10
STORIES OF READERS & READING
SIR Willar
Robertson Nicoll
believed that. geent readers are few, and the dietam may be sound despite the run upon the
libraries
for certain classes of books. A reni lover of literature is not to be found in every street.
A lady said to her
cook, "Cook,
would you like this book to rend?" The reply was, "No. mum, I have more than I can do as it is and won't be put on any more." Which reminds us of Venables, one of the "Cambridge Apostles," who asked an ut Lansdowne Earl whom he met Ilous if he ever taw Punch, "Why.
To say the
much of a bookwo
I'm-er-not
Dr: Thomas Guthrie, in an early parish, had a congregational iurary at his house. He was rather
51-
prised that so many enquiries were made for a Puritan volume which bare the title of "Adum's Private Thoughts, and he took an oppor- tunity of asking one of the readers what made him so anxious for this particular volume. The answer he received
Was. "Olt, ir. I just wondered how they euld make not what the first man's private thoughts - would be about."
Scott's "Ling"
Fraser's
Campbell Professor schoolmaster repeatedly warned him! togainst reading: Sir Walter Scott un acenunt of the books of Hes which the devil had tempted him to pro- i duce.
and lute!
Walter, Thomas Talking of Sir Davidson, the "Scottish Probationer,"
into A when a would sit for high reading Scott's novels Boems, One night, after reading, he was on his way to Led when he trod on some malelies which exploded under his feel. The howe was roused by his cry. "Oh, mother." mother there's tire flying from my, heels." " and the anxious mother re- plied. "Oh, laddie, Faldis, if ye dinna stop reading Sir Walter. he'll turn your held."
There
are those
to whom books nre the staff of life. Alphonso, King of Arragon in, the afternth century, was asked one day who were the counsellors he red best and who "My gave him the best advice.
books," replied he, "cause they tell me without passion, and without any view of Interest, what is requisite for me to know."
Memories of Youth
Hazlitt said that even his fe had been more full of calamity than it had been, he would be willing to live it over again in order to read ¦ the books he read in his youth.
Lord Lyttelton, who married Mary Glynne, the sister of Mrs. W. E. Gladstone, used to be seen at cricket matches in the playfields of Eton, Jying on his front reading between "The, overs, bu! never missing u boll.
When Frank, Buckland, who be
naturalist. was! came famous as a born. Sir Francis Chantrey, the sculptor, offered to give the child a library. The father said, "What is the use of a library to a child
Francis hour old?" to which retorted. "He will live to be sorry the library for that answer," and was never given.
Sir
F. J. S.
1171
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. THURSDAY,
JULY 22, 1937.
Queer New York!
BY
HAROLD
BUTCHER
N
EW YORK! Stupen- dous, gigantic, magi- cal, ultra-modern! All these, yes!
But also-QUEER.
Father Divine, the Negro "God," miraculously feeding the multitude." Miraculously," from the point of view of his "angels"; Incredibly from the viewpoint of hard-headed busi- ness men. Because the black "Delty's" finances are a my- stery known only to himself. It takes money to run his "king- doms," but his heavenly book- keeping, if it exists, is not for vulgar inspection. The faithful are housed and fed by faith,
White Balber Divine was tem- porarily falled on an assault charge a white man had been stabbed when "God's " angels had rushed to his defence after a process server attempted to hand him a paper-a crowd of Negroes stood outside his fall and sang." He's God! He's God! Father Divine is God!" to the tune of ti" Battle Hymn of the Republic. the hymn sang by the soldiers who had freed their forbears.
P
ICTURE New York street in the twentieth century, allve with a mass of singing Negroes-oli, how they can sing!-reilgiously,
Joyously rhythmically. porting their little Negro “God." who had fallen inte the hands of tough New York "copa."
sup-
But even those hard-boiled cops had a smile and a laugh for the little man. If Almee Semple McPherson can have her Temple in Los Angeles, why shouldn't Father Divine have his Heaven In New York?
Harlem. New York's Negro of metropolis, is the home 200,000 Negroes, for the most decent, .part hard-working. fairly well educated citizens able to hold their own in the City of Seven Milon, despite race ex- ploitation.
They have to find relaxation like the whites, and some of them enjoy the necromancy and voodoo touch,
And do not imagine It's the Negroes only who like magic. Bank presidents, stockbrokers, lawyers, college professors, society women, seek out fortune- tellers for advice and guidance. The offices of those who claim to read the future are as luxuri- ously equipped as those of the
financial burons who sway the destinies of nations.
