1937-11-05 — Page 22

10

THE ELDERLY BLACKCOAT

COME three years ago. n article by

the writer was published in '* newspaper regarding the conditions of unemployed "Blackcoals," pro. fessional and business men who have been displaced in the slump of 1920- 2032 and who were existing in partous circumstances-in most cases unknown even to their immediate neighbours and with Httle prospect of re-employment,

Many changes have taken place, since then. There has been a great revival of industry and commerce, Jurgely, indeed, in Southern England,

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5,

FIND the LADY, or

-TRAIN the WIFE?

Tis still quite a problem -despite out vaunted

Progress-for n man to And a wife who will suit him perfectly.

Women, I believe. have a simi- lar difficulty: but, as I am deal- ing exclusively with the mascu- line point of view, I must ask them to forgive me for not pur-

but to some considerable extent insuing their side of the question, Scotland uise. Employment in Increased general lus substantially and unemployment, though, to lesser degree, has been considerably reduced. Yet the problem of the "Blacltcoat," or at feast of the older men mon! them. remains un. changed.

One important section.

them,

The point is that recently was celebrated the anniversary of the death, in 1789, of a Remarkable Man who set out to produce the Perfect Wife by his own educa tional methods. ·

This man was Thomas Day, and I have been wondering how profitably wo men could now follow his example of deter-

from an Edinburgh point of view, I that of men previously employed upon ten and rubber plantations, inmination. copper, and in tin mines in the

Fur

East, where the influence of Edin-

We could not very well use his methods, for they were appiled to burgh investment companies had the a particular end, and at à parli- natural result of stalling their procular time, and Mr. Day was, any- portles very largely with Elinburgh

men.

drastically

During the period of reduced prices these firma were compelled to dispense with large proportion of their European staff, and men with a life-time's experience of this work-and of Hille els

thrown were

wion their resources and returned to native city, prepared to lighten their belts and to wall, for a year or two if necessary. should improve. Young Substitutes

own their

elreuinstances

pro-

Chcumstances have improved-but not for them. Prices have doubled and trebled and the properties are once more tipo a paying basis. Jurgely, It is true, because uf Artikell restrictions .2131013 duction. which naturally limit the staff required for their operation. Rúming, costs are less. because the machinery which was created by the former staff la able to Junction for a long time almost without European assistance,

The European stuff cannot, how- ever, be permanently dispensed with, and it has been gradually repluged, not with the highly-paid men who gave their lives to the building up Af' tie properties, but by young men, fresh from the University, who ore prepared to go to the For Eust upon a salary of three hundred a year. They are busy learning that three hundred in Singapore is not the sume thing as a similar figure In Edinburgh.

The men who made the properties; the men who earned the dividends in the days when fat dividends were the rule and not the exception; these. men remain in Edinburgh, living.

heaven knows how, in a work which has nothing to offer them, and to which they are too proud to reven] their circumstances..

int

They may be met, by those who know,

various hounts where entertainment or Instruction may be obtained without the expenditure of money. Their clothes may have lost their former freshness and their shoes may be a trifle shabby, but well-tallored suit can last, with care, for many a long year, and, with spotless linen, they look 10- day the gentlemen which they are. Or is it the shadow of what they used to be"

No Grumblingt

*

If one asks how they are getting on, une will receive a cheerful reply, "Very well, all things, considered," and with not, hint that they have not eaten a decent meal for. weeks, that their shoes are worn through. nn that they have not a penny in which to pay for repairs. Not word concerning the landlord who threatens to throw them out on the streets If the rent is not paid by the end of the week.

One lives, incomprehensible as it may seem, but still-one lives. By all logical calculations permanent 11ving upon this bals of perpetua! insecurity is impossible, but things seldom come to a really logical con- clusion in thin world, and something always turns up to avold the ultimate disaster. One secures employment Occasionally-only for n week two, it in true, just to replace some man on holiday, or in some tempor- ary emergency, but what a godsend to receive even three or four pounds for two weeks running!

or

conTM

of

The major portion of them tinue to exist with a philosophic acceptance of their circumstances. They realise that the insecurity present-day commerce has little use for men of fifty, who would, if given n subordinate posilon, by their very uge and experience, form a very roul threat to the position young men already placed in positions of greater authority.

