1938-03-16 — Page 18

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 1988.

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A

Difficult Saint

was

PATRICK

M

OST Pats in Ireland think they are named after Saint Pat. In fact, most aro named after their grand- ; fathers and great-uncles.

And their grandfathers and great-uncles had no doubt as to who their patron was- and it was not Saint Patrick..

It was Patrick Sarafield, Earl of Lucan. the bonny fighter who blew up one of King Billy's ammunition trains, and died fighting with the Irish Brigade in France.

Before the Jacobite war how many Irishmen were named Patrick? We can only tell by looking up some such lists as a catalogue of Irish poets. I have one before

Hongkong Hotel me, and among the O's and Macs there is

Stubbs Rd.

Garage

Phone 27778/9. Theophilus

The

Hongkong Eelegraph.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 1938.

DOUBT BREEDS CAUTION

From Mr. Neville Chamber- lain's speech in the House of Commons yesterday emerges

one salient point of British foreign policy: Caution. But it

to

not one single, solitary Patrick earlier than, at most, the eighteenth century. There is every other name, from

or. Feldlimy, Farley or Hugh, but no Pat.

And, in point of fact, the popular name in the eighteenth century and earlier, with the Irish people themselves, was Thelgue, and the poets apoke of the Theignes, as the music-hall to-day might speak of the Pats.

.

PATRICK was not a distinctively Irish

name until quite late. One remembers the old border balled about Sir Patrick Spens.

Probably not until after the Emancipation of Irlah Catholics in 1829, and the revival of the ancient, mediaeval pilgrimage to Baint Patrick's Purgatory, and the establishment, openly, of churches and cathedrals

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Saint Patrick come into his own. A long wait for a national

confused with pusillanimity, It has frequently been stated-sainti sometimes in the way of a charge that Britain has no foreign policy. But that is hardly correct.

It may shift)

its direction from time to time, this policy; but it is un- questionably there, and its ultimate goal is the preservation of peace and the appeasement of the frequently over-wrought chancelleries of Europe. If it is flexible, to that it owes its will bend strength; for it against pressure, as tempered steel bends, and presently straightens again. No-one can

But, to tell the truth, la he really a "popular" saint in the órdinary meaning of the word? Go into any little Irish wayside chapel, among the rocks and the rowan-trees, with the cows, it may be, mooing up the mossy avenue, and what will you see Inside, in the way of "popu-. lar" saints?

You will find, most likely, a

ever,

----To-day's Thought————— THE plant that blooms for

With the rose combined And the thistle twined, Defy the strength of foex

to sever. -Poem about the Shamrock,

says SEAN O'FAOLAIN

Saint Joseph, all in brown and cream, patron of carpenters. You will and a Saint Anthony, wholly in brown, patron of all lost things, who, for a Hall Mary, will find the mislaid scissors or thimble.

Teresa is a most popular saint. So is Francis. But it is quite rare to find a Saint Patrick.

HE is the difficult saint. He is difficult to symbolise; he is old and rather stern; he did not kill a dragon; he does not carry an armful of lies; his life was frugal and chilly.

He wears a long beard, his in- signia are a bishop's mitre and staff, a green vestment, a ser- pent beneath his foot, which is the last place you look, and in his free hand, a tiny, tiny sham- rock.

He is the despair of sculptors, stained glass workers and painters. The result is that he is not really fixed in the popular" imagination. He is not formu- lated-or not with simplicity, at any rate.

Some artists do not even give him a beard. They make him

young and handsome. Some see him as a shepherd-boy.

Then, too, he is difficult in his season. March the Seventeenth is a bad day for a procession. It will probably be cold and windy and blow the banners into the alr. One cannot even gather a Spring boscage to decorate his shrine.

Yet, for all that, he has n popularity of his own kind; a strange, austere kind of popu-

Jarity.

That is, no doubt, because he 1s associated in our minds with everything that is unique and Jocal in Irish life and history.

HE, too, was poor. He He was a slave. tended the cattle on

the sides of the hills. That little weed which, because“ of him, we almost think of as a flower, is so simple, and modest. as it comes wet, and, perhaps, -frost-cold;~-out-of-the-bog---

fields. He was unlettered.

He had plenty of pluck and courage, too, and doggedness, and fire. He saw us in our harsh poverty, and he returned to us

The name sug- geats pictures too intimate for expression."

when he might easily have gone off to cunnier lands.

It is not the least of his at- tractions that he, himself, had what has now come to be called, out of Ireland, a "Paddy." He had a temper. On all Irish folk- memories of him he was a fine man to curse.

BUT, perhaps, the greatest reason for his peculiar kind of popularity or it

would be more correct to speak of our loyalty to him—is thất he was a stranger, and our hearts open to him for his unasked love and kindness.

When all is said and done he was a very human person, this patron-saint of ours. It may well be that his humanity comes between us and our flow of love.

