1938-12-22 — Page 8

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, THURSDAY, December 22, 1938.

DEATH TO PESTS VAUXHALL

QUICK SAFE and CERTAIN-

BEETLE VIRU

BEETLES AND THEIR ODOUR DISAPPEAR LIKE MAGIC

ABSOLUTELY HARMLESS TO

CATS DOGS AND

HUMAN BEINGS

ASTONISHING

DISCOVERY!

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10

The Vaustall 10 Saloon dors over 40 mp. On a recent I.A.C. official triat, over 1,000 miles of public roads, the 10 h.p. saloon did 43.4 mp.g.

And it has Independent Springing, al many other tine car features,

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 unborn year, is

a little coloured picture that seems to exude, like a breath of Hydraulle Brakes, Controlled Bynturamesh 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 Pence on Earth and Good Will Among Men.

Dashing

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Let's all join in the Chorus-With Tommy Handley and His Pals

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These Foolish Things Selection.-London Palladium Orchestra

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Draper's Maggot; The Hole in the Wall

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March Medley-H. M. Coldstream Guards

C3035

Deep River; Go Down, Moses-Fats Waller on the Organ D8816 Medley-New Mayfair Orchestra

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Hits of the Moment.

Puszta: The Wind has told me a story-R. Foort-Organ

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Woodcutters' Song-Comedy Harmonists B8814

She was, she was, she was; just for fun-Max Miller

When you dream about Hawaii-G. Fitzgerald

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источн

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

day, as I did then.

-

+

No. In place of the tuge cone,

the cotchman and the guard with his pealing born, we have the molor ear and electrie kluson. In place of

Music." And Els rols, "Swing

the "Yam-I shudder ne I write words-supplants

Pickwick's Qandrille. We dance. not to the strains of fiddle and gultar, but lo "Cunned Music" brought all the way from An

America.

Mr.

Very few children hing up their stockings now-fewer still believe in the scarlet-gowned, white bearded, genial oid gentleman, who drives his reindeer with risiting bells across 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 coachman, whose cheerful grin indicates that, comfortable and warm inside his mustard coloured great coat, he, in company with the other "out. sider," does not mind the cold in

the least.

a

One of the young gentlemen is waving exuberantly large bottle, which, I assumed contained a "drop of something

Hongkong Telegraph. good." and perched up on his

little seat in the rear sits the

Wyndham St., Hongkong guard, a fat jolly looking fellow, in a green coat and a large scar- let muller twined many times about his neck, and a very long brass trumpet at his legs.

'Phone 26615 December 22, 1938

Two Japans THE JAPANESE GENERALS in China have again got the bit between their teeth, this time in Tientsin and Hankow, When this happens you hear, straight away from Tokyo, that it must have been a sentry's mistake, or the facts are not as stated, or that it won't happen again.

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

I can also imagine myself snatching a kiss from the pretty face that smiles from the coach window, but only of course, from under a bunch of mistletoe.

That is an artist's idea of Christmas.

H

It's also mine.

WILLIAMS

fully lowers himself down a svaty chimney and fills stockings, of 13 shapes and sizes from the sack of good things, which lie the Widow's Cruse in the Bible, is apparently in- exhaustable.

MUST CONFESS that, as a child, I found it hard to believe that "Santa Claus" really came down my Barrow chimney, sick and all,

I saw him one day, standing in the gutter outside'a large store in Lon- don.

fellow.

He was a thin miserable looking this "Santa Claus," his whiskers bedraggled and his scarlet cont dirty.

Carol Singers and the Waits-the butt of nearly all black and white

artists are having a lean time.

Only in Cornwall are there har bingers of the Christmas Spirit wel- comed.

*

REMEMBER an old lady saying to

me 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. Sho is certainly correct when she said Times have changed, but whether for better or for worse we don't know yet.

I am old fashioned, and I hate to see Christmas go.

GRIN AND BEAR IT

By Lichty

Cope, 1936 by Baked Purinro apoiola, Yaa

104

11-29

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

No Ordinary Gift For Mavis

MAVIS OBSESSED with know you're always grousing about the banailty of the presents you your- the idea of sending to herself receive." Auntie what she terms "flat, red duck.”

