1940-12-19 — Page 14

Thursday,

HONGKONG TELEGRAPH

December 19, 1940.

GIFT

Euggestions

It's fun to give something out of the ordinary, something the others didn't think of and here are a few suggestive hints.

1. If he's a man of action, give him an action fit coat in suede or 'capeskin. lined with rayon body and sleeves." It's a gift of gifts for sporters.

2. If you're not sure of the best way to strike his or her fancy, play safe and send a Wing On gift certificate. The recipient presents the certificate to any Wing On store in China. chooses the things he or she wants, to the full value of the certificate.

3. Lamps are delightful presents for the house. The cheery glow of a taste- fully chosen lamp will be a constant reminder of the thoughtful giver. We have a score of interesting new models in stock.

THE WING ON CO., LTD.

The Complete Christmas Store

Our "Yuletide

Festivities

"

1940

GALA DINNER DANCES & XMAS LUNCHEON

CHRISTMAS EVE

BOXING NIGHT

HONGKONG HOTEL

.PHONE 30281

-Tues., Dec. 24th

Gala Dinner Dance Till 3 a.m. Dinner $8. After dinner cover charge $4.

Dinner Dance Till 2 a.m. Thurs., Dec. 26th Dinnor $7. After dinner cover charge $3.

CHRISTMAS NIGHT

PENINSULA HOTEL

PHONE 58081

Wed., Dec. 25th

Gala Dinner Dance Till 2 a.m. Dinner $7. After dinner cover charge $3.

REPULSE BAY HOTEL

CHRISTMAS DAY

PHONE 27775 -Wed., Dec. 25th

Special Luncheon 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Por cover $4.50.

Have you made your reservations?

AT THESE ESTABLISHMENTS

NEW YEAR'S EVE CARNIVALS TILL 3 A.M. A REMINDER TO BOOK YOUR TABLES NOW.

THE HONGKONG & SHANGHAI HOTELS, LTD.

Count the "TELEGRAPHS" everywhere

UFS

ONCE AMERICAN- --- British gunners aboard one of the 50, destroyers turned over to England by U. S. sight American" Browning gun for anti-aircraft use. Destroyers are now being refilted in British ports.

DEFEATISM RIFE

many.

IN GERMANY

HEAD LIBRARIAN SLEEPS WITH

His 500,000 Books

IN the quiet of St James's-square there sits a man who, bombed out of his own home in the suburbs of London, has the | harassing job of preserving intact the 500,000 books in the world's

most famous subscription library-the London Library.

Mr C. J. Purnell, librarian, has been there for 35 years. He was deputy-librarian when, in the last win, an A.A. shell crashed into the building and fell on the one spot where it could do virtually no damage.

"Death Or Blindness" Baby Dies

Mr Purnell rose from his desk) and fetched the old shell out of ncupboard when I called on him, writes a London correspon- dent. Meanwhile - ho... went on telling me how, when finally he had to leave his own house, he and his wife came to live in' aj flat behind the London Library.} -

Many of the 500,000 books in the library are Irreplaceable. About 150 of the rarest have been sent to a safe place. But around the hundreds of thousands which remain-beautiful, of Chicago, were faced with the expensive, rare books--the bombs fall problem of choosing between nightly.

her life or her sight.

On The Job

Mr Purnell now sleeps on the

TWO years ago the parents of fire-weeks-old Helaine Colan,

They left the choice to a jury

premises. Two members of his staff of 12 doctors, who decided to are always on duty in the building, save her life at the risk of her They take it in turns to guard from sight. fre by night the books, which they cherish by day,

A £200,000 X-ray machine-the largest in the world-was used for The library needs all the care an operation. on

her eyes,

whicht they gave it. On two nights ર were affected by a growth. shower of incendiary bombs, fell dun- gerously near. One fell on the roof of the flat which Mr Purnell and his wife occupy.

Every morning the staff gather up the pleces of shrapnel and shell splinters which have fallen on he roof. One freak splinter dived Into bay, bounced off a sill, and crashed through a window. It did no dam age. I was shown the largest missile which has hit the library during this war-a sturdy plece of steel which became embedded in the roof.

Bright Idea

I

But despite the efforts of specini- sis, and scientists Helaino went blind. She had lost her first battle.

Support

People from all over the world wrote to the parents supporting the decision of saving her life.

Helen Keller, frumpus in American literary circles in spite of her handi- caps of being blind and deaf, wrote:

The

child has every right to a flahting chance,

Blindness is not the greatest evil-only a physical handicap which. Helaine's mind can overcome."

