1938-05-28 — Page 18

14

The Big

I dear, you say, another article about the romance of the clrous, the be- spangled beauties of the sawdust ring, the glamour of the showground, the fun of tho fair, and all the rest of it.

Well, you're wrong. It isn't. This is about an industry-the circus industry and the fair Industry.

Perhaps

you never think about them in this way. Why should you?

You go and take your saven pot-shots for sixpence at the coconuts, or your peep in the stuffy booth at the credible fat woman, or your wooden seat under the huge canvas roof of the travelling circus.

And you enjoy yourself. You are not to know as you watch the performing cas atrutting precariously along the miniature tight-rope that they cost twelve shillings a dozen,

You don't know that the side- Jahow freak is usually paid on a larty-fifty basis.

Until three years ago, when Lax WHS tic entertainment

modifed, freaks were getting because scarcer scarcer and they were no longer an economic

proposition.

The freak's manager used to charge a twopenny entrance fco-a penny for himself and a penny for the freak.

Bu

the

UT along came Itax, and before either manager or freak could get anything back for themselves they had to charge fourpence, and the public jibbed.

Three years ago the law was altered, so that sixpence was the

THE

HONGKONG

TELEGRAPH,

MAY SATURDAY,

28, 1938.

Top

goes up

The freaks are coming Inte

their

osh again.

And now lowest figure taxable. the Ireaks are coming into their own again.

Of course, in the bigger circuses the freaks get more return for their oddity. At Olympia they are paid about ten pounds a week, plus their return fares to various parts of the world.

But let us start at the beginning. Circuses first? Right-bo.

Beriram Mills' circus goes out on the road, starting a seven-months' tour of the British Isles at Luton. This circus is a complete travelling hundred 490-three town. Pop.

hundred and

animals.

women, Onc

It has its own fire brigade, its own telephone exchange,

its own

again

own walor atreet lighting. its

its Aystem,

own communal kitchens.

It travels from town to town in three special trains. The citizena include not only acrobats, trick bespangled horsemen, trainers, beauties," and all the others you sce in the ring, but electricians and carpenters, accountants, wage clerks, cooks, and telephone opera- tore.

Indeed, of the three hundred people probably not more than Afty are actual performers.

This circus takes six hours to creet. Three hundred stakes havo to be driven in all round. Two B3- foot steel tubes weighing five tona have to be lifted into position to support the huge Big Top. which itself weighs more than six baby elephants.

for four Then the senting thousand people has to be nited into place. And at the end of a three-day visit it all comes down again.

The

But that's a big circus. smaller onca-there are not many different of them iekt have a story to tell. Family affairs these are with sometimes a total per- sonnel of twenty.

They work the villages and small towns, leaving the big places to And Mr. Mills. One-night hops. everybody in the circus has to be able to lend a hand at everything cise.

MOTHER gallops round

ก

the ring standing astride couple of punies, jumps through a paper hoop, takes her bows, and makes tracks for her cara-

BEVERLEY goes

OMEHOW Beverley Nichols never fails with his little surprise. Such a clever boy. He's always ready with some novelty for his public.

Out he comes with another book. called News of England (Cape, 16. ed.), and what do you think he's done this time? Why, gone all Fascist!

Nothing extreme. you understand-- to blind approval of Hitler: no taste- less eulogy of Musso or Franco; not so much praise for Mosley that Bever- ley in his next book cannot make his bow as a proud old democrat again,

Like all Fascists. his fundamental theme is our utter confusion and de- enterice (Bad News of Englund would have been a better title, only then it wonki tal sell. Everything must be Vry wrong, else how can Beverley at

la call for a Hero te regenerate us?

भै

So let us look at these sins which are these transgressions a scarlet, at which are like the sands for multitude.

Lo "It

necessary insist, cd 19 uouscam, on the lunacy of a pro- League polley." Beverley wails, long After the League has ceased to exist.

Do you remember that young lon of the League, the Ajax who defied the lightnings five years ago, his proud, pale profile a cameo against the lower- ing sky of wars to come? He wrote it HIS

all in a book called Cry Havoc. name was Beverley Nichols.

