1937-12-18 — Page 36

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THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18. 1937.

DEWAR'S

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If you are going home on leave. this must interest you. You can arrange to stop ashore at home and drive away in your own Vauxhall.

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Catalogue & Full Particulars from

T

ROBERT LYND'S SATURDAY ESSAY

WO of the things that

we relics of the Vic- torian Age most de- plore in the modern world are the gradual disappear- ance of the horse and the almost complete disappear- ance of the street ballað- singer.

It is true that the ballad- singer was on his last legs even in the days of our youth. But he was still to be found here and there howling his wares and sell- ing a sheet of puper containing the doggerel he had sung for a

penny.

Often the bailad-singers work- ed in couples. A man and a

Hongkong Hotel woman, who looked as if they

Stubbs Rd.

Garage

Phone 27778/9

The

hnd slept in a ditch, would stand opposite each other in the middle of a crowd of listeners and yell their songs in the most merciless fushion into each other's faces.

They sang without pause from the start to the finish of the

A. S. WATSON & CO., LTD. Hongkong Telegraph. ballad, for the man would let the

ONE

MEMBER OF THE FAMILY.

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A

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CHRISTMAS

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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10. 1937.

WAR MAY SPREAD

woman sing the last half-line, of each verse by herself in order to fill his lungs with air and be able to bellow out the beginning of the next verse from his twisted face before the old verse had

Marshal Chiang Kal-shek yesterday issued a defiant mani- died a painful death on the festo declaring that he had no woman's lips. intention of censing to resist Japan. The Japanese retort was quick, and rather to be ex- pected. Mr. Shigeru Kawagoe, the Ambassador to China, quiet- ly disclosed that was possible that governments similar to that established in Peiping would be set up in Central and South China. The war was far from ended, he said. The spirit of

resistance, the national con- sciousness, the patriotism and courage of China have not been drained away in the blood the armies have shed in her defence. ho might have added,

be

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Cat the pachée!

2014 -the "giale" Kiti aveler (Jend, (than they. These chia libuje (parti

They Sang

A last adieu, my dearest daughters,

-

/

With you I can no longer stay,

have received the dreadful

SEADLONS, -

And, alan! I must obey.`

I slew one night Mrs. Maofarkıne, For which, alas, 1 do deplore, Then went away and left her

Weltering in her crimson gore.

The principal charm of these old ballads, I think, is the charm of ingenuousness and bathos. How can we resist the exquisite inept simplicity of the rhyme about Miles Weatherhill, the young weaver, who murdored the parson's servant at Tod- modern-cspecially the quatrain. which runs:

With four loaded pistols, in a Bt of”

frenzi

Miles to the Vicarage did kaste

forthwith,

Aud with a weapon seotuded the

master,

And, shot the moiden, named

Smith.

Even in the ballads of the Victorian Age, however, as we find them In Mr. Henderson's. collection, the influence of the music-hall was already beginning to be felt.

and

Luckily ingenuousness bathos did not entirely dis- appear even after the triumph of the music-hall. The sentimental songs of the halls carried on the tradition of the simplicity of the streets, There were fewer songs about murder, but the songs of tenderness were just as. delightful outrages on the art of poetry.

Without Pause

It was in Kilkenny, I think, that I heard two ballad-singera singing a harsh and satiric dog- gorel about old-age pensioners when pensions first came in. It began:

Some people used deny their age--

You often could them hear

They would nearly strike you with

their stick

If you said they were seventy

year.

Men in the music-halle had

never so happy as when he had an execution for murder or a hearts in those days, and the. murder trial for his theme. One orange-peel made them pecu- smell of beer, tobacco, and

of the most grisly of the ballada liarly amenable to the molting

Now they are running to the parish he quotes is "The Execution of mood.

books,

Alice Holt," which begins:

They do not care about wind or A dreadful case of murder,

cold.

Such as we seldom hear, -And-they-tell-the-priest-now-if-ka...Committed was at Stockport, In the County of Cheshire, Where a mother, named Mary

Bailey,

Con

To try and make them old.