A PICTURE of a weary nation in Germany is painted by Richard Boyer, correspondent of the New York newspaper. "P.M.,” One excellent notion Mr Purnell in the first of a series of articles entitled “Victorious Germany-has had he has covered the glass

Parents Planned Land of Gloom," which he has written since returning from Ger- skylights over the central stack of

books with a number of sheet steel Plans were made for Helaine'si

tho shelves which were not being used, future. ut gradually

tiny "At the crest of the wave of German success on June 28, it is a clever device to protect slop-flicker of life went out, arrived in Munich. Instead of celebrating, the people were uning skylights.

The child for whom millions of mistakably sad and quiet, and weary of the victory bells which

mothers had prayed had lost her last rang from noon and acquired the sound of a funeral dirge when one looked at the pinched and tired faces of the Germans.

"There were no cheers when

the troops passed by. When I expressed surprise at this, one German impatiently said, "We celebrated once in 1914."

I found that the Nazis take it for grunted that Germany will invade Russia in 1941, and also that high officials believe that war with the United States is inevitable...

"I found food so deflelent in

Chief Petty

Officer And

Tobacco

Frederick Stanley Toms, of

Mr Purnell smiled, when I 'asked battle, him it he did not feel a shade harassed under the weight of his newest responsibillies. It's no good worrying about it," Is all he said,

He should know. When a bomb demolished a wall hundreds of feet away from his home, a 7lb. chunk of brickwork, seared over a house and crashed through his roof. He was standing in a bedroom-watch- Ing the fun"—and it fell within a foot of him.

الله

German Propaganda In U.S.

Mr. Wright Patman, Democra tie representative for Texas, has asked the Dies Committee which

100 Years Old

The library which he guards is years old..

activities to inquire into the ac- |tivities of Carl Byolr, who is There is plenty of optimism about nileged to be the highest-paid the future of the library. Mr Pur- He-was-given-a-chief-petty-nell told me of an old lady who had

German-propagandist in Ameri- in Germany is the dead listlessness officer's pension, and they were just taken out a life subscription for ca. which is spreading like a plague and glad to make him a storekeeper her grandson, aged 21! And he told Infecting increasing numbers within the naval barracks. defcatism. If the contagion is not halted Germany itself, even in vic- tory, may go the of France.

way

quality and quantity," continues Mr Moor View, Honery, Plymstock, unique. Next year it will be 100 is investigating un-American Boyer, "that army doctors declare retired from the Navy after that new recruits show signs of twenty-two years' service with weakness until they are built up by an exemplary record.

army

The most

The

most surprbing development

"For ten days before leaving Ber-

the

me, too, of the subscriber living In Mr Patman, according to a He bought a £300 car.

Cyprus who wrote in June asking for New York message, says that A

books. His letter arrived in Sep- Byoir, who is a lieutenant- month ago he was driving it tember 2 when

were books near his house when two men promptly dispatched!

colonel in the reserve, received halled him.

£27,000 in the past 18 months.

Byoir compiled booklets for the Nazi Government, and shortly after he

that become associated with Government Nazi propaganda came over by every boat, it was alleged.

Hired By Nazis

lin I sat in bomb-proof shelters, Never have I seen a people with less

What happened then was described clan, with more real depression of by Mr. B. M. Stephenson at Plympton spirit. It was not fear, but some-(Dovon) Police Court recently when thing deeper, which is what gave Frederick Stanley Toms stood in the the mild bombings of Berlin an im-dock. portance out of all proportion to the Customs damuge done.

The two men, he sald, were

officers, of the special inquiry staff

Laif from London.

Greatest Air V.C.

Of Last War

"I know these are serious charges, but I can substantiate them,” con- tinued · Mr Patman, "Byoir hired by, Germany to distribute Nazl

Was

They Fear Winter

They asked Toms if he had any "Sometimes I would any, to them: goods on which the proper duty had "Cheer

up, the war will soon be not been paid, and he said he had. over, and they would reply: 'Oh, no. They found packages containing Navy America and we will have another tobacco and periques (tobacco made terrible winter."

up like a sausage and wrapped in AIR MARSHAL BILLY propagando."