Then Beverley has seen quite a few drunken men on Saturday nights. And, though convictions for drunkennes have declined from 103,877 in 1913 to 44,525 in 1930, he is 'darkly perturbed, because in 1832 the figure was 30,140 and has grown slowly since.

Bo have the number of people in works. Go have wages. So hins the popu

alion But Beverley cares for none of these things.

+

+

Thu

Then comer n chapter on the Church, which gives the Dean of Canterbury hell because he is for the Bpanish You Government and against Franco. know: "4,000 murdered priests"

...and obscenities' unspeakable then a sneer at Dr. Howlett Johnson because hla stipend is £2,000.

Guernica does not stain this Oxford And so on and so on. University has fallen very low aines he nest set the fashion thero for nuode nhoes just after the War: "Punch" lo in rotten magazine and Smart Bociety

Errows wurse.

.word

chapter.

Indeed, Boverley has discovered that "the proprietor of a large, second- hand tailor's shop" hired out 197 noruing coats on Gold Cup day inst Ascot. His own tailor made only five such coats and also told him that 75 per cent of the best modern dinner Jackets are double-breasted.

Another of the multitudinous signs

FASCIST

And so, at last, we come to Oswald Mosley. Beverley glagerly calla htm Unknown Quantity." He healintes, he fluttern But at last he gathera hia courage together and writes, "He the only man I know who has in him the qualities o! that hero for whom the country has waited so long, and waited In vain."

And, since this book has just been published, the odds are strong that Beverley is even now writing his next

T. D Oh, hell!

that in these days we are too tired to bother."

On this sad little note we'll leave Boverkey's "series of variations on the themo.of national apathy," because he has something more hopeful coming. He finds some heroes in the chaos,

They are: Norman Hartnell, a treas designer, Freddie Ashton, a ballet dancer, and, 'of course, there is always Lord Nuffleld."

The last paragraph is not a te. Beverley names them and saya, "it might have been more impressive... we had been able to point to some great statesman or scientist or philosophier. but however hard we search, we cannot find such a person."

Then came 47 pages about the dis- tecased proas

unemployment. and Boverloy is very sorry about it all He has no remedy to suggest His pity, tog, is nearly as hard to bear as his Draine.

Count the "TELEGRAPHS" Everywhere

W

मैं

TILLIAM GERHARDI is the latest novelist to lightly satirise the not-too-em- battled hosts of Filmland. Lightly. because he prefers humour to Indig nation. I'm not sure that he la right. Still, there are plenty of lethal laughs in My Wife's the Least of It (Paber and Faber, 10s. Od.),

Tint wretched hero, Mr. Baldridge, once wroto a best seller, Dizic. He fell on evil times, but the pale ghost of Dixie pur- sued him. A movie mag- nate thought of Aiming 1. And then the fun began....

I fancy Mr. Baldridge was just thinking that suicide was a good way out when he met and Adelaide, who married

went mad shortly after and left him the master of a huge fortune and tho friend of Lady Barnstaple. who

a staggering charity racket. Poor Mr.

FILS

18 Baldridge!

finely creator confused about the whole affair. Who wouldn't be? But the irony is terrific.

R. P.

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van to cook the after-circus supper.

The lion-tamer, applauso still echoing in his oars, locks his beasts up for the night, and climbs up to the electrician's perch to focus the spotlight on his wife as sho swings to and fro in ficsh-plnk tights on the trapezes.

Three weeks of fine weather. and the happy family is in clover with a prospect of booking pront- able additional acts next year to swell the box-omco returns, and give everyone a little more icisure. Three days of storms and heavy rain, and bolts have to be drawn in tightly.

AN

ND fairs? Here's an industry for you. Two hundred and afty of them every week for seven months. Ten thousand showmen tour the country every year.

hiring Big

owning men £3,000 roundabouts, £500 swings. and Inllways, scenio £0,000 £10,000 Dodgems. And little men with coconut shles, Aunt Ballica, hoop-in atalis, and ride-rangea.

or

To the big men the thousands come back at twopence and three- pence a ume, with an occasional setback when a roundabout horse or a swing-boat wears out and costs ten pounds to replace.