A better ballad to my mind

They did not ask for litera- ture. So long as the song was tender and sad and went to a waltz tune, they were happy. Sir Arthur Quiller Couch-did not include "Two Little Girls in Blue" in his "Oxford Book of Victorian Verse," but it touched the Victorian heart as some of the poems he included did not. And how could it fail By poison administered all in her, to, with its sublimely prosnic

berr

opening verse and chorus:

They did so cruelly slaughter

An old man gazed on a photograph, In the locket he'd worn for years:

is nephew then asked him the

rednon tchy

It must be admitted that it

grows

increasingly, probable protection of the frontier, not that Japan will strike a blow at against the Japanese, perhaps, China's southern doors before but against a Chinese force very long. Where the blow will which might mistakenly or with was that sung in the streets of the Census was fall can only be conjectured, but intent attempt to fight from Dublin when it seems likely that Canton will British territory. It is reassur- first taken-a ballad beginning:

By her own doughter. the target. The Japanese ing to know that the military] Oh, they're taking of the censU8

In the country and the town! The ballad-maker was for the have less reason to love the authorities are alive to the dan-

than the more gers in such a situation as that Have your children pot the mailcar most part a moralist, and he time that Are your chimbleys tumbling liked to make the murderer con- northern peoples, for it is from existing at this

down?

fess his guilt and go to the gal- "Come, listen," he said, "I will tell the south that the hottest anti-they are taking precautions for Japanese feeling has flowed; the protection of the border by But that was sung long before lows in a repentant spirit.

of "observation I was born. and the weight of this stream the erection

In "The Last Moments of A. has not been checked by the posts" and that a dependable A book of English ballads, Dalmas," for example, Dalmas northern invasion and the cap-battalion is ready for any emer- "Victorian Strect Ballads" makes no concealment of the ture of Nanking. On the con-gency in that direction. That which has just been compiled by fact that he had committed the trary, the southerners have 'de-worry can safely be left to the Mr. W. Henderson, suggests that dreadful crime for which he was finitely overcome their previous competent men of the Rajput the English ballad maker was condemned: animosity towards the Central Regiment. authorities and are loyally fight-

ing the invader fronts.

on a

dozen

What should be the immedi- ate consideration of the Govern- ment, it is suggested, is the Admitting for a moment that the attack on Canton is im- problem of feeding the civilian minent, what will be the im-population and sheltering refu- be a pity if gees. It would Hongkong were found unpre- pared for any emergency which

mediate effect upon Hongkong?

It is difficult to predict with any certainty, except to any

this

that

BULLS AND INNERS

☐

From the Office Butts

That picture had cort hím tears.

you, my lad

A story that's strange bub true, Your father and I, at the school one

day,

Met two little girls in blue.

Two little girls in blus, lad, Two little girl in blue,

They were ́aistern, we were

rothers,

And learned to love the two; And one little girl in blue, lad, Who won your Father's heart. Became your Mother; I married

the other,

But now Ice have drifted

apart.",

What a situation, and what words! "But now we have drifted apart" seems to me one of the most nobly bathetic lines

The way that horse looked at The typhoon is blamed for a in English literaturo...

# B A lady was fined for leaving. of thing is liable to discommode furniture in the street. This sort the public.

☐

n

The crooner with his "close- your-eyeses" and his "arms- enfold-your" has triumphed, and the ballad and the music-hall According to a market report,

song of the kind we once know tripe has fluctuated somewhat are almost as obsolete as the eggs are strong; frogs have cowboy's covered waggon. jumped considerably, while cut- Is there any hope of a TO-

vival 7 tle-fish has hardened.

I confess my heart leaped up with hope when I first heard "The Isle of Capri.” --

Colony will undoubtedly may arise. And since it is unthe heroine, we thought he was considerable reduction in local

And now these inglorious were thinking glories of a simple world have be flooded with thousands of likely that Canton will have any going to take a bit between his bird ilfe. We

that they had merely returned all but faded from the earth. refugees; that trade will be warning of attack, if it truly is teeth.

to Shanghai. seriously affected and the "back intonded, this Colony can ill af- garden"

on which we largely ford to wait without action for dopend for fresh foods will be a situation which might develop closed to us, There in naturally disastrously. It is not proposed a certain element of danger for that anything involving expen-

We received two contributions the Colony in any war waged diture be undertaken at this

In the stage, but it would be advisable to this column this week. One close to its borders, first place there is the risk of to take stock of the resources we had seen before, and

make certain other we haven't seen yet. "Incidents," and there is good avaliable and to cause for apprehensiveness on that nothing can interfere with this score. But it would seem the communications upon which that tho chief difficulty facing 'Hongkong depends for its "tially

the bread. authorities would be

the

口

· [0]

the

0 After sitting next to a lady We wish some public bene- wearing a fur coat, we would factor would offer travelling

aaxophone refer her to that advertisement scholarships

which "stops falling hair." players.

to

*"Victorian

Street Ballads.** Edited by W. Henderson. Country Life, 7a. Údu