1938-12-22 — Page 26

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THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, Thursday,' December 22, 1988..

DEATH TO PESTS VAUXHALL

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Can this be CHRISTMAS?

T

HERE IS A Christ- mas Card upon my desk.

Above the usual words of Greeting and Good Wishes for the celebration of Christ's Birthday and the The Vauxhall 10 Saloon does over 40 unborn year, is little over 1.9 miles of public roads, the 10 h.p.coloured picture that seems to exude, like a breath of frosty air, all Christmas used to mean to those, who in "the Good old Days," made such elaborate pre- parations to welcome the Season of Peace on Earth and Good Will Ainong Men. Dashing across the paste

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+

"Postman Knock"--and a host of others which I would enjoy as much

today, as I did then..

+

No. In place of the stage coach,

the conchman and the guard with his pealing horn, we have the motor ear and electric kluxon. In place of And the carols, Swing Music."

Yam."I shudder as I write the words-supplants Mr. Pickwick's Quadrille We

dance. not to the

strains of fiddle and guitar, but to "Canned Music" brought all the way from America.

stockings now-fewer salt belleve in Very few children beng up their

the scarlet-gowned, white bearded, genial old gentleman, who drives his reindeer with ringing bells neruss the whitened house-tops, and who care-

·by·

board in fine style is a stage H.W.EVENDEN

coach, the panting horses churn- ing up the dizzling snow which | speckles their glossy skins, and the tall chimney pot hat of the ruddy faced coachmum, whose cheerful grin indicates that, comfortable and warm inside his mustard coloured great cont, he, in company with the other "out. sider," does not mind the cold in the least.

WILLIAMS

fully lower himself down a sooty shapes and sizes from chlinney and fills stockings of all the sack of good things, which like the Widow's Cruse in the Bible, is apparently In-

exhaustable.

+

1 found 1 kord to believe that "Santa Claus" really came down my narrow chimney, sack and ali.

One of the young gentlemen I MUST CONFESS that, as a child, is waving exuberantly * large bottle, which, I assumed contained a "drop of something good," and perched up on his

little seat in the rear sits the guard, a fat jolly looking fellow,

in a green coat and a large scar- let mufler twined

many times about his neck, and a very long brass trumpet at his legs.

Of course, I cannot hear the merry blast but I can easily [imagine it ringing out loud and clear through the December air.

Two Japans THE JAPANESE GENERALS in China have again got the

I can also imagine myself bit between their teeth. this snatching a kiss from the pretty time in Tientsin and Hankow. face that smiles from the coach When this happens you hear, window, but only of course, from straight away from Tokyo, that under a bunch of mistletoe. it must have been

That a sentry's

is an artist's mistake, or the fucts are not as Christmas. stated, or that it won't happen

It's also mira. ngain.

A

idea of

【ERRICK, who calls it Mortahouss,

The fact is that the Japanese captures the Spirit of Christmas

come

are

Dickens, in his wonderful story. "Christmas Carol” shows us with his

masterly pen how Christing was kept and loved by the very poor in the early nineteenth century. Also in his "Pickwick Papers" he paints another merry scene at Dingby Dell, duniable - Mr. Pickwick when the charms of the young lady who wore danced the quadrifle with all the

"boots with fur round the tops."

咖

Government and the Japanese High Command are two different well with his "eups of cle" and crack-

Jing brake." things. Apologies and regrets from the Government, more incidents from the Ariny, Other Governments are asking with which of the two Japans they to deal? Britain, France and America could very well deal with either, or both.

In neting together in a matter which vitally concerns all-the] protection of their citizens' lives and property-the democratic Powers would be doing the wise, effective thing.

In the same way the British and French are sensible to share the burden in the Mediterrancan in defending their joint interests -thint of keeping open our high- way from England to Singapore and Hongkong, and their high- | way to Africa.

JOHN CLARE the Northampton

peasant must have known

and

1 saw him one day, standing in the gulter outside a large store in Lon- don.

He was a thin miserable looking? This "Santa Claus." his whiskers bedraggled and his scarlet coal dirty,

fellow."

Carol Singers and the Waits-the butt of nearly all black and white artists are having a lean time. bingers of the Christmas Spirit wei-

Only in Cornwall ore there ho

comed.

☆

दई REMEMBER on old lady saying to ine one day,

"Things arn't like what they used to be when I was a girl. Times are changed, sir, and they arn't changed for the better!" She may be right and she may be wrong. She is certainly correct When

said Times have changed, she but whether for better or for worse we don't know yet.

I am old fashioned, and I hate to see.