And even then there's road tax to pay, fees to the Performing Right Society for the music that shricks from the loudspeakers, rent for the use of the fair-ground, wages, and income-tax.

The small man with a bottle-shy

has his expenses, too. The rent of his pitch, Bottles at three-and-six

Wear

a gross. Road tax when he carts his paraphernalia around. and tear of nets or canvas.

And if he gives packets of cigar- eites as prizes, he must have a tobacco licence.

Then there are the grafters, who are subdivided into pitchers and

grizera.

These are the men who sell you cheesemite microscopes, elastic detachable heels, collar-studa, waterproof fountain-pen

unbreakable ties,

nibs, Birmingham Buddhas, lucky charms, and prac- tical Jokes.

The pitchers stay in one place with a stall, the grazers wander with their stock in a tray.

All of them have to work out their itineraries months ahead, so that not one fucrative moment is wasted. All of them havo to keep accounts as they exist precariously between the devil of the whole- aler and the deep, incalculable sea of the entertainment-seeking public.

It's industry all right.

WHAT, you insist on a

little romance? All right, then. We'll end the story with Mother Brown, a grey-haired woman. self-appointed fairy godmother of the travelling showmen.

She has converted an old motor- bus (you can buy them for as little as fifteen pounds sometimes) into a schoolroom, and she drives it round the country herself, giving lessons and telling stories to the showmen's children while their elders make their wandering living.

ELMO

BEAUTY AIDS BRING YOUTH BEAUTY

END

SOLE AGES;

CO.LTD.

By Paul E

HOW IT BEGAN Berdaner

CALOMEL

IN EARLY MEDICINE BLACK SULPHURET OF MERCURY. (OR ETHIOP'S MINERAL) WAS NAMED CALOMEĽ (BEAUTIFUL. BLACK), ABOUT 1600 SIR THEODORE MAYERNE, A SWISS CHEMIST, APPLIED THE NAME TO WHITE CHLOR- IDE OF MERCURY, AS A JOK~ ING ALLUSION TO A NEGRO SER-

VANT EMPLOYED TO PREPARE IT. DANER

CONSIGNEES' NOTICE.

THE BURNS PHILP LINE

From MELBOURNE, SYDNEY. SALAMAUA, RABAUL and MANILA. The Motor Vessel

"NEPTUNA" Consignees of Cargo are hereby informed that all Goods ure being landed at their risk Into the hazar dous and/or extra hazardous Go- downs of The Hongkong and Kowloon Whert and Godown Co., Ltd., whence and/or from the wharves delivery may be obtained,

No claims will be admitted after the Goods have left the Godowns, and all Goods remaining undelivered after the 27th May, 1938, will be sub- ject to rent.

All claims against the steameri must be presented to the Undersign- ed on or before the 10th June, 1938, or they will not be recognized,

To comply with the General Bond- ed Warehouse Regulations consignees must have a Revenue Officer in attendance when damaged dutinble goods are examined.

All broken, chafed, und damaged Goods are to be left in the Godowns, where they will be examined on the 26th May, 1938, at 10 n.m., by Messrs. Goddard and Douglas.

No Fire Insurance has been effected, Bills of Lading will be counter- signed by,

GIBB, LIVINGSTON & CO., LTD.

Agents.

Hongkong, 24th May, 1938.

SERVICES CONTRACTUELS DES

MESSAGERIES MARITIMES.

Steamship

"ARAMIS" No. 14 A/38 Bringing Cargo from Marseilles vla Saigon, etc., arrived Ifongkong on Tuesday, 24th May, 1938.

MISERY LOVES

COMPANY

THIS PHRASE, MEANING "MIS- FORTUNES CRAVE SYMPATHY,” ORIGINATED IN THE MAXIMS OF PUBLIUS SYRIUS (42 B.C.): IT 19 A CONSOLATION TO THE WRETCHED TO HAVE COM-. PANIONS IN MISERY, 22.

