1938-03-30 — Page 10

1

T

THE other day

wanted to read some short stories by an old friend of mine. : To my astonishment I found that the volumes were out of print.

I ransacked second-hand bookshops, searched library shelves, wrote to all sorts of poople, but it was only with the utmost difficulty I was able to obtain copies, and these were finally dug out of some dusty boxca.

Yet before the Great War and after this friend of mine was a best seller. His books were printed over and over again," They were. translated into a dozen languages. To-day the younger generation bas hardly heard his name.

Why is it that Jack London has thus boon forgotten?:

Burely the time has como-in tiiess days whot, so many acres of rubbish are being poured out-to bring Jack London back to his rightful place?

P

ERHAPS some account of the man himself, of his incredible adven- tures rolling round the world. of his life as, down-and-outer, rancher, gold prospector, oyster piralo, soal hunter, of his rich, ex- perience in a battling world, may turn younger gich and women to demand that the works of this for- gotten genius should once more be accessible to all.

I first met Jack London in an old Boclalist Club in the Mile End-

road thirty-five years ago.

It was in the days before un- employment insurance.

If you were out of work you were depen- dent upon soup kitchens and charity.

If you had no home you had to tramp from casual ward to casual ward. If they were all full up you had to sleep out, and if the " copper' found you doing that then you were taken in charge for sleeping out, for wandering with- out visible micans of subsistence!

It was a dog's life

A small group of us had been tramping the West End singing "The Starving Poor of Old Eng- land." collecting the wherewithal to vat. We had got back to the club to share out.

In the corner was sturdy sailor-looking stranger in stoker's singlet and leather belt, a cloth cap perched jauntily on the side of his head, standing the chaps drinks and asking for a guide to take him round the East End,

F

FOR several days after

wards I was in his com- pany, showing him our "sights,"__ taking him to work- houses, Salvation Army hostels, sweatshops.

FORGOTTEN

GENIUS

by Ernest E. Hunter

"There was no silver in his purse, only gold."

Fra Lippo Lippl, a puff of wind might double him up and turn him over." G

I he were alive now he could not possibly recognise in this fat and fifty ie of to-day the lad with whom he walked down the Alle End-road, but I still treasure the memory of our talks.

He told me of his early days on a Californian ranch as a little boy- of eight, sitting under a tree from rise to dusk watching the bees end waiting for the swarming.

To him then California was an abomination. And it

3 when he escaped into the ugliness of the outside world that he at to love his native hills and

But it was some time before I discovered that he was Jack Lon-ValleyILLE don, who had descended into the East End to write a book on our social life.

The result was "The People of the Abyss," written in a mood of burning indignation....

We who lived among the squalor and filth of the old East End, and were inured to it, wore a little puzzled at Jack London's vehem- ence, but at the time the rulers of what passed for our civic life were bitterly angry at what they called his "libels."

I went to see Jack London in a tiny furnished bedroom he rented for six shillings a week in a alum street and from which he went out to sicep in dusg-housen and casual wards in his search for local colour.

Pinned all over the walls were little scraps of paper cut from periodicals containing reports of suicides, thefts, murders and stor- vation cases.

Jack. Landon, in his book, de- scribes the me of those days as "A alender ind of nineteen, so

wa:

I sold newspapers on the streets, and then, with the adven- ture lust strong within him, ran away to join the oyster-pirates in the bay.

"If I got my dues for piracy, would have been given five hundred years in prison," he once Bald.

And then, on the principle of set a thief to catch a thief," he joined the Fish Patrol.

S

the

HIPPING before mast. he went scal- hunting in the Behring Sen. He shovelled coal, worked in Jute mills, tramped the United States from end to end, went to prison for vagrancy and address- Ing meetings.

l this time he was learning to writo, but after many attempts decided he was a fallure, and took the long trail to the Klondike gold-fields.

In the Klondike he found him-

slight and frail, In fact, that like self. "There nobody talks. Every-

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body thinks you get your true per- apective. I got mine.” -

Always Jack London remained the game restless adventurer, sall- ing the lone seas, plunging into the unknown, determined to see and experience everything.

