1938-03-30 — Page 22

T

HE other day wanted to read some short stories by an old friend of mine. To my

astonishment 1 found that the volumes were out of print..

I ransacked second-hand bookshops, searched library shelves, wrate to all sorts of peoplo, but it was only with the utmost difficulty was able to obtain coples, and these wore finally dug out of some dusty. bozes

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

Why is it that Jack London has thus been forgotten? ·

Surely the time has come in these days when so many acres of rubbish are being poured out-to bring Jack London back to his rightful place?

P

☆

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

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

road thirty-five yearn 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 H copper " found you doing that then you were taken in charge for sleeping out, for wandering with- out visible means of subsistence!

It was a dog's lic

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

In the corner was a sturdy sallor-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

OR several days after wards I was in his com► pany, showing him our "sights," "taking him to work- houses, Salvation Army hostels, sweatshops.

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

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 mured to it, were 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 "ilbels."

I went to see Jack Loudon in a tiny furnished bedroom he rented for six shillings, a week in a alum street and from which he went out to sleep in doss-houses 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 star- vation cases.

Jack London, in his book, de- scribes the me of those days as "A slender lad of nineteen, so slight and frail, in fact, that like

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 1938.

SERIA L

FORGOTTEN Tovarich

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.

If he were alive now he could not possibly recognise in this fat and flity me of to-day the lad with whom he walked down the Mile End-rond, but I still treasuro 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 sunrise to dusk watching the bees and waiting for the swarming.

To him then California was an abomination. And it was when he escaped into the ugliness of the outside world that he learnt to love his native hills and valleys..

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

"If I got my duen for piracy. I would have been given ve hindred years in prison," he once sald,

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

S

*

HIPPING

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

Ml this time he was learning to write, 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- "There nobody talics. Every-

delt,

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body thinks you get your true per- spective. I got mine."

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

For a real thru I recommend "The Cruise of the Snark "-the glory of how he and his wife Char- mian attempted to sail round the world in a small boat only forty- five feet long.

For two years they salled until

with Charmian racked with fever and he himself suffer- ing from an obscure tropical disease, the cruise had to be abandoned.

And all this meant that Jack

· London was steeping himself in the lives of real men and women. His characters are not puppets. They are the very stuff of life.

Whether he writes of hardy men in the frozen North, of brute beasts fighting for gold in the Klondike, of sailors lashed to the mast, with angry seas sweeping over them, or of the pitiful nouis in the slums, he knows them all.

H

AMILTON FYFE, a for- mer editor of the "Dally 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, the pomp and the pitifulness that he had found in many corners 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 lg- norant, cultivated or only just able Lo 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

Bocjullst tracts greatest

ever written.

"John Barleycorn "the story of his own drinking experiences- is certainly the most vigorous temperance argument evor written. Stories like "White Fang" show an uncanny knowledge of the souls of animals.

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

Yes, it is time Jack London came back to his own.

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

OUR BRITISH CROSSWORDS

13

[10]

[20

ACROSS

i Peñalvó (10).

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

The way of the upright? (19). 10 Fabulous monster (4).

12 Natural ardour (0).

14 A fight but only one round (5). 17 Vessel upset in 10 down (3).

18 Many ས man cannot see this

when it is under his nose (0).'

21 Kind of 13 down (8).

22 I do this for a heathen (5).

23 Examples of this artist's work

nrrest our attention (D).

25 Tree (3).

20 Monday's dish (8).

27 Crimcan commander (6).

32 A town of weight (4).

33 "Pale barrel" (anag) 10).

34 Red Indlan (4).

the

35 This describes

leading jockey when he takes a toss

(10).

DOWN

A change of position (4),

2 Presumably this W. country

river is a rapid one (4),

3 Commonplace (8).

4 Feature (5),

5 This material is valued more

with a piece cut off its end (9).

7 Ite is до frlend to England

(10).

No this politician is not in bu- siness for nothing, he is just opposed to many customs-(10),

[20

11 Where the joiner may put his

tongue (0).

13 Oriental plant (3).

15 Typical (10).

10 This is the work of either the

tailor or the florist (10).

10 Anguish (0),

20 This insect has the head of u

and the tail of a fish, yet. is not fabulous (0).

24 Musical note (3).

28 Dance (5).

20 Genus of palms (Have a care!)

(5).

30 Hiver of Russia (4),

31 Bird that was useful in the war

(4).