Christmas $10.

That is why I ad "Christmas Carol" and Herrick and Clare's "De- cember." Only these people can give me a real "Christmascy" feeling.

Always shall I remember Tiny Tine's words-"God Bless us, every-

"

GRIN AND BEAR IT

By Lichty

Cope, 12 by Cited Pochure Pratimin One

Nati

"Nonsense, dear, it's easy to know what to do-just imagine I'm driving and you're sitting in the back!"

No Ordinary

Gift For Mavis

the banality of the presents you your-

self receive."

MAVIS OBSESSED with know you're always grousing about the idea of sending to her Auntie what she terms "flat, red duck."

"What about some ox-heads, then,

a

deur

"It would be so unusual, dar- ling!"

But, short of opening a can- ning factory, I find the notion unfeasible, and say HO. in- timating that after a sea journey of some thousands of miles the bird would be unrecognisable as

by NORAH WHITESTONE

any variety of duck, flat, red or "Ox-heads?!" shricks Mavis. Auntie otherwise.

ls en old maid and doesn't live in a

in in suits!"*

"But, Howard dear, ships baronial hall with antlers and men have cold storage, don't they?"

"Oh, you note, those nut things I ponder over the uninviting prospect negotiating with the you see about. just like little horned

cattle." shipping company for the neces- "Auntie hates rows, as you know

well after sary cubic contents for the ac-very

falling into the [commodation of the unnatural manure tunk trying to save her

When fowl, and find no ray of light in She's not afraid of cows, she just she didn't want to be saved,

loather them. Oh Oh! Ahi..

a gloomy situation.

"Movis, don't they have ducks in land off she goes Into shrieks of mast

to Dorking, and why should Auntie want unwifely and, me, misplaced

linerriment. Hat, red one?"

I remember the incident (Continued on Page 5.)

"Oh, she's never seen one, and you

Four

Cinderella Has

Hundred Versions

loved Christmas well when he wrote DID you ever wonder, as you sat

*The singing Wates throng

# merry

At Party morn with a simple skill Yet imitate the Angel's Song And chant their Christmas dittys 971

And mid the storm that dies and stella

By fits in Hummings softly steals The music of the Village bells Ringing round their merry peals.”

*

BOTH DICKENS and Clare lived in

the same era, so Christmas-ne-

cording to then-was very much live, as bright and merry as it was in Herrick's time.

It must have been so otherwise

That joint understanding does not commit Britain to interfere in France's troubles in, say, Poland. And British and Amer-Clare would never have sung such a

Far song as his "December," from which ican collaboration in the

have extracted the stanza East would not involve

us in Poem I

bove. America's affairs in, say, Brazil.

Nor would Dickens huve written Nor would it engage America to his "Christmas Carol." One cannot write of stuffed turkey and puddings take on any of Britain's own

"like speckled cannon balls," if there muddied obligations in. say, are no such things in existence.

Dickens, Herrick, Clare and a host Memel.

of others, ilved in an oge when Further this collaboration Christmas was a Day of Days, and must come about, or the Western they would prepare for this occasion

is early as the month of November Powers must tamely stand by the Feast of St. Martin-and kept the and watch Japan seize and close fully bail rolling until twelfth Night

—or St. Diatar's Day. the

all East against

other

comers.

A Thought

Hence- "Denon with the rosemary and so Down with the boys and mistletoe."

PUT TO-DAY, in the twentieth century. I cannot help but think

THE PLEASURES that flow from the senses die young. These desires-and satisfactiona

that the Spirit of Christmas is dying. of the heart turn in time to

Especially when I have fald down sorrow, or at best to longing the story of Scrooge and of poor little that can never be realised ngain. Bob Cratchit, with his long muffler The pleasures of the mind hurrying home to play a now nearly "Blind forgotten some of, I think, live on throughout the years. Mana Duff with his children. The joy that comes from know-

I am old fashioned enough to be

world have thought, from sec- Christmas-killing Romance.

looking at a Christmas panto- nine, just how it all came about?

Why should the fairy queen rome In from the right; demon king from the left?

Who first called the clown Joey? Were there any Babes in the Wood? Hud Dick Whittington really got a

cat?

·by· GEORGE EDINGER

It was rescued in tears from the skir, for this monkey was a three- year-old child, called Joseph Gri- maku.

From 1762 till his last appearance In 1020 Grimalill never missel pantomime.