"Sophisticated " New Yorkers eagerly buy up the flood of astrology and horoscope pam- phlets and magazines. Numer- ologists thrive. Telling fortunes in tea-leaves is a big business.
While skyscrapers, so authen- tically real and modern, push their steely, stony audacity into the sky, curious, credulous New Yurkers turn aside from the stark reality of-twentieth cen- tury living to the consolation and fascination of ancient and medieval practices..
These may, they think, throw light upon the mystery of their lives as it presses upon them in the ferce, grotesque and astounding city of New York.
In a really good year New York spends about £5,000,000 on 100,000 fortune-tellers of all kinds crystal gazers, numer- ologists, palmists, phrenologists, card manipulators, tea-leaves readers.
T is a common right to see men with all kinds of good luck charms selling them from trays around streets. necks in. the their Superstition? Maybe. But let's buy one to be safe. Safety first! And the charm is cute, anyway. You can and leagues and associations for everything in New York.
There's a Save-a- Life League; quite useful. It saves would-be suicides, Before swallowing poison, pulling the
Huef,,,,+t}l-le!
coll-
pistol trigger, or jumping off a skyscraper, the person templating suicide telephones the League or pays a personal call.
Here's a samplc- Prometheus, mythi- cal God of Fire, atthouctled apainst a seventy-story sky- scraper, world's tallest omes.
PIISIDENT LINER TRAVEL SERVICE
is Yours to Command
Freaktant Linera' Frequeni axilings and their unique stopover privileges allow you to travel just exactly as you choose, And Dollar Steership Llow and American Mall Line worldwide offires and agents are maintained to serve you whore in whatever, more enjoyable, travelling "The place you chance to be. Make your next trip President Line way,"
TO BAN FRANCISCO NEW YORK AND DOSTON
Via Shanghai, Kobe, Yokohama, Ikonolulu, Ban Francisco, Panama Canal and Havana,
6.00 p.m. July Midnight Aug. Aug. Noon Midnight Sept. Noon Sept. 0.00 a.m. Oct. EUROPE, NEW YORK AND BOSTON
Pres. Coolidge Pres, Tatt Pres. Hoover Pres. Lincoln Pres. Coolidge Pres. Wilson
Vin Manila, Singapore, Penang. Colombo, Bombay, Suez Canal, Naples, Genoa and Marseilles. Pres. Harrison 8.00 .m. Aug. Pres. Polic Pres. Pierce Pres. Van Buren Pres. Garfield Pres. Hayes
TO SEATTLE, VICTORIA "THE EXPRESS ROUTE**
Via Shangbal. Kobo and Yoko- tama,
24 Pres. Jackson 10 Pres. Jefferson 21 Pres. McKinley
7 Pres. Grant 18 Pret. Jackson
a Pres. Jefferson
Midnight July 30 13 Midnight Aug. Midnight Aug. 27. Midnight Sept. 10 Midnight Sept. 24 Midnight Oct. MANILA
THE MOST FREQUENT JERVICK
Next Sallings.
1 Pres. Jackson
8.00 a.m. Aug. 15 Pres. Horrison 0.00 nm. Aug. 20 Pres. Trit 0.00 a.m, Sept. 12 Pres. Jefferson 8.00 a.m. Sept. 20 Pres. Hoover 8.00 a.m. Oct. 10 Pres Polk
0.00 p.m. Aug. 0.00 pm. Aug. 0.00 nm. Aug.
MOST FREQUENT BERVICE ON THE PACIFIG
DOLLAR STEAMSHIP LINES
Gracie Fields, or Walter Huston -any big celebrity-is arriving or departing the autograph- hunters, by team work, capture They ferret out signatures.
going. where celebrities are And, strange
where they are staying: if one but true, the League is a check
falls another will succeed. on New York's lendency to suicide.
Yes, really!
T
ณ
HERE is the League for
Woman President, and Other Public Ofices. A woman President of sounds States the United strange at this time, and Mrs. Roosevelt says she is not a Some day it may candidate.
succeed.
1
American leagues have habit of succeeding because people laugh so much while they are gathering strength. The Anti-Saloon League sue- ceeded for quite a long time, Introducing the wildly fantastic Prohibition Era.