A Grievous Waste'

how, a lovable eccentric: but we might be encouraged again to assert our notorious superiority over women and mould them, for their own good, into Ideal Mates for Men. We might, mighin't we?

Y

OU begin by smiling at Mr. Day: you end by dabbing your eyes in sentimental sympathy with his aims. These were unsed on his belief inspired by Rousseau- that Man Is naturally good, becain- ing bad only through his social contacts, anit were to evolve an ascetic nobility of character which would despise the fleshpots and frivolities of the world.

He had bad luck when young. A saucy young woman played the dickens with his earnest affec- flons. and finally said, "No, thunk

you.

This confirmed him in a poor opinion of the feminine character as evinced in fashionable society, So he decided to show society What could be done when a mind like his own was directed to the task of improvement.

And, lu his twenty-second year, he undertook the completely virtu- ous guardianship of two small girls, one of whom was to become Mrs. Day, when sufficiently. moulded.

4

He look one from an orphan asylum in Shrewsbury, and called her Sabrina. Babrina was ravishing blonde. The other, whom he called Lucretia, came from the London. Foundling Hospital. Lucretia was a brunette.

T

HUS, with an initial clarity of mind which must evoke our admira- tion, he divided women into their two fundamental classes.

He whisked them "off"Lo France. where they simultaneously caught small-nox. They would allow nu foreigner near them, and he was practically chained to the slok-

room.

They screamed because they

HERE COMES THE BRIDE

Claudette Colbert-looking her radiant best—as every woman

does, or should, on her wedding day,

were ill, and they screamed it he made an effort to escape. Their liness and convalescence was one long screarn, and no praise can be too high for Mr. Day, who success- fully nursed them back to health.

Soon Sabrina proved his favour- le-one must admit that there is something about a blonde-and they all returned to England, where Mr. Day apprenticed Luere- la to a milliner. He settled near Lichfield with Sabrina, whom he subjected to the full force of his educational theories.

She had to have a taste for Ilterature and science, to despise the distinctions of birth and the advantages of wealth,

At this point I invite my male renders to consider carefully the on which Mr. Day qualleations insisted. She must be content to share his Spartan retirement, and assist him in bringing up the fruits of their union in stubborn virtue and unfailing exertion.

Her dress and manners must be

Common Sense and the Adolescent

By Ethel Mannin Jarrolds, 78, 60.)

1. Chose Teaching

By Ronald Gurner (Dent, 105, c.)

Education as a Social Factor

M

By M. L. Jacks

ISS MANNIN, succestui .popular novelist, has two "grave defecla as a writer of

a serious psychological work. She has an altogether too juvenile dealro to try to shock the bourgeoisie and aft Interest in sex so all-absorbing that

finda she

it almost impossible to believe that a small child has any other instinct. Even sliding down the Banisters has a Freudian significance for her,

As a consequence, her book contains an immoned amount of turgid non- sense and, for a practised writer, u deplorable amount of repetition... which, surprisingly from Miss Mn- h. makes the book excruciatingly dull in paria, Nevertheless, anyone who has the patience to struggle through the fog of her early chapters will find quite a lot of good sense here and there.

Even so, if she succeeds in convincing even a few parents that they can best serve their children by giving them prace to develop freely álong their own lines and to grow by their own experi. ences, her book will have been well worth writing-though I would have been better a quarter the lengthy,

With all its faults, it would do Mr. Gurner good to read it--or perhaps it wouldn't I fear he is too sure that the whole object of education is to mould character into the ntrict pattern of the Pablle Schcol· Colla

of public. Every now and again one

(Megan Paul, 53.)

to listen to Miss Mannin or anyone else.