For a real thrill I recommend "The Cruise' of the Snark "--the story of how he and his wife Char- mian attempted to sail round the world in a amall boat only forty- Ave lest long.

For two years they sailed until,

OUR

SERIAL Tovarich

Adapted From The Warner Bros.' Film

CHAPTER VI

You rang, madame" Tatiana entered the drawing room where the guests were congregated... Lord and Lady Cardigan, vory British

Monsieur and Madanie Van

Hemert, very Dutch-Monsieur and Madame Chaulfourier of the Bank of France and a small nondescript per- son named Alfonso, who had come in the wake of the monocled Lady Car- digan. The honour guest Gorot-

with Charmian racked with fever and tie himself -suffer- ing from an obscuro tropicalchenko, had not yet arrived. disease, the cruise had to be abandoned,S

And all this meant that Jack- Londen was steeping himself in the "lives of real men and women. Eis, characters are not puppets. They are the very stuff (of life t

Whether he writes of hardy men in the frozen North, of bruto

· beasts: Aghting' for 'gold in the Klondike, of sailore lashed to the mast, with angry "sens" sweeping over them, or of the pitiful souls in the slurs, he knows thein all,

H

AMILTON FYFE, a for- mer editor of the "Daily Herald," has told the truth about Jack London in these striking words:-

"He opened windows for them. (his readers) upon the splendour and the savagery, thé pomp and the pitifulness that he had found- in many comers of the earth.

"He saw that in every scene, in every human activity, there was an element which lifted it into the region of the beautiful, and he made all his readers see it. whether they were learned or ig- norant, cultivated or only just abie to read.

"Full Justice has never been done to him. There was no silver in his purse, only gold."

His versatility was wonderful, "The Iron Heel" is one of the greatest Socialist tracta ever written.

"John Barleycorn "-the story of his own drinking experiences. is certainly the moat vigorous temperance argument ever written, Stories like White Fang" show an uncanny knowledge of the souls of animais..

"The Valley of the Moon" is a delightful fairy story. And these are only fow. of many,

Yes, it is time Jack London came back to his oOWIL

In fact, you will wonder, when you read those stories of his that wo are going to print in the "Daily Herald next week, how the world could ever have let this man be- come forgotten."

BRITISH CROSSWORDS

ACROSS

1 Pensive (10)..

13

4 When a former sells all his live stock he still keeps two of this (4).

The way of the upright?

10 Fabulous monster (4).

12 Natural ardour (8).

(10).

14 A fight but only one round (5).

17 Vessel upset In 16 down (3),

18 Many a man cannot see this when it is under his nose (9). 21 Kind of 13. down (5). 22:1'de this for a heathen (8),

of this artist's work 23 Examples

arrest our

our attention (9)

25 Tree (3).

26 Monday's dish (5).

27 Crimean commander (0).

32 A town of weight: (4)

33. "Palo-barrel" (unng)'10).F

34 Red Indian (4)«

lending

33 This describes the

Jockey, when he takes a toss.

(10)

DOWN!

1A change of position (4).40)

Presumably tila W country river, is a rapid oun (4);)

$ Commonplace; (5)

4-Feature) DHA JEN

6- Ttile material is valued- more

with pleco cut off if end (O: 27-tek in no friand. - to zngland

Telephone 280210pp

11 Where the joiner may put his

tongue (0).

13 Oriental plant (3).

10 Typical (10).

10 This is the work of either the

tailor or the florist (10).

18 Anguish (6).

20 This insect has the head of a bird and the tail of a fish, yet is not fabulous (0),

24 Musical note' (3).

28 Dance (5).

29 Genus of palms (Have a care!)

(B).

!

