1939-12-12 — Page 27

Tuesday,

HONGKONG TELEGRAPH

OUR

TOMMIES

Charitable Work Praised

By H. E. The Governor

Reference to the plight of the poor! It has not been an easy time or by in the Colony and the steady decrease any means, free from anxiety. Only of their average Income during the month or two before our last annuat

•past eight years Annual Meeting of the Society for meeting Canton fell: all through this the Protection of Children, held at year hostilities have continued

.wag made at the

in

the Helena May Institute yesterday. China and since September 3 Great

Britain also has been at war. The Hon. Sir Robert Katewall presided, and Ils Excellency Governor and Lady Northcote were

mong those present.

the Another matier for anxiety was the inevitable rise in the cost of imported foodstuffs owing to the war in Europe, but I am happy to say that: worry on that score at least would seem now to be unnecessary.

Sir Itobert wald: In to-day's agenda I have allotted to myself the mont congenial duty of all-that of

The year has ended with a debit thanking the benefactors of the

balance of $700, a figure the small- Society. First and foremost among these are His Excellency the Governor mess of which regard an amazing and Lady Northcote, who, in spite and a most wonderful token of the of the strain and stress of pressing support which the Society is accorded and exacting occupations, have con- by the public. The amount of the defelt is still more remarkable when trived to and time to attend all our one remembers that this has been a annual meetings, and to give

year of considerable development, every encouragement and help.

that we have dealt with more new You may have noticed that in the cases than ever before and that we Annual Report there is no mention have embarked on a new phase of of of the work of the Chairman of the the Society's work in the running Executive Committee, the Hon. Clubs for young children at the two

143

Secretary and the Hon. Treasurer. Kowloon centresan afternoon club These officers hold three of the four for girls and closer and increased co- "key" positions in the Society, the operation with the Boys and Girls' fourth being the Important office of Clubs Association,

Hon. Director, which is at the pre- sent moment vacant. When I tell you they were primarily responsible for the compilation of the Annual

New Centre Opening

We are also opening a new centre is very badly

Report, you will understand the rea-in an area where li

son for the omission..

An Ideal Chairman'

needed this month.

By the kindness of Mr. S. V. Boxer, I have been furnished with a chart The Chairman of the Executive showing the average Income of each Committee is His Honour Sir Atholl of the families with which we have MacGregor. Sir Atholl an ideal dealt, the number of new cases dealt chairman. He presides over us withith each year and the expenditure. dignity and good humour, tact and The chart covers the period from patience. During a year of

1832 to the end of this year, and heavy and increasing public and social while expenditure over those eight duties Sir Atholl gave himself to the years has increased only from $21,000 Society without stint, and his relin- to very ille more than $25,000 this quishment of the chairmanship will year, while the figure for new cases be a serious loss. Fortunately his in the past twelve months is $2,800 wise counsel tid able guidance will or more than three times us many us still be available to us,

in the first of the year shown on the chart,

The office of Hon. Secretary to the!

Before 1 close I want to say how Society is no sinecure. It entails a tremendour amount of work, but very indebted I have been throughout "Tortunately" we have in Mrs. Crozier the-year-to our-Hon. Secretary, Mrs.. one who is more than equal to it.Crozier, our Treasurer Mr. McKellar Our Hon. Treasurer, Mr. MacKellar, and the ladies on the Women's Auxi- ably assisted by Mr. Kwok Chan, hasliary than whom no better cominlitee rendered yeoman service to the So-can exist anywhere! (Applause). ciety.

Omcery Re-elected

seconded the

The Hon. Mr. W. N. Thomas Tam motion which was carried unanimously.

Shortly after their arrival in the Colony, two and a half years a Mr. and Mrs. Caine beenme members of this Society, and had ever since, until they left Hongkong, identified On the proposal of the Hon. Sir themselves closely with our work. Henry Pollock, seconded by Mr. A. The Society is much the poorer by el Arculli, the Vice-Presidents. Hon. their departure,

Vice-Presidents, members of the Gen-

Another helper we have lost is Dr. eral and Executive Committees and Hunter who, I understand, may not other officers of last year and men- return to Hongkong. She has placed tioned in the report were re-elected. w under a deep debt of gratitude not The Hon. Mr. Tam was designated Com- only by her whole-hearted co-opera- Chairman of the Executive Bonas Medient Officer in charge of mittee.

the Violet Peel Infant Welfare Proposing a vote of thanks to His Centre, but also by her valuable Excellency and Lady Northcote, the advice as a member of the Executive Hon. Mr. M. K. Lo, said the very Commitice.

deep interest which they had taken in

On previous occasions I have had the affairs of the Society had always the pleasure of giving expression to

a great encouragement and

been

Governor's Praise

our profound appreciation of the inspiration to all the workers. wonderful help we have received! from the Women's Auxiliary. Year: after year these ladies have been the mainstay of our financial fabric, being responsible for about 30 per cent of our total annual revenue.

Mr. de Martin's Services

December 12, 1939.