Gangsters, gunmen, racket- cers, without which New York would not be New York, came in with Prohibition; but we will not chalk up all the crimes of bootleggers to a league which honestly
sought to .make America God's Own Country by driving out Demon Rum
The autograph flends have formed the Autograph Guild of America. They are celebrity- chasers. They watch the trains and ocean liners. When Errol Flynn, or Charles Laughton, or Mary Pickford, or Marlene Diet- rich, or Sylvia Sidney, or
SOME FRESH NEWS ABOUT MEDICINE
By John Langdon-Davies
Drug That Dispels Inhibitions
20,000,000 Days' Work
Wasted
OME weeks ago mention was being injected with X this patient TMPORTANT facts about influenza
SOME
By 'Flu
made of a new drug which has told the doctor that she was quite issued by the Medical Officer for J. WAR GOD'S
effeels, sure that her husband was trying to remarkable psychological
more self-confident poison her: making people
This phobia, which was complete- and energetic, and thereby helping
ex- ly without foundation, explained the them through crises such aminations, interviews, trying situ- nausea, and the drug X proved a short cut for psycho-analytic treat
ations.
as
Ever since, people have written to menit.. Ask for the name of the drug, evon offering to buy the information.
Of course, such information must only come through the individual's medical attendant, if he thinka fii to zive it; these drugs are still in their experimental stage and the very fact that so many people feel that they THE
them
Blow goes to
nced
ly used,
Aid For Mothers
ere to be found in the report Lyons and Co., the caterers.
Out of 0,354 people on the Lyons' payroll no fewer than 1,214, or 10 lost: over twelve per cent., got 'u last December or result. January. They thousand dayn' work as a Girls got it more frequently than men, and the young. then the old..
Two points arise out of the Bgures.
DEADLIEST WEAPON
.one
First, 70 per cent. of the sufferers WHATEVER clac must be sald about, the Abyssinian war, one were the first victims of influenza in
This astonishing fact is that so few Italian their
families. respective
discane. Typhuld, means that fu is a bread-winner's soldiers died of made disease and that it is caught at work typhus. malaria, dysentery: these have been the deadly weapons of the complaint is often against doctors that they can cure and taken home to the family.
god of war hitherto, The winning that how all sorts of rare diseases but
been the Keneral has usually dangerous they may be when wrong- they seem helpless against common
reason for this is that the who could keep his troops healthier. everyday allments. It is monstrous,HE
waltress or office worker is in
But in Abyssinia there were half for example, that a seafaring animal DOCTOR who is using one of like man should be at the mercy of constant contact with many people, a million Italian troops and only
aver 1,080 killed in action, these drugs has just had a very seasickness. Medicine seems help- so that the risk of infection is far 599 died of disease compared with
Second, figures show that those The same great change is to interesting case. A patient, a young less, too, against Public Enemy No. 1. greater than in the home.
war. it married woman, came to him suffer- the Common Cold.
uncontrollable pouses, One such everyday misery that who went to work in public con- noted in the Spanish civil ing from She was unable to retain any food at has been successfully attacked at voyances did not get fu more often astonishing that there have been all and yet there was no sign of last is the depressing nausea so often than those who walked or went in na epidemies in Madrid, where only
private cars.
a short time ago typhoid was endemic experienced by expectant mothers. a physical cause.
that Lyons workers lost on the aver- even in normal years. A A doctor has just reported The doctor injected her with
hundred consecutive age ten days' work per case of 'fu, The advance of scientific know- Rubstance which we will call. He out of two knew that X acted on the nerve cases he has succeeded in relieving and if that is an average that holds ledge is, of course, responsible for: centres in such a way that patients no fewer than eighty-five per cent. good for all wage-earners in Eng this. Thus we now know that the on Hils method is to administer a pre-land. It means that 'fu destroyed deadly typhus is caused by lice and tend to lose their Inhibitions
of the twenty million days' work this last lice only; and armies are carefully talking and to "spill out" whatever paration of the secretion
winter.
deloused not merely, for comfort, comes into their heads. Soon after adrenal cortex.
be
New York is a city where one can climb to the dizziest heights on a big nose. We are thinking of Jimmy (Schnozzle! Durante.
And there is that East Side boy who made good on pop-eyes- Eddie Cantor. Al Smith set ail East Bide, New Yock singing West Side," because, among other things, he wore a Brown Derby. He does not make such a hit these days in a High Hat. Too much Liberty League!
Gone are the picturesque days of Mayor Jiminy Walker-grandiose, musical comedy-ish, but Hitler- balting Mayor Florello La Guardia little, but, what a fighteri-keeps New York adequately in the world's sensational headlines.
His suggestion that an efgy of the "brown-shirted fanatic" might suitably be included in a chamber of horrors at the New York World's Fair, 1939, will never be forgotten or forgiven by the Nazi chieftains of Berlin.
R
ACKETEERS are begin- ning to look queer, in New York-very queer. Dutch Schultz-dend since 1935 by gunmen's bullets-hatched aswell scheme to make up for the loss of bootleg dividends when Prohibition was doomed.