20 River of Rüssig (4),

31 Bird that was useful in the war?

%

YESTERDAY'S SOLUZION TOONNING M

NEPTUN

Yes, Tina,

nye Madame Dupont replied somewhat nervously There will be nine guests instead of eight As she finished she looked with amazement at Lord Car- digan, who was bowing ceremonious- ly saying "Your Serene Highness!" Tatiana curtsled but murmured under her breath "No, no, you mustn't please don't ed to madame . of

Then the turn- Dupont. "Yes,

Madame

I'll take care "nine guests" and hurried from the room. The bewildered M. Dupont asked the Cardigans why they had shown such deference for Tinn, the housemald.

"Tina!" said Cardigan fiercely, That is

is the Grand Duchess Tatiana Petrovna, man!" "No, no!" insisted M. Dupont. "She was employed by the Grand Duchess, Lord Cardigan!" "She is the Grand Duchess! I knew her well in Petersburg!"

Then Gorotchenko was announced.

My respects,

madame!" Commissar Gorotchenko Was finely-built

with a humorous sölurnine expression—a civilized bar- barinn. Faint with what she had heard of his past, Madame Dupont could hardly and strength to answer. gourd Her husband, too, was ill at ease. Gorptshenko was introduced to the guests. Lord and Lady Cardigan, he had known before.

man

П

"A most distinguished gathering. Lord Cardigan.... I am already ill

at ease.

"You'll know how distinguished it really is, Comissar, when you see who else is here!

"Then

but "but

+

there ге other guests! Thank heaven I am not the last!"

There are others... yes..

Monsieur stammered, not exactly guests "At this moment Mikal entered with the cocktails and every- one froze into silence, awaiting the awful moment when Gorotchenko and Mikail should ace cach other.

"A cocktail Comissar?" Mikall betrayed no emotion and Gorot- chenko's face betrayed but the ghost of a sardonic smile. "Thank you," he said. Everyone tried without] m “SUCCESS.. to change the subject. Gorotchenko was evidently trying to be casual.

old Parlsion. "Ah yes, I am an For three years I was a dish-washer In the

de Bourbon.

how very..

"A leher..

Interesting."

Jing".

"Yes literally! I washed dishes. That was before 1 studied for my philosophical degree

"In addition to everything else, you're a doctor of philosophy!"

"Yes, from. Cambridge University. That was a long time ago. I'mm afraid I've forgotten most-of-it now

*

Yes

said Chauffourler, chuckling, "you've passed from pure theory to impure fact

"You are right, Governor. When I returned to Russia, I was careful to leave my idealism behind. That was a bad time for the idealists, you Miknil, having served the soup, stood at his post near

Madame

few of them escaped into. Fin- land," Gorotchenko went on, his eyes narrowing, "were submerged in rivers of bloed

"Oh

"Oh," Madame

Dupont gasped "then you were the one who burn- ed a certalti mán.” “

"Burned whom?

Ah.... a certain

of torture und amount butchery was justified Madame In this case the certain man..

A lamb chop. Comissar?" inquired Tatiana coolly.

"This certain man had in his hands a sum of money which could have saved thousands of lives... It was the not inconsiderable sum of forty billion francs

Gorotchenko, while Mikall and Tatiana served the meal told the story of how at the expense of a man's life he himself had freed

a beautiful aristocrat...allowed her to escape.. He paused to ask Titiana. for a glass of water and when she brought it, he handed her a bill with the remark thai good servants must be immediately re- warded, according to an old Russian custom.

Tallana looked at him with wither- ing scorn. "I hope, Comissar" she said softly, "that you spat on this because I spot in the

.

Leaving the company gasping, Talians went to the servants' room "Don't where: Mikail foined her. worry." pigeon," she said, "the "saints must know that we've been good servants

1 They will and us

Enother place

dorotchenko came to the servant's quarters, too, and argued the needs of the Russian people so forcefully that Mikall signed over the forty billion francs. He was ho sooner Rone than the Duponts arrived to tell them they must leave. They said they would. Madame suddenly de- Ralded, however, that they must not help! think of going till she had other

wald, they'd love to stay) 500 my pigeon, e

erled Tatiana poking from the kitchen window,

nowing how beautiful it ia DETOWA

Hand "how sad

"Yes, my darling! Fools!, Now and

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