It is so much easier to love the saint who is, or seems to be, beyond a merely human imagin- ̈ation."No personal shyness in-- tervenes, there. But-Patrick ... he might be one of our- selves. He might be a rough- clad boy we might meet in a field, an old man bowed over the turf-fre.

say it is weak because it has in danger of attack or invasion? The Latest MEDICAL NEWS-is about more than we love him. never really been tested; and it If it is accepted that the British

is the aim of the British Govern-Government is seeking to isolate ment to avoid that test, itself from

one

the conflicts of

no-one

or

Stopping PAIN

Just HAMISH Fraser

tells you of new research into Rheumatism.

names for the same condition-rheu- matie Irritation of the tissues. Lum- For bago affects muscles, especially of the back, and as these are employed in

for it might well lead to Europe it must be supposed that trouble. It seems that Mr. real danger to the nation, Chamberlain is anxious to avert some part of the Empire, is en-

ONE of the big London

hospitals has any real challenge, to get down visaged. But in spite of Mr. Chamberlain's cautious words

published a report on the good to plain statements, but that he and the lack of assurances given results it has achieved in the re- is cautiously planning to rush to France or any other power, lief of pain-pain that we all the already busy armaments it is fairly safe to say that know so well in the form of industry so as to be prepared Britain' will march in Europe rheumatics, headache, backache,

circumstances. and burns. for it if it comes. What form under certain

Now here is medical news of great that challenge might take it is When and where British force

Importance to you and me. might be employed in the de- there is one thing that defeats us

almost every movement of the body, hard to determine; but there is fence of minor states or friendly quicker than anything it is pain.

thing certain, that Great nations

outside

And strangely enough doctors in its presence is soon felt, the

in the past seem to have been scared of!

Arthritis in joints, neuritis Britain will not tolerate inter-Cabinet,' and perhaps not even taking an interest in pain as pain. nerves, of which sciatic nerve-the At last, however, it has been biggest In the body-fibrosis in ference with any of her posses-all of the Cabinet, can safely realised that we have left unexplored tendons and connective tissue that sions. The defence of the predict. No-one can say what one of the biggest fields, and the bind the muscle together are still League Covenant is another Britain would have done if, for hospital I refer to above is devoting the same process. In different locali~

the energy of its clinical research ties. matter; and while it is sure that instance, war had actually department to the study of pain. Britain would frown upon any (broken out in Austria as a re- further use of threats or force sult of the German crossing of Deceptive Aches against any of the minor powers the frontier. But if common-

Certainly cold and dump are im- Homes

the portant. A damp house standing on of Europe, auch as Czecho-senso has anything to do with

muscles. of the scalp.

a water-logged clay soil will not Slovakia, it is by no means cer-politica in Europe most of the

Muscle pain, like lumbago or agree with everyone, whereas a deceptive thing. You quick-draining gravel soil helps to tain that she would feel called leaders will recognise the risk brosti, is

may feel pain all down your leg; yet keep damp upon to fight in their defence. they take in bending the blade it is not the painful places that are Vitamin deficiency is blamed by Many individuals would be of Britain's policy, for it the origin of the pain, but one or others. The reason for this is the

tender spots higher up. anxious to; many of the Govern- can snap back with devastating The hospital investigators were that has been achieved on u diet ment's Ministers might favour force. There is no power on able in two cases to abolish pain that rich in vitamin C, or in other words,

had insted more than six months. fruit. drastic action; but it is not earth which can risk punish-This they did by locating sites of The cures that have most success possible to tell whether even ment from Britain, in spite of irritation in muscles remoto from the are based on drugs similar to aspirin, an armed invasion by Germany the necessarily scattered and pain and infecting local anaesthetic to relieve pain, and on others related

there.

to quinine and colchicum which or, Italy or some other power of extended defences of the Em- No one knows yet where this new eliminate uric seld from the blood. a neighbour state would bring pire. Britain may be depending work has gone farther it may mean sugar. Intake, physical methods of development will load. When the Diets which diminish the amount of Britain to a declaration of war. upon other nations' awareness revolution in the treatment of the massage, and the application of

FEADACHE, It has found,

often from

Now what can we do pending the arrival al further knowledge, to

nvert these evils? What causes

them?

away.

success in the treatment of arthritis

For what, then, is Britain arm of her atrungth to keep a sem- obscurs heuriauc disease cage found effective

olectricity and heat have also been

ing? Does she see is the rest-blance of order in Europe, and land at least £14,000,000 your in lessness of certain powers to i abms, 7 extent the general loes of wages and slek bensates Self Treatment

There are many, allied norrislaints threat to her own colonial doub as to her attitude in any for which the new research: may possessións or to any of the zive contingency may serve bring welcome recuta Zada brand chain, Dominions? Is Britain herse

Sometimes, one wonders why we do not love Saint Brigid Her kindliness, as of a mother, should break down so easily the sense of nearness that makes us silent about Patrick-sllent in spite of all we may feel,

WE are sllent about Patrick. Montion the name Paddy—which is associated with politics, and nationality, and The Wearing of the Green," and so forth, and how different it is, for example!

But-Patrick...

That name

suggests to the mind of the Irishman pictures too intimate and too moving to allow of ex- pressed emotion. Those pictures are connected with the quiet road to Maxs, quiet waters on Sunday mornings, the murmur of childhood prayers by the leaping fire-light.

And all that came out of far- off days, autumnal in the memory, and in the memory as chaste and austere as our scat- tered Images of the foreign shepherd-boy who prayed for us in the cold of March among the bara grasses of the mountain glens.

IRISHMEN do not talk about thase things. They do not

- talk about religion. It is a thing of the heart, too secret for words..

Bo, the little sprig in the hat; or on the lapai," and nothing said. As you might think of, but not speak of, somebody who was loyal to you, and whose loyalty you return, quietly remember- ing him in the heart. A

be achieved until the relaxed.⠀ "A WAZI BE