AL

He was the greatest clown who over lived. He overshadowed Harle- Dick Whittington, who married the quin completely, and he has left his There is a reason for all things, daughter of his master, Alderman name, "Joey" to every clown in even in a pantomime.. Usually a Fitzwarren, and became Lord Mayor pantomime. very old reason, sometimes so old of London three times before he died. that we have forgotten it.

in 1423, never had a cat and never toffee apples), from "Mother Goose." His big song hit, "Hot Codlins" went to Morocco.

had a rhn of 120 years, from 1804 PRINCIPAL boys and dunes, for

But he invested his savings in a 1020. Yet Grimaldi, who died instance. They go right back to ketch that did trade to Morocco, and in his Affles a hundred years ago, the Roman Feast of Saturn when the that was the beginning of his fortune, never carned more than £14 a week. world turned topsy-turvy for two Stories ke these were preserved Iweeks no the end of every year;

by travelling showmen fill when manters served their slaves

pantomime took them and men changed clothes with their wives.

over.

Grimaldi introduced many features the Into pantomime. He first made the audience join in the chorus by leaving the last word of each verse * for them to sing.

T the end of George 111's reign it AT That custom was long kept up over occurred to managers to sub- here on Twelfth Night Shakespeare stitute English favourites for mytho- called his play "Twelfth Night" be logical and historical beings. cause in it a sister struts in her brother's

clothes,

"The little old woman she thought if no sin to warm herself up tolth quartern of

So London saw "Columbine Red

Gin," shouted the audience, and The pantomime faity queen de-Riding Hood" and "Harlequin Robin-

chocked face in the Grimaldi palled son Crusoe." scends from the good angel in the

And by that fime new stories had George Robey style, old miracle plays the first demon

caught

the people's fancy and king was Deelzebub,

He, too, standardised the clown's swollen the showmen's repertory. dress, ba it has remained ever since.

In the churches when a stage was: put up for a mirnele play heaven)

The

always lay on the right, hell on the kiri adventures of Alexander Sel-The costume he wore is kept in the

left, the sinister side.

$pired

Whittington and

•

who lived alone on Juan Fer- London Museum.

And he inspired the first American So the gooddez Isle in the Pacife, had in-

Defoe to write "Robinson tour. After the success of "Mother people still come from the wings first performed in panto- Goose" In 1804 the company went right of the stage, the evil from the mime in 1300, and when the "Arablan over to New York, where they were left,

Nights" were translated from the booted off the boards after four Most of the stories of our panto- French in 1704 the stories of Aladdin nights. mimes to-day come from the old and Sinbad the Sailor became quite puppet shown which travelled the

FTER came the Victorians, with faire and markets of Britain all the

as p as Dick

A In the Wood. cording the stories hundreds of year of her history, re-

their pantomimes growing more Such a

a play would begin by telling elaborate and their harlequinades

would. that took the the story at Robinson Crusoe or Dick shorter. people's fancy from time to time. Walttington; the characters changed Cinderella la

I can just remember Dan Leno. the oldest, nobody halfway

through the evening into greatest of pantomime dames, singing knows quite how old.

harlequlande

wound up with traditional

the river was at the bottom every language in the rough-and-tumble.

garden and for six months the As time went on the harlequinadegarden was at the bottom of the river.

the

There are 400 versions of it, and formance ** Chometers, and the per about his little house where for alx

montha world. B

It is fold

*

of

was pushed further and further back It was the Victorians, too, who ing what the finest brains in the leve that we moderns are killing E Babes in the Wood is based in the evening. By 1000 it was re~ {

Wendapled Rossini's opera "Cinderella" to pantomime, and took Dandini out of it and transformed the widow Mustapha

ing what the greatest craftamen Now, we have no time to sit before

on the true story of two children duced to twenty minutes, who were abducted and abandumed hag been pushed out altogether. in Norfolk in the fifteenth century.

One of the ruffians concerned con-TN 1782 the pantomime clown ap-Widow Twonkey In "Aladdin" to

have fashioned. The content-the fire and tell our ghost stories in ment that abides in the evening hushed volces--no time to play the fessed the crime before he died, and

peared at Sadler's Wells with a Under Queen Victoria the old bur- of life when a man has done the simple games I remember well and the whole Incident left such an Im-ittle monkey on a chain. He swung lesque extravaganza was Anally oust- very pression on that age that it was it round his head so violently that the ed as a subject for pantomime by the best that was possible with the enjoyed so much when I was

young--"Nuta in May"—a prime handed down in song and story to chain broke and the monkey flew off nursery tale, and pantomime become quality he had in him.

favourite."Ppor Jenny is a Weeping" „Four own.

into the pit.

set in the forms we know..

4-14