IN MAGINOT

where the gun protrudes

its deadly snout."

Mushrooms, as they call the cupolas of observation posts!"

4

Here was an electric train which draws trucks of ammuni- tion and supplies, and carrie:

passengers."

.. After lunch there were songs.... They all had that terrific rhythmic emphasis which the French can give to chorus

songs,"

... the room from which the Artillery Officer ... directa his Are without ever seeing his abjective."

ILE. The Governor said: It is only natural, I think, that all human beings should take a deep interest in the work of the Society which is de- signed to help those who are most helpless and the most in need As I have said, the office of 1ton.help. I note the number of children care has in- Director is at present vacant. About coming under your three years ago the Society had the creased and also the new experiment good fortune of securing the services of children's clubs. I hope that ox- of Mr. G. P. de Martin for this in-periment will prosper to such an ex- portant office, and he allied it with tent that the whole of this town will singular success and distinction. In someday be covered with a network April Jast he left for a well-earned of buch clubs wherever they are are going to take their places. The holiday, and on his return a few needed, (Applause),

fact that the Society has something weeks ago he informed us, to our I am also glad to note of the close like $950 less in cash than it had a profound regret, that he was unable aison between the clubs which this year ago is a matter for very serious to resume office.

Society has begun and those which consideration. I do hope that the elo

I must not forget the good work are under the core of the Boys and quent appeal which Sir Atholl Mac- of the Branch Hon. Secretaries, Mr. Girls' Clubs Association. I am not Gregor has voleed will succeed in or drawing much larger sums from the L. D. Skinner, Mrs. R. C. Beavan, quite sure whether this Society

takes within Its public next year. After all, the total Mr. W. A. Jones and Mrs. Pearson that Association Grant, or of that of the Hon. Secre- scope the club which I visited some amount is not very grant when you tary for the Creche, Mrs. W. Parit. 18 months ago in Connaught Road consider the wealth of this town, To them I express very warm thanks the one which Mrs. Caine started- for their help.

nro

LINE FORT

FOOD, BEDS, WINE ARE ALL RIGHT'

I WAS introduced to the Maginot Line. That is the inevitable beginning of all stories about the French Army.

I think it also is the beginning of the end of the war. For, unless a miraculous earthquake rips it to pieces, the Maginot Line will be impregnable.

Bells of barbed wire and “asparagus,” as the French call the steel anti-tank stockades, give a vague hint of its war power. Mushrooms," as they call the cupolas of observation posta, sug- gest nothing of its subterranean immensity.

You begin to grasp something of the extent of the technical marvels of these fortifications only when you bave entered a passage the size of a London underground station.

VANISHING FLOOB

FOUGHT

WITH BARE HANDS

From DAVID SCOTT

FRANCE.

A COMPANY of French light cavalry, fighting sometimes with their bare fists or any odd wea- pon they could find, held off It is briliantly it. I passed across a their German attackers for a section of steel flooring which, in the in-day and finally retired to order credible event of the enemy penetrating with few losses. no far can be alid out of sight, leaving what seems to be a bottomless pl.

There was a door swung back as thick no the side of a warship. There was a Hit. I descended slowly into the interior of France.

Here was an electrio train which draws trucks of ammunition and supplies, and carries passengers, It moved on with a roar. rating over points, ducking through archways, passing mysterious room and pulling up at last close to the officers niesa,

It was in this room that the war began to take shape, not madly and tragically. But in the sentimental fashion which anyone who knew the last war will re- member. a lusty mixture of comradeship and song addressed to that winsonic skeleton. Mndemoladle, from Armen- tieres,

SINGING MAJOR

After lunch there were congs. The major commanding the fort aane one. the chief artillery offleer sang ahother, The doctor another.

They all hnd that terrife rhythmic emphasis which the French can give to chorus songs, particularly “Lisette "— what a girl she wael-and Zoom, Zoom, Zoom"--what a giri she was, top!

On one wall hang a picture of yet an. sther girl. It had taken the fangy of the inglacer officer, and It certainly drew the

ye.

Thus Inspired, the engineèr officer and esigned very modern bar and the rilllery officer had provided a statuette -of-yet another girl-na-its culminating

lecotation.

Back I went to that other war, hurtling through a babel of memories. Speeches

the major tonst to the British armies and the French armies and the toast 10 the King and the President of the French Republic, And then I proceeded to come down to-perhaps It would be more accurate to say go into-earth.

UNSEEN TARGET

•

Their story was told to me to-day during a tour of an Army sector.

It happened in a wood, on a hill, when French outposts were fighting rearguard octions to cover the "with drawal of the main body of French troups to their lines of defence.

The wood was previously held by an infantry battalion, but when this was withdrawn, the High Command, not wishing to sperlice more troops than they could help, sent up a single mounted company to cover the with- drawal.

PARE

Wrestled With Enemy When dawn broke next day, Ger- raan shells came over, followed by trench-mortar bombs, and finally by a long burst of machine-gun fire.