2

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

say

But, short of opening a can- the notion ning factory, I find unfensible, and

80, in- timating that after a sea journey of some thousands of miles the bird would be unrecognisable na any variety of duck, flat, red or otherwise.

"What about some ox-heads, then, dear"?

by NORAH WHITESTONE

"Ox-heads?!" shrieks Mavis. Auntie is an old maid and doesn't live in a

In tin suits!"

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

"Oh, you know, those nut things I ponder over the uninviting

cattle." prospect negotiating with the you see about, just like little horned "Auntie hates cows, as you know shipping company for the neces

the well after falling into sary cubic contents for the ac-very

save her · commodation of the unnatural manure tank trying to

when she didn't want to be saved, Carol" and Herrick and Clare's "Defowl, and find no ray of light in She's not afraid of cows, she just

loathes them..Oh! Oh! Aht.

That is why I rend

†ERRICK, who calls it Mortalmass,

cember. captures the Spirit of Christmas wel with his "cups of cle" and crack. ling brake."

The fact is that the Japanese Government and the Japanese High Command are two different things. Apologies and regrets Dickens, in his wonderful story. come from the Government. "Christmas Carol, shows us with his masterly pen how Christmas was more incidents from the Army. kept and loved by the very poor in Other Governments are asking the early nineteenth century. Also in his "Pickwick Papers" he paints with which of the two Japans another merry scene at Dingby Dell, are they to deal? Britain, when the amiable Mr. Pickwick danced the quadrille with all the France and America could'very | charms of the young lady who wore

"boots with Tur round the tops." well deal with either, or both.

In acting 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 Mediterranean in defending their joint interests -that of keeping open our high- way from England to Singapore and Hongkong, and their high- way to Africa.

That joint understanding does not commit Britain to interfere

troubles in France's

us in

*

JOHN CLARE, the Northampton

"Christmas

Only these people can give me a real "Christmassy" feeling.

Always shall I remember Tiny Tim's words-"God Bless us. every-

one."

a gloomy situation.

"Mavis, don't they have ducks in and off she goes into shrieks of must me, misplaced Dorking, and why should Auntle want unwifely and, to

merriment. I remember the Ineldent a flat, red one?"

(Continued on Page 5.) "Oh, she's never seen one, and you

Four

Cinderella Has

Hundred Versions

peasant must have known and loved Christmas weil when he wrote you ever wonder, as you sat

"The singing Wates a throng

merry

At early morn with a simple skill Yet imitate the Angel's Song And chant their Christmas ditips #117!

And mid the storm that dies and swells

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

+

looking at a Christmas panto- mime, Just how it all came about?

Why should the fairy queen come in from the right; demon king from the left?

Who first called the clown Jocy? Were there any Babes in the Wood? Had Dick Whittington really got a cut?

There is n

by- GEORGE

EDINGER

went to Morocco.

It was rescued in tears from the skin, for this monkey was a three-

year-old child, called Joseph maldi.

Grim

missed

From 1762 till his last appearance in 1028 Grimaldi never pantomime.

A

He was the greatest clown whe ever lived. He overshadowed Haric- Dick Whittington, who married the quin completely, and he has left his clown in master, Alderman nume, "Joey," to every reason for all things, daughter of lils 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

His big song hit, "Hot Codilas" that we have forgotten .

in 1423, never had a cat and never (toffee apples), from "Mother Goose.* had a rhn of 120 years, from 1804 But he invested his savings in oil 1926. Yet Grimaldi, who died Instance. They go right back to ketch that did trade to Morocco, and in his fifties a hundred years ago, the Roman Feast of Saturn when the that was the beginning of his fortune, never earned more than £14 a week. world turned topsy-turvy for

Stories like these were preserved Grimaldi introduced many features weeks at the end of every year by travelling showmen till the into pantomime. He first made the when masters served their slaves pantomime took them over. and men changed clothes with their stenza

ROTH DICKENS and Clare lived in Dthe same era, so Christmas-ac- cording to them-was very much alive, as bright and merry as it was in Herrick's time.

in, say,

It must have been so otherwise Poland. And British and Amer- Chare would never have sung such a ican collaboration in the Far song as his "December," from which

have extracted the poem I have. East would not involve America's affairs in, say, Brazil.

Nor would Dickens have 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 muddled obligations in. say, are no such things in existence.