He believes that a lencher should "preuch the doctrine of work ng if H were itself a gospel" that compulsory games are moral agencles-but thint Rugger is a finer character-forming agency than Soccer-that a big boy learns responsibility from eaning smaller bays, and that British rule in India provides the flua) justification for the Publle School system,

It is a relied to turn from Mr. Gurner

la Mr. Jacks. You may not agree with Mr. Jacks all the time, but you know it :would be possible to discuss education

intelligently with him.

Ho knows that "to live in harmony with his environment La a very small and a negative contribution for the in- dividual to make to society," and that It is part of a teacher's business "to educate revels at school, non-conform- INS to the complacently accepted abusen of the time."

t

Particularly valuable, in the light of lls recent appointment as Director of the Department of Education Oxford University, are his chapter on the training of teachers and his pro posals for the 'reform, of school curri cutum.

Even those who cannot go all the way with bim in lila view of the refl glous basis of education will find' tho book a atimthus to thought.

JESSIE M. WILLIAMS.

Their own friends, men of pro- fessional and commercial standing. realise this, and dare not attempt to place them with their own Arms. They are not eligible for Government or other, official posis because superannuation regulations, and have of them finds an opening and steps loughing at the tragle waste of it all. There la sorne entertainment in little hope of temporary posts for the back into that world from which he They are searching the dumps for same reason which holds in com. came. Some, indeed, slip down, and iron scrap, but never think of the merca.

The world to-day has little use for the elder "Disckcoat," but, class, they keep a bold front to the

ΠΑ I

must

simple, and fearlessness radiate from the depths of her clear and flashing eyes.

We are told, however, that Sabrina screamed when he dropped hot scaling wax on her arm to test her Stole qualities. She shrieked when, to fortify her mind against danger, he fired at her skirt a pistol which she thought was fully loaded.

Ho confided pretended Recrets to her, but found that she passed them all ch to the servants. In the end she destroyed any chance of becoming Mrs. Day by wearing thin sleeves because she thought they were pretty, and not because her arms were cold,

No

TOW-lot-us think-this---*

aver. Men will generally, "agree, I think, that there is ttle wrong with Mr. Day's ideala. On the other hand, in the Intervening century and a half, women have grown so increasingly independent and so decreasingly

Odol

ODOL

TOOTH PASTE

polishes the teeth

by

1937.

F. G. H. Salusbury

ready for discipline that we have

a pretty poor hope of moulding them.

I seem to remember Mr. Anthony Ludovici deploring somewhere the comparative degeneracy of modern men. They destroy the rough, tough bloom of their manly hides by excessive bathing.

They-sap_their_virilly by ex- cessive smoking. I recall another writers account of two hearty. going females bursting into a smoking compartment 'one winter day, finging open the windows in search of oxygen, and nearly killing the cowering male passengers.

60

HAVE seen for myself a sweet slip of thing

plunge gaily into 'prac- tically arctic sea, while her boy blue friend whimpered on the beach.

The

contemporary problem, then, for us men is, not much how to mould women as to touch their hearts. We should go to work, not intellectually, but senti- mentally. And in this connection I do see a glimmer of

hope. Once a girl took me for a long walk, most of which lay up the side of a mountain. nif-way up there was a kindly seat, and my tall, as it were, wagged plaintively at the sight of it. But I was not going to give in before a girl, and this girl was swinging along and up at a steady five miles an hour

Nevertheless, she saw my plight out of the corner of her eye, and sank on the sent in well-rifected exhaustion, saying, "I know you could go on for ever, but I'm so tired. Do you mind if we rest for a bil?"

NCE we could not reason with women because they were blatantly Buch "little women," suel poor, defenceless3 females": now: we have no better luck because they can reason better than we can.

And they are tougher. 60 recommend an appeal to their pity, their mothering Instinct. They will mother us like anything. If we approach them with proper cunning: and the

more they mother us-such is woman's darl- ing perversity-the more they will. convince themselves that we are Fine Big Strong Men, the more they will be like wax in our hands. So choose a girl whose looks you like, and throw yourself. on her mercy.

Control her behaviour by hint- ing subtly at your own weakness In that respect-at your extrava- gances, your luxuriousness, your laziness, your inability to be pune- tual and to think sensibly, your habit of chatting incessantly about nothing. your forgetfulness where sewing buttons on shirts and darning socks is concerned, your selfishness, your failure to throw yourself always into her moods.