OUR BRITISH CROSSWORDS

ACROSS

1 This is an eye opener to

early riser (10),

the

This town's claim to fame is a matter of inclination (2). (10 Even the penniless can pay this

(10).

11 This and its follows are usually

under arms (0).

12 This Is largely the making of

a man (5).

15 A servant who seems to have

taken to drink (5).

18 A corporation may on occasion

hide behind it! (5). 10 A fabulous monarch of the air is apparently unstable (7). 20 How the bather who trod on a crab described his bathe (5). 21 Five hundred would make this

gambling (5).

22 This has no time for anyone at

night (7).

Consignees are hereby informed that their goods with the exception of Oplum, Treasure and Valuables are being landed and stored into the 23 Not a moving description, this

Godowns of the Hongkong Kowloon (5). Whart and Godown Co. Ltd., Kow-24 Scottish town with spirited end-

be delivery may

ing (5).

loon, whence obtained immediately after landing 26 Epithet for 21 ncross (5).

All claims must be sent in to me 20 Apparently they welcome the

on or before 4th June, 1938, or they will not be recognized.

cd

Damaged Packages will be examin- the Company's Surveyor by Messrs. Goddard and Douglas in the presence of the Consignees at 10.00 a.m. on Monday, 30th May, 1938.

Consignees must have a Revenue Officer in attendance when any duti able goods are examined by the Company's Surveyors.

No Fire Insurance will be effected by us in any case whatever.

IL. OHL.

Agent. Hongkong, 24th May, 1938.

J

A&BROKEN DOWN SYSTEM, This is a goodiiion (or disease) to which may pates are given but few really understand, It la simply weakness-a brank down na.lt were, of the vital fordes that westala tlie system. No matter what may be its causes (ibey are aimiost aumbertona), its symptoms are much the se the more promident being sleepiestases, BATIBO of prostration of weerlain, depression of spirit and want of energy for all the ordinary shairs of life. Now, what slone is ensencial in all each cases is doorwased vitality=vigour, vlis) strength and anergy to throw off these moebid Gollege, and a night ooooeds the day thiệ sday be more ostialdly socured by a course al THE NEW FRENCH REMEDY. THERAPION NG 3

gham by any other known combination. So surSË T 1 is taken in scoordenne with the printed diemotions will the skattured health be smioved THE EXPIRING LAMP OF LIFE

"LIGHTED UP ARykerel mint had

Kod new uzytande troperied in place :

po fatulp verond woubut, good up and valua Lons. This preparation is vnitable for all ages, Dotations and oondliloda, tri oftbag men j and f I dihartt be imagine à disease or derungemett whose mala fastacu ia wosknoor, that will mat be speadily and permesomily overcome by this capereti eeczne, which is destined to bal Into obitrios everything that had preceded i for this wide-aprend soonres ofthumanity. e. Od. Chembela de alther Wo, reverstell D

navy in here for a drink (0),

31 It has the beginnings of 7 down in intuition, but it is not at all clear (20).

32 What a hold it may have on

onel (4).

133 Any reel met is made

simple (10).

DOWN

2 A very high turnover

(4).

quite

maybe

3 The correct estimate of a stórm

In a teacup? (6).

4 The dweller hereon is apt to

look down on sailors (5).

5 Not in one shape, evidently (5).

O Almost sounds a suitable vesel

for fishing (0),

7 This kind of mirror might put one out of countenance (10)

8 Peace loving girls would no doubt rather change this to hug nice man (10),-. -..

13 Most of us would like this bit

of India (7).

14 Crime for which the law cannot

punish the offender (7).

13

In

part accuse, and showing a nasty spirit altogether (10).

10 A form of insincerity one might get in a beauty parlour (two words-3, 7).

17 This is often kept by lovers (5), 10 Anything but 23 across (5). 20 The cattle often get quite at- tached to this on the ranch (6).

26 Take pot-shots from the trees

(5):

27 Finish two vowels and put on

the whole (5).

28 The absence of this would un- doubtedly spoll the dinner (5).

30 This red is marred by blemishes

(4).

E

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EU

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