1941-03-01 — Page 10

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ANTHROPOLOGY ILLUSTRATED

1000

Saturday,

HONGKONG TELEGRAPH

March 1, 1941.

By BILLIKEN

"This is all wrong!

H.B.)

"The International Congress of Anthropologists; after serious consideration of this fine selection of Germans, could not

find any objection to the Aryan's claim as a superior race."

THE WAR HAS

PLACED EDIN-

BURGH ON THE COS-

MOPOLITAN MAP. In peace-time, as every- body knows, she is a grey, somewhat sober- sided city of church. spires and wide avenues. But war and its in- fluences have poured a whole palette of colours into her Presbyterian vistas.

Edinburgh

in

War-Time

by

Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah

the noted Muslim author

Street Gardens.

tyres and bringing the Nazi machine to a standstill. The variety of Edinburgh's war work is extraordinary. It extends to practically every department of bellicose ef- fort. Of course, many of the menfolk are in the Army; most of those who are not are in the Home Guard, for practically every man in the Old Town has 'been a soldier at some time

of his life.

These dark closes and

:

get a working woman in the Royal Mile started on the subject of Hitler and the -war-and-listen!-It-is-an education in vituperative oratory!

One night I succeeded in posts in an Edinburgh suburb. While I was there, a raid signal

penetrating to one of the A.R.P.

Darkness. sets in quickly tre of the room and radiate alleys of the picturesque "Royal Mile" are indeed the in these Northern latitudes gaiety. The radio plays a breeding-ground of count- and getting around in the crooning American obligato less fighting men. Their in- thick black-out and heavy to the hum of conversation. habitants have been fighting. fogs seem just a little more In the cocktail bars, too, a since the days of Bannock- The place is packed difficult in Edinburgh than grave brightness prevails, burn and Flodden, and have elsewhere. The place gives There is a marked absence liked it. And the women with strangers as per the impression of a great of hectic frivolity. Many of are quite as militant. Just haps no other British town of its size-Czechs, Poles, French, Austra- lians, New Zealanders. Thousands of non-com- batants from London

The City Chambers is the gulf of unrelieved gloom, these young fellows faced nucleus of all social work have sought refugesinking down, ever down-death last night and will connected with the war. there, and room and ward, from the heights of face it to-morrow' night, From this active centre the ancient castle-a reef in somewhere above the Firth countless committees radiate hotel accommodation is the ocean of the night-to of Forth or over the adjoin- to every part of the town's boundaries, and indeed much taxed to the uttermost. the depths of the Princes ing countryside. The little further abroad. The A.R.P. coloured glasses are not too in Edinburgh is indeed a often replenished. The talk model institution. But there is one But it is a gloom not un- salient difference be-relieved. The bright lights is mostly "shop". But when tween the Edinburgh of of the little restaurants-girls are of the party there the Great War and the carefully obscured--are is silence of war topics. Edinburgh of this. The blazing somewhere among "They never speak about Edinburgh of 1914-15 the forest of darkness, little the war," any Edinburgh hivo broke into activity. Steel fireflies under jungle foliage. girl will tell you. "You can't and waterproofs pulled over helmets were clapped on heads was a city of "whoopee". The Londoner might con-wring a single word out of shoulders, and men and women Never exactly a temper sider them a trifle staid and them about France or Dun- rushed out into the night to ascertain whether any damage ance centre, it "rolled

cold, these small caravan-kirk. When you try to, they had been done in their particular out the barrel" with a

serais, but they have a cer-only grin. Of course, no district. vengeance. The lounges tain decorous vivacity, and one ever dreams of pumping The raid was soon over and of the great hotels, you can encounter types them about anything that we returned to the post. Two swarmed with well-there out of the banished isn't over and done with". started, while others smoked

bridge-parties groomed officers on the folk of Europe.

But the girls, too, are and chatted. One young fellow look-out for amusement.

cordion. A grey-headed veteran But to-day the spirit. That tall, dark fellow with frightfully in carnest about about seventeen played an ac- the upturned moustache who the war. Uniform is, of entertained us with tales of the of excess is certainly not fostered by the New is peeling off his long, fawn-course, the chief wear with Great War. Sandwiches the coloured overcoat is a Polish them, and there is not much coffee from thermos flasks were The policeman Army or by the Navy airman on short leave, out lipstick about these Edin-landed 'round. The play-boy and the for a night's diversion. The burgh lasses of 1941, and on the beat looked in and told maker of whoopee have round-headed man with the certainly no war-paint, or been brought down "somewhere not been cast for parts glittering eyes, seated at the any other species of cosme- in Fife" this time. The war has next table, is a refugee

Yes, the war has stirred Edin- burgh down to its marrow-bones. come to Edinburgh's Czech doctor doing good And how about the toiling As one Ginsgow man said to mo: front-door and it has at one of the military cen- who dwell on the huddled Edinburgh's bolled shirt". It work as an Army sawbones masses of the city, those "It's taken the starch out of discovered the Easttres in Scotland. Two naval heights of the old town? has certainly done away with Coast Scot for what he commanders with their gay, Well, they are just as keen some of the shyness in the Edin- is a dour and deter-brightly dressed ladies oc-as their neighbours on the people have mistaken for aloof- burgh system. which Bome mined fighter.

cupy a table in the very cen- subject of slashing Hitler's ness or social superiority.

tie.

sounded. Immediately the whole

were nt once

us that one of the raiders had

8

But- H.B.'s all right!"

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