The French lay low, held their fre and watched the German Infantry climb the long slope of a bill,

A whistle blew and the Germans raced for the wood, attacking the waiting French from all sides.

Some Germans fell to point-blank shots; others were killed by hastily- thrown hand-grenades.

But it was with sticks and stones,

and with bleeding knuckles

goud French boot-leather, by hitting and by wrestling with the wild spirit of desperate, yet courageous, men that the handful of French soldiers re- pelled this attack-and another and another and stayed in that

"wood-

until their mission was accomplished. retreated to their own lines.

Then under- cover of night they

Flood Defenco

The sector, of the Maginot Line I saw to-day has a form of defence generally associated with the Flan- ders battlefields.

In addition to the usual miles and miles of anti-tank guris, spikes and barbed wire and the formidable ar- ray of huge concrete blockhouses and

I was shown the room from which the Artlilery Ofeer, who is many yardı underground beneath steel and con- frowning ensemates, il Is covered by, crete, directs his fire without ever axtensive floods.

scelog his objective. This business

is 40 scientifically planned that it

would take a few to hop through the

opening left by his shells.

I wont up in the lift and peered through a hole in the wall where the gun protrudes its deadly snout.

I saw a beautiful Beld of fire, as the artillery ameer remarked, and it extended for miles. It is crossed and criss-crossed from the sides and from other forts.

I would as soon attempt to attack a mol of armour-plated prehistoric man- sters single-handed.

Up on the surface of the riddled earth| were half-a-dozen British soldiers, who had been given the hospitalliy of the fort, with thele particular pieces of techi nical apparatus.

**VERY YOUNG?

They looked very young,

Famous Voices Evacuated

THOUSANDS of priceless gramo

T

phone records of the voices of

the ex-Kaiser, Florence Nightingale, Gladstone, Edison and other notabi- ilies have been moved by the B.B.C. | to "a place of safety."

Broadcasting House has built up the finest gramophone record library In the world. More than 60,000 dlses and many thousands of cylinders, stool tape and film records are in the collection.

Among the most used of contem- are HCET The B.B.C, owns a complete set of them. Hiller's broadcast speeches.

One who said he was 18 had an engagporary records just now ing anyncas. He said that the wine for they were an French rations-WON all right, but it took a bit of getting used to. He thought the coffee all right, but he missed his tea, and he thought his sleeping quarters were all right: they were lovely and warm. Which they should be, as the Maginot Line is een- trally heated.

H

His mother will be glad to know he is feeling fine, if she can bring herself B to bellevo in small mergica,

A French soldier whom I passed had found a small mercy in a rabbit, which he had caught with a long stick and con- alderable cunning, thus proving himself a specialist like all the inhabitants of the Maginot Line. "The figures in the report

And then, from the hazy distance, but it it is anything like that I warm-extremely interesting, though I came a crash, as if a giant noross the By congratulate the Society on having om rather puzzled by them I do not frontier had alammed door. It was It is impossible for me to mention started it. The Social Welfare Counsay they are incorrect but statistics repeated at casual intervals The first everyone by name, and I hope, there have these clubs closely under their are very dangerous things. Who- German abelling I have heard during fore, that I may be forgiven if I thank eye, and the other day I was study-ever drew the graph and compiled collectively, as I do now, the splendid ing an interesting plan of a building. the Agures has done a public service

It flicked away any sort of sentimen band of workers who have given 50 part of which was to give accomoda- to the Colong in drawing attention to mad.

tally X may have felt. It sounded guite much of themselves to the Society

to tion a club of this kind. I was a state of affairs in which average with the sole thought of alleviating struck principally by the cheapness Incomes of families with which the and bettering the lot of poor and

of the building and the small cost of Society is concerned have dropped so suffering children, (Applause).

Tunning such an institution; I think alarmingly. It is certainly a decline. It is an encouraging feature for the into which anyone holding a respon- future.

sible position should look, as I pro- A lecture, The Law of Maritime Matter of Concern

pose doing as Governor.". (Applause). Capture, will be given by Mr. John

|- An Anxious, Time

this war.

**

UNIVERSITY LECTURE

Sir Atholl MacGregor, said: I am glad to have tals opportunity by moving the adoption of the Report "I am sorry that the Society has The meeting concluded with votes Wyatt on Wednesday, December 13, and the Accounts included therein lost so many valuable helpers in the of thanks to Messrs. Percy Smith. at 8.80 p.m. In the Hongkong Univer and to give a very short account of course of the year but I feel con- Seth and Fleming, Hon.. Auditors.sity Union Assembly Room. All in- my stewardship during the past year, fident that the younger generation the Press and the President

-terested are welcome.....

records

One of the most historic which has been moved to safety is the original of King Edward's abdict- tion broadcast.

COMING to the KING'S

The World Renowned Violinist

TAMQIL GOLDWYN

M

Garcha HEIFETZ THEY SHALL HAVE MUSIC!

WATCH FOR THE OPENING DATE

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