greatest

It he is good at games, should allow that fact to go to his I have seen many boys, quiet

the

ANDALL modern

Не

still, sad music of humanity." knows that writing poetry is not merely business of stringing rhymes. Consequently his Arst 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. for learning for its own

I

admit that such an attitude can be encouraged by enlightened teaching. Nicknames

After

Should not be afraid of me. all, in many cases o 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- were a being of different clay from certing to be approached an if one ordinary run of men, and while I deprecate undue familiarity, I prefer my pupils to regard me as an adv!- ser as well as a teacher.

Should use my nickname, since it gives him a feeling that he is some- how getting on equal terms with me, but should always be under

If there is a power, which controls every invention, every brigade, every war, every art, every flower, is it not a great thing? There ja

I think thing in life is love. Loving your and reasonable enough until they man. Nothing surpasses obtained their colours, who have nothing else worth having. All the fellow good things are free when they last, It comforts old folk, it helps the then turned into little lords of crea- like air, sunshine and beauty. Even young, and it is a blessing all round. tion, expecting praise from their

Gilbert Frankau-Love and Sol- peace is a matter of love if it is to be obtained without the ald of twelve- vency are the two greatest things in fellows and privileges from Inch guns and poison gas. I think lfe, indeed, the only things which masters. To pander to such an at- titude in bad for the boy, and it also that love is the only permanent thing make life worth living.

and reacts unfairly on those whose chief believe that good thought of time. in mostly love, and can no more be Good-health. We cannot enjoy love activities lle elsewhere than on the destroyed than any other form of without good-health, nor can positive energy.

derive the real personal joy which sports field. The I could argue that money, power, good-health should bring it we have schoolboy sportsman is usually the day!

bad sport of later years, and one's self are the greatest things not love in our hearts.

Lauder-Love Sir Harry

we

their victorious campaigns against the Corn Laws?

But Hope lived to found the for- tanes of the seed potato, and to die bonoured as one of Scotland's ever-

loncering farmers.

You can see John Benzies, the herds- man, who, when asked by Queen Vlo

about that his torta how it came Pulled Angus prizewinner looked so fil, bloom. "Just heather answered, heather bloom." Herdsmen then, and herdsmen now, have never given their feeding secrets away,

Amos Cruickshank, the saber old Qunker further, patriarch of the beet Shorthorn cattle breed. Gilbey of Bates of Elsenham, the horse lover. Kirklevington, the breeder of a wonder train cattle. And a pleturenque

of

Oxfordshire quartet

onelent labourers. They all weave in and out of this chronicle as contributora to our distinctive rural heritage.

This book is not the dry bones of modern marketing échemes nor a mere Having record of fat stock prices

such a vast gallery of rustic and farm- Ing ** characters to draw on, even the non-agriculturist wit revel in its

JOHN MORGAN, pages.

IRON

RATIONS

A startled surgeon in Bombay recently fished the following items from

Hindu the stomach

il of

pallenti

Eighteen penknives. Two door keys.

Five flat steel bindes. Three naked knife-blades. Four steel hooks.

Two steet loops.

The sides of two knives, 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 later privately.

ivas

he

A few months ago he discovered stay-down-strike that he victim. Though deserted by his

skill,

continued! regurgitative performing, but soon.complained of Kastrie uneasiness, X-rays revealed the source of his trouble and a laparotomy was done. Now minus his hardware and recuperating from a twelve stitches Incision, the indu plans hopefully to return to his magic.

1,203 ITEMS OF HARDWARE The real records for odd stomach contents, however are held by amateurs who do their swallowing non-professionally,

In Ave 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, she cheered herself up by indulging in a little nut-and-bolt snack.

Finally, after one week of hard- avare lunch, she began to feel pains in her stomach. In March 1034 sho went to King's County Hospital, Brooklyn, where an operation was performed with the following in- ventory:

3 picture tramo

hooks.

088 nne upholstery

tacks. 144 carpet facks. 2 chair tacks. I found headed

thumb tack.

3 ordinary thumb

tacks..

46 small crows.

•

2 larga bent safety.

piris.

1 small safety-pin. 1 head of a nail.

03 pins.

Opins heads.

without

6 medium screws. i matted mass of

I hook liaped.

coat-banger.

30 small bolts.

tho

47 larger bolts.

I nut.

fond impression that I haven't the faintest idea what the nicknumo 15. Should above all not try to in- It puts me in an embarrassing position and gratiate himself with mac.

himself in a dangerous one, that is if schoolboys are the same towards swollen-headed "suckers-up". as they were in my

Must not be perfect!

hals 'containing

screws and pins.

4 pieces of wire.

69 amorted benda,

69 pieces of glass.

loseup handle.

The collection was put on display

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11

ACROSS

1 Here's a nation devold of heart, and that last touch that means so much.

5 A

scart gives rise to a brawl. B An age looking back.

"Though on pleasure she was Inlnd." beat, she had a (Cowper's

John Gilpin.) 10 How one can make oneselt. 11 Fare like an earless boat and a

doctor with one little foot. 12 Where mistakes are freely ne

knowledged.

14 A half a dozen in nine inches

may, mean trouble for your get. 10 No heart can produce a second

опе...

17 E.g., Melba.

10 Lolter (anag.).

19. Might like your hand as

alternative to a case.

23.A

26 Day-dream.

.י

3 The roue and the tennis plyacr may be in it (2 words, 4 and 3),

6 A light sailing-vessel.

7 According to Antony, ambition

should be made of this stuff. 13 They'll give you fits perhaps!

forward 15 Always looking

things.

10 In all his glory,

20 Numbers,

Bury.

to

för

example,

la

21 Back-answers.

22 Anything from a duel to an

assembly for worship.

23 A vessel that ends ilke a ship. 24 Taken away,

25 All that makes a thing what it

Es.

་་་་

Saturday's Solution iROUNDHEAD TEAMP

IMA

ал

A rush, or you may think it so

when you pay it.

LIBERAL

E

27 One kind of edition.

19

IDE

28 Floors..

20 There's a brief autumnal open-

TUESDAY

E

IN

ing to this composition.

30 One of a European race.

for incredulous medical students.

31 A game lot. mute testimony to the resilience of 32 This 31 Across sounds rather the human stomach,

an indefinite hour for a singer. The hardware had been consumed 33 Have they wardrobes? Ave years before

the operation, ac- 34 No dole for such a smipleton. cording to the attending surgeon.

DOWN doctoring herself with various medi- Meanwhile, the patient had been cines, Recovery was uneventful, the only prescription belug reat and a more orthodox diet.

1 More than love,

2 Sitting on the fence.

1 A War Minister of the past, 4 Turn aside.

BALOP QUEE

MEETING MARINEB MA B

E

1 ANKE DROMEDARY