BISHOP, V.C., D.S.O., M.C., House Searched

D.F.C.. greatest fighter pilot have seized books and papers at the Investigator of the Dies Committee The officers told him they proposed that the last war produced, now New York offices of the Trans-ocean

"Then I'd say to them:

Your hessian). papers say you are defeating Britain," which they replied contemptu-

'Oh, the papers."

ta

to search his house and he raised no

of

pust

"When I left Germany it was like objection. They found more tobacco a director of Canada's great Air The child for whom millions leaving e prison. Many Germans there. called and asked me to perform, small

Force training scheme, has ar News Service, which was described services for them when I got out- In a shed filled up as a tobacco rived in England at the invitans a German propaganda bureau. Dr. alde. They

factory were a bench showing signstion of the Air Ministry. begged for food, for

cutting operations, four- stamps. One woman said: Take me

many teen partly-mado periques, a damp- with you. Hide me in your trunk, do anything

the way he spoke.”

of

Zapp, a leading official of this or Iganisation, has been ordered to pro-.

He said that R.A.F. officers duce the books to the committee

ing board saturated with nicotine, with brilliant records have been forthwith. and other thing".

drafted to Canada, where they are teaching fighter-pilots-to-be

the latest tactics of aerial war- Bomb Cured

fare, learned in the great battle of Britain.

"Hitler Is Worried"

Another examination of the car dis "More than once Germans sald, closed under the back seat a concealed referring to Hitler's last speech: tray, empty but for a scrap of loose He's worried, you can tell that by tobacco stem. Toms denied he had

"Official Germany is also worried.ever carried tobacco in it.

This car has now been seized, and They predicted that the war would will be retained by the Customs," off for his sight

Until a few hours before he took be over in three weeks. This phase sald Mr Stephenson.

to England, Air proved a boomerang, and now the The amicere also examined a car observers and air gunners who will Marshal Bishop was inspecting pilots, same officials are explaining that Toms had previously a/med. They soon be taking part in the fight!. Germany is Oghting the world's found that a box which was in the against Germany,

strongest

hard strugglere, necessitating

a

"For the first time Germona, beran

to feel that Hitler has slipped up. Every day of British t.

never be over. We shall have a ter rible winter-no food or heat, and bombing every night.",

garage showed signs of having been carried under its bonnet.

The expanded Royal Canadian Air Force now numbers about 23,000 of-

Paralysed Woman

Miss Lily Townsend, an un-

wth in a very serious case,” said |ficers and men. Eventually the to7/omployed milliner," of Randolph

without

and

causes more Germans to say: 'It wih advantage of his position to get be used for the defence of Canada:ther left arm last February. by a

tobacco out of the dockyard paying duty fis

many others will go to Britain: fall, Now she has been cured by Toms pleaded guilty. His cour

ja bomb, V. counsel said he had already been punished by

Short Training.

To help Westminster Hospital, the loss of his job and his car.is

Billy Bishop said: "The training where she was treated, she sells Thanks For The Buggy Customs charges, and a further £5 blaen short, it more Townsend was pinning a flag on

But he was fined £225 on the itself has It may be por-ags in the streets. Recently, Miss Ride 1

possummons for being in anlawful will be able to provide the pilots is cute, wher violently to the possession of Government stores.

and threw her Latextin alt-down strikes (from

the crow might any

an toox- haustible supply of them,

ground. |America, of course): Mrs Nellie & MS

Westminster Back again in They are grand type of young Kaminsky, of Philadelphia, parked WAR OFFICE COLLECTS herself in her, “husband's car" and

magnificent. They are keen, Hospital, the found on regaining her they are mad on flying thousand senses that she could move her loft would not get out till he had 4,600 MOTOR-CYCLES

Badmode Lor- ibem, ali barwling for a crack at arm. promised to pay her. £2 10s. a week.

In three weeks, 4,000 solo motor. Hilder, or anybody who representa An official at the hospital She took her six-months-old son

"Surgeons have come to the "GOD- John

along with hor. Neighbours cycles and 800 combination machines him pergolden fed her, resisted attempts to move asked for by the War Office have In the last war Billy Bishop made clusion that the paralysis was due to the car

been supplied and are all at work on name byword by his brillant, an adhesion, and that in her fall She stayed, there for three days, national defence, an

and daring exploits. Officially he is when the bomb burst, she unoon - She won. But her husband is uf Half the number camo from private knowledged to have brought down selously used her paralysed arm to employed, and still in't sure that owners add the others from trade 70 German planes more than was enve herself and so cured the he'll keep tupo ta

stocks

credited to any other pllot. Medias | Jury,"

E