He and his henchmen used to extract something like £400,000 a year from Broadway night spots. cafeterias, restaurants, which pre- ferred to pay him tributo rather than have employees benten up or customers driven out by stink bombs,
But Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey is death on rackets,, and by his brilliant massing of evidence In court he is sending racketeers whining
to prison. They are feel-
ing very queer in the pit of the stomach. lle is out to grab all racketeers-vice, gambling, truck- ing, poultry, baking racketeera.
One of the queerest birds in queer New York these days is the racketeer neaddling from Dowey.
N
EW YORK, home of the striptease and of cock- tall partica that last for days; Now York, where the mur- der of a glamorous artist's model the algnal for scores and scores of nearly nude pleturen in the tabloids and "yellow" Press,
New York, where the brightert of Broadway's million lights ad- vertito chewing gum: New York. where a Bowery barber specializes In disguising customers' black суся.
New York, where a self-norylee shop permits women to handlo and try on umpteen dreamen and walk out without buying any.
New York, where dogn, have nursemaids." men who take them for a daily airing at so much a who bring week, and caterers them choice meals.
*
New York, the crazy, the excit- ing, the amazing city where the air f electric and all the citizens Are young-or neom young.
Queer New York Burel But would you not just love to visit it and discover all its queer streaks for yourself7
To-day's Thought WHAT is experience? A voor
little hut
constructed from the ruins of the palace of gold and marble called our illusions, —JOSEPII NOUX.
TO
but for safety. It is said that the chief reason why there were typhus vctims in Abyssinia was that the soldiers were stripped to the waist and therefore cleaner.
AMERICAN
THE
0.00 pm. July 11.00 nm. Aug. Midnight Aug.
224
FEEDER BULDINGHONG KONG. CANTON BIANCHI-21, FRENCH CONCESSION,
LINE
SWEDISH EAST ASIATIC
Ca LTD
13
13
SERVICE OF FAST MOTOR VESSELS (with limited, but exceptionally good, passenger accommodation). TO PORT SUDAN, PORT SAID, ALGIERS, ORAN, ANTWERP, ROTTERDAM, (AMSTERDAM), HAMBURG, OSLO, GOTHENBURG and other SCANDINAVIAN PORTS. HOME WARDS
M.S. "NAGARA"
OUTWARDS.
Balling about 29th Aug.
To SHANGHAI, YOKOHAMA, KOBE and OSAKA. M.S. "SHANTUNG"
Passenger Rates:
Hong Kong to Algiers
Hong Kong to Antwerp or London
Agents:
GILMAN & CO., LTD.
Hongkong.
OUR BRITISH
ACIONS
Rather Hike Aunt Maid upset and very entitle. #To book
10
Nothing beyond the outfit in the
able to sierp
11 Possibly frat in rank.
12 Londins we may not be lune
13 Sort of apomk-easy, thern being
Afty-one in Great Britain. 14 Alliance. 1.
10
Goddess who oras les lead, a double axistimen.
17 "The labour wo delight in
pain," (Macbeth)
10 A pretty one won't necessarily Rut you through the mountain. 21 Mosi ensterly part of Carmar-
then 22 Hohend the businows that is this for good and you'll find the pro- bable reason.
24 The town that is in father. 25 A Thackeray novel.
20
Puts an end to more pentanceN
thun free pardona do,
20 A queer-looking affair.
31 Pul us two in the Navy, and ano
the wreck that would result.
JE
32 This of Ireland has inիt
Anlah.
33 Bart of pill for a favourito about
45 inches in length,
34 Cant about this hot place resulta
in solemn agreement.
35 This is but a perl.
DOWN
A nice word that costs nothing.
2 A lot unpaid as the gardener
uften 15.
18th Aug.
.£49
..£63
G. E. HUYGEN Canton.
CROSSWORDS
He's no angel, but invaluable to the ecoupler,
4 Very, or vory very,
for #
ing belts by contract Frossing that will cost you trite, (Two words, 4 arist f),
# the Hebrides for a man
of many tongina,
Alter the be of u can with an qužburst.
15 Chemical that reforms most Japon (Two words, # and b.), 19 Mihalcos.
20 1d place for the bullder to luss
his head,
23 hould straighten out thinge. 28 pull the French word for the 27 Alper (Asnug.), 30 Pretty sort of pass for the con-
stunt traveller,"
Yesterday's Balation
BOP KOHALT M SEVEIRAITEFUT
RENATANT
DENIAL INNAT NT INNBL METERSE OTH PENTODE KW
ULTENT
SUN BABEL SE
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