.

OONER or later you wil

Shave the Fericet Wife,

plicitly, and take the blame for all your faults. And she will-or should thoroughly enjoy her role. I have only one warning, Mr. Day was killed by a Rick from a fly which he was training on a method dependent on the essen- tinl nobility and affectionate sym- pathy of the equine mind.

It is possible it is just possible that the high-handed way la best. But you must be a very

to a pearly whiteness strong man indeed for that.

Ejema

P.S.-It is pleasant to know that the disappointed Mr. Day even- tually

found perfect happiness with a woman who shared nii his stern

Ideals.

She was willing to live for ever

him with

sequestered in some

ITCHING teret grove. which is an 18th cen-

SKIN

-Quick relief with reliable

Absorbine Jr.

Burning skin irritations, pimples, rathes, insect bles are quickly relieved with Absorbine Jr.

It is soothing, heating and antiseptic-kills the polsonous germ-is your protection "against infec tkin.

Safe Absorbine Jr. is stainless, greaseless and has a pleasant refreshing exdur.

Keep a bottle handy.

become not only financial, but social secini waste of leaving this valuable ABSORBINE JR.

derellets. Upon these we look as professional and commercial skill casuallles, Just as we looked upon buried in the human refuge heap of our comrades who went west during unemployment.

Blackcoat.

the war.

For years has fallered uore muptias, muncu. lar aches, bruides, cuit, spralna, abrations. Bales Agen: Mallar, Maclean & Co., Inc.

tury way of saying that they took up farming.

She gave up her harpsichord be- cause she considered she had no

right to any tuxury. She went for walks through the snow, at his request, to harden her consitution. I add this merely in n vein of Reneral optimism concerning the harmony of souls.

Today's Thought THE best or toorat thing to

man, for this life,

Is good or 11 choosing his

good or 1 wife.

JOHN HEYWOOD.

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23

18

ACROSS

$

13

123

2124

F27

1 means the sack, but the girl goes on undisturbed, and, what's more, comes back again in the end.

5 Claud has promotion to a high

rank.

8 May describe a lunatle, or an

amphora.

10 A beelle the monarch found in

Surrey.

11 To find a real thrill, which is,

satisfying is, I suppose, the rea- son of the rush Inside (hidden). 12 What you may be when bulis

turn Bolshle.

13 The clean side of the character..

16. Hupty who accompanies travel,

Jers.

17 Ornamental foot-warmers. 18 Time to cast it.

20 Famous junction.

22 It's only right that I should be

in remoto surroundings.

23 In this county men wear pink.

24 Hidden in Clue 11..

28 One is not friendly with this

acquaintance.

20 Brown, Smith, or

example.

30 Peddles.

Jones, for

31 "Well, I'm hanged," was this

M.P.'s comment.

DOWN

1 Ornaments for boats.

2 Garnish (onsg).

3 Black, but goodness knows, it

might well boʻred.

4 Fifty counters in stockings, are

not appreciated.

Hidden in Clue 11,

I suppose these phrases original once.

were

7 Right loam is required here.

The sound of the bagpipes issues from the oplary,

14 This pillor supports

weight.

a trilling

10 lundreds, girl, hundreds, lady. 10 A bird monopolising the hedge

will make you jump.

10 More than half this mountain

In Just a side-sup.

10 Lolls about in hotels.

20 Daintles which don't quite.

satisfy the aho-cat.

21 Take care of the partner, 23 Take an end and pay out. 26. Illdden in Clue 11. 27 Red Indian tribe.

Yesterday's Solution PHOTOGRAPHERS

MANGLES CARTOON PROMENJAO ARME C ROVED LEMABEL

JAQEEBATTIÖFBU jo RAIDS CRIMBON T MEAN ƊANNO INSIDER FORUM D O TRAVEN UT A DRAMEZN CORAL BIOMONO INANI A LIGHTER LNDHAWN ESIT NE I E OLEOMARGARINE

17

13