YESTERDAY'S SOLUTION

Adapted From The Warner Bros. Film

СКАРТЕВ VI

"You rang, madamel" Tatiana entered the drawing room where the guests were congregated- Lord and Lady Cardigan, very British -Monsieur and Madame Van very Dutch-Monsieur and Chauffourler 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, Garet- chenko, had not yet arrived.

"Oh, yes, Tina, yes, 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 By saying "Your Serene Highness!". Tatiana curtsied but murmured under her breath "No, no, you mustn't please don't ed Lo

madame of it

Then she turn- Yes,

Madame Dupont

na

.. I

I'll take care

nino guests" and hurried from the room. The bewildered M. Dupont asked the Cardigans why they had shown such deference for Tina, the housemaid,

"Tinn!" said Cardigan flercely, That is the Grand Duchess Tatiana Petrovna, man! "No, not insisted M. Dupont. She was employed by the Grand Duchess, Lord Cardigan's "She is the Grand Duchess! I knew her well in Petersburg!"

Then Gorolchenko was announced.

"My respects, madamei"

was a

Commissar Gorotchenko finely-built man with a humorous saturnine expression-a civilized bar- barian.

Faint with what she had heard of his past, Madame Dupont could hardly find strength to answer. husband, too, was ill at case. Gorotchenko was introduced to the guests. Lord and Lady Cardigan, he had known before.

Her

"A most distinguished gathering, Lord Cardigan... I am already i nt case"

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

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

There are others. yes

Monsieur stammered, not exactly guests

At this moment Mikail thered with the cocktails and every-

but "but

one froze into silence, awaiting the awful moment when Gorotchenko and Mikail should see each other.

"A cocktail, Comissar?" Mikall betrayed no emotion and Gurot- chenko's face betrayed but the ghost of a sardonic smile. "Thank you," he said. Everyone

tried without success to change the subject. Gorotchenko was evidently trying to be casual.

"Ah yes, I am an old Parisian. For three years I was a dish-washer in the Qual de Bourbon...

"A dish-washer... how very...

interesting."

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

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

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

ύψος

*

snid Chauffourier, chuckling, "you've passed from pure theory to impure fact.

When

1

"You are right, Governor.

I returned to Russia, I was careful

to leave my idealism behind. That was a

a bad time for the idealists, you know

the soup, stood at his post near Madame

Mikail, having served

Dupont.

"A few of them escaped into Fin- land," Gorotchenko went on, his eyes narrowing, "were submerged

rivers of blood,

"Oh,"

in

Madame Dupont gasped

"then you were the one who burn- ed a certain man....*

"Burned whom?

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

"A lumb chop, Comissar?" Inquired Tatiana coolly.

"This certain man had in his honda

a sum of money which could have saved thousands of lives..

It was

the not inconsiderable, sum of forty billion francs while

Go

Tatiana

her to escape.

Mikall and

the men told the story of how at the expense of a mon's life... he himself had freed a beautiful aristocrat. allowed He Baused to Titlana for a glass of water and when she brought it, he handed her a bill with the remark that good servants must be immediately re- warded, according to an old Russian

ask

custom.

Tatiana looked at him with wither- ing scorn. "I hope, Comissar" she said softly, "that you spot on this money water because I spat in the Leaving the company gasping. Tatiana went to the servants' where Mikail joined her. worry pigeon," she said, "the saints must know that we've been good They will find us servants another places to the servant's

Gorotchenko came

TOOM "Don't

|| CONNINGTOWER"

AON OUDE 1 quarters, too, and argued the needs of the Russian people so forcefully NEPTUNE RUBBIAN

that Mikail signed over the forty PT_NI_IST FT billion francs. He was no sooner RUADOR TALE FILE gone than the Duponte arrived to tell them they must leave. They sald ETM 1 VI_L_V_CR they would, Madame suddenly de- O ANTATA AMATEUR elded, however, that they must not HIILI▬▬▬Ɑ▬▬▬。 think of going till she had other help!

They said they'd love to stay! DIBCUBE BLUEBAQ

"See, my pigeon," celed Tatlans, BCE E A E A A looking from the kitchen window, "It how beautiful it lal" NOON BMACK" STT is snowing

"llow beautiful

"Enid Micall TUBIGA Band how sad

"We are tools, aren't wo Mikall?" "Yes, my darling! Fools! Now and

¤

E ARNEST HANGMA N

DGR IUT ABG) forever!"

REPERCUSSION

1

THE END.

Swan Culbertion

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