Dickens, Herrick, Clare and a host Memel.

of others, lived in an age when Further this collaboration Christmas was a Day of Days, and must come about, or the Western they would prepare for this occasion as early as the inonth of November- Powers must tamely stand by the Feast of St. Martin--and kept the and watch Japan seize and close folly ball rolling until twelfth Night the East against all other

comers.

A Thought

--or $1. Distaff's Day.

-1

Hence- "Down with the rosemary and so Down tofth

boys and mistletoe."

THE PLEASURES that flow

from the senses die young. BUT TO-DAY, in the twentieth century, I cannot help but think These desires--and satisfactions

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

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

I am old fashioned enough to be- ing what the finest brains in the lieve that we moderas are killing world have thought, from see-Christmas-killing Romance. ing what the greatest craftsmen Now, we have no time to sit before have fashioned. The content-the fire and tell our ghost stories in ment that abides in the evening hushed voices-no time to play the of life when a man has done the simple games 1 remember well and prime May"--a young-Nuts · In best that was possible with the enjoyed so much when I was very quality he had in him.

favourite "Poor Jonny Is a Weeping"

PRINCIPAL boys and dames, for

wives.

(wo

That custom was long kept up over here on Twelfth Night. Shakespeare called his play "Twelfth Night" be cause in it u alster struts In her brother's clothes,

*

audience john in the chorus by leaving the last word of each verse The end of George II's reign it for them to sing. AT

occurred to managers to sub- stitute English favourites for mytho- logical and historien beings,

"The little old woman she thought

זי

it no sin to warm herself up with o So London saw "Columbine Red quartern of . Riding Hood" and "Harlequin Rouin-. son Crusoe."

"Gin." shouted the audience, end Grimaldi pulled a shocked face in the

The pantomime fairy queen de- scends from the good angel in the And by that time new stories had George Robey style. old miracle plays: the first demon caught the people's fancy king was Beelzebub.

and

"Robinson tour. After the success of "Mother

E

He, too, standardised the clown's swollen the showmen's repertory. dress, as it has remained ever since. In the churches when a stage was The adventures of Alexander Sel- The costume he wore is kept in the put up for

a miracle play heaven kirk, who lived alone on Juan Fer- London Museum. always lay on the right, hell on the unndez Iste in Pacific, had in- And he inspired the first American

lo write Defoe left, the sinister side. So the good people stili come from the wings Crusoe," first performed in panto- Goose" in 1004 the company went right of the stage, the evit from the mime in 1800, and when the "Arabian over to New York, where they were left.

from the looted off the boards after four Nights" were translated Most of the stories of our panto French in 1704 the stories of Aladdin nights, mimes to-day come from the old

travelled the and Sinbad the Sallor became quite puppet shows which

as popular as Dick Whittington and

FTER came the Victorians, with fairs and markets of Britain all the the Babes in the Wood.

their pantomimes growing more- hundreds of year of her, history, re- Such a play would begin by telling elaborate and their harlequinades carding the stories that took the the story of Robinson Crusoe or Dick shorter.

from time 10 Ume Whittington; the characters changed I can just remember. Dan Leno, people's fancy Cinderella is the oldest, nobody halfway through the evening into greatest of pantomime dames, singing knows quite how old.

harlequinode characters, and the per about his little house where for six There are 400 versions of it, and formance wound up with traditional months the river was at the bottom of the garden and for six months the it is told in every language in the rough-and-tumble. world.

•

•

•

As time went on the harlequinade

It was the Victorians, too, who was pitshed further and further back garden was at the bottom of the river, THE Dabes in the Wood is based in the evening By 1900 it was re-adapted Rossini's opern "Cinderella"

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

T

Now

to pantomime, and took Dendint out of it and transformed the widow Mustapha Cheng in "Aladdin to

One of the rumuns concerned con-N 1782 the pantomime clown ap-Widow Twankey. fessed the crime before he died, and

peared at Sadler's Wells with a

Under Queen Victoria the old bur- the whole incident left such an imlittle monkey on a chain. He swung lesque extravaganza was finally out- that it was it round his head so violently that the ed as a subject for pantomime by the pression on that age handed down in Kong and story to chain broke and the monkey flew off nursery tale, and pantomime became

set- in the forms we know,

our own.

Into the pit.