1947-11-22 — Page 6

8

'Spud Patrol' highlights the Rural

Racketeers

By JAMES BARTLETT

LONDON.

21

FIREWOOD: "He offered" me HROUGH frosty country price for the trees as they stood-u lanes police patrols are price that made my hair stand on out again on a strange end. But those trees were here in For the first time my grandfather's time,' I said. 'They will be here in my grandson's lime," You should have seen him laugh. Then he turned round and offered me £30 for my wood pile not worth £20. I tool; that."

new hunt:

organised crime is stretching from the towns to the country- side.

In the past few weeks lorries of potato-stealing gangs have rumbled off the main ronds in the small hours to lond

up newly bagged potatoes from the farmers' fields.

In Shropshire, for example, potato patrols were out from

NUMBER PLATE:

"They stop-

ped by the farm gate in a brand

-new truck and asked me if I wanted three coses of Scotch at 70s. a bottle, i laughed. Then as they went off i saw that their number plate was hinged." [False numbers, let down over the original plates, make pur- a dilleull.)

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1947.

POSTSCRIPT TO THE GREAT RACE

BY. GILE

Hol Mother was going to have a new hạt, everybody was going to have now boots--

If father's cert' had won the Cambridgeshire.

10 p.m. The mounted police at £50 BULLOCK: "There certainly KASHMIR, where new Shrewsbury said: "If any area rucket. Overnight I have lost gebs overrun with racketeora a bullock worth

£50. It is ro

the must have been taken into a lorry,"

thousands

have joined the army of India's

we shall switch mobile rein- were in the discret. Obviously wanderers --- the great human problem

to help out forcements isolated constable in his lage."

☆

This is not a local alfair.

vil- TRACTOR: "I had always left the tractor in the field, but never A few weeks back I found pal.

It

is happening in all the rural

areas.

it standing there without any wheels. They had been stolen for the value of the tyres."

"I have heard

that my

They We always

In this winter of 1947 NUTS: Britain is facing a new social walnuts were stolen by a couple of phenomenon the racketeer go- young fellows with sacks, ing rustic. The corner boy is finding more money around the farm than around the barrow. Potatoes, pigs, poultry, fire wood-everything that is short these days is helping the rural racketeers make hay.

it

drove up in a Buick.

This year all kinds of Christrans used to keep our own walnuts for people are looking in to buy them at 55, a pound."

course, some £40 PICS: "01 farmers are selling breeding plgs- although it is illegal-because they are being offered such fantastle prices. But even poor pigs with no breeding future at all are selling for very well they You know £40. will fetch even more fancy prices

that's hotels-but

the spivs' at

worry."

ure

getting

ofa

sub-continent

in upheaval

There

by

WHAT KIND OF A FARE

ARE YOU?

By "T.K."

WHAT kind of a fare are you? A survey of the

W

opinions of some of the 1,000 conductors of the Colony's transportation system shows that 30 percent of fares nre "irritants". Running an inadequate transport service, the conductors, when approached on the subject, named some of the types of passengers who tax their nerves.

Right on top of their hate parade are the Katecrashers, literally, who, using strong-arm- methods, forcibly board already overcrowded buses and trams. Some even gain access by climbing through the windows. This overloading of vehicles, besides being dangerous, slows up the work of the conductors, who are forced to worm their way around.

Running a close second are feminine shoppers, who will wait till the peak hours before they amble on to packed vehicles with parcels in their arins and half a dozen children trailing after them.

"If they must do their shopping, why don't they Anish it early and go home before the rush hours?" naked the conductors."

No less annoying are the "country bumpkins' who arrive in Hongkong with an encumbrance of worldly possessions-bamboo poles and all. Besides obstructing others, their blind poking with the poles starts numerous quarrels, said the conductor friends,

JAMES CAMERON

were 21 places

and 20,000 fighting

to get

AMBALA.

aboard.

British Channel Island Lines- There

Was a moment

Smokers are as annoying to other passengera ns to conduciors. The gentleman, - looking prosperous smoking the best imported cheroot, fills the whole vehicle with the foul smell of the most exquisite tobacco. The lady behind doesn't like it and tells the gentleman what he could do with his smoke. Then

Then the cun

ductor has un argument on his hands.

Worse still, smokers might Pakistan is losing all its clerks drop ashes on the heads of other travellers or Even accidentally burn GEO (who

and Hindus)

getting

such their clothing. In

circum- countless extra peasants. India is stances, sometimes more than hot

and craftsmen words ensue. losing agrikulturista

(who are largely Moslem) and getting in such untold multitudes of! superabundantly inflated burcau- cracy as this cannot possibly absorb. Thesa

Border towns like Amritsar, Jul lundor, or Sialkot today resemble

something contrived to a lunatic sociologist as an example of urban chuos.

con-

The "bah wongs" are not hated most by the conductors, curiously. toughs, who threaten ductors with physical violence if they are asked to pay for their ride, According to the are disappearing.

on a marked conductors, there has

and decrease in the number of

to

prosecutions nuisances lately due

the police courts. However, . And all day the monstrous con-

there aro still a number who turn gestion is increased by the new

the other bullock wagons,

way and felgn Innocence arrivals In

when harassed fare collectors come camels, in buses and trafas, and on Wher foot, ZRO2°C and more always on around.

foot.

of heart situation.

As Nehru tas

asked for

נס

Spitting is termed "a very Althy

habit by the conductors. But

It would not be altogether fair when asked what they were doing to blame the Government of India in the way of checking it, the can- It is a race for them against

that there พูดง replied for the confused and miserable ductors growing shortage in the

often nothing much they could do besides towns. They are after the

S we came in over the nir- bringing the wild fancy beating danger when the tail held pointed out, this sort of thing would willing the offenders to spit out of

the windows instead. have taxed even a well-established potatoes at the moment because

strip at Sargodah in the Would a party of pale-faced down, bounding und struggling. Government to the limit, and it was

The over-excited gentleman who cord violently when Jerks the solid patch, holiday-makers climb out blink- Then morning. 1

the bell we managed to pull up, not he who

a divided K main crops are being lifted and

the bus is still many, many yards It is a

tyres smoking, half öff the strip. country. bagged in the fields.

LOST SHEEP: "Up here in Lei- like a vast white handkerchief ing, and ask for St Helier?

from his stop is frowned upon, as Each arrival started a new ganga below, broke up into 20,000 in-

Is Late planting cestershire we

driver nt a a quandary as to More luggage had to be letti- For good or ill this country-and the poor crop.

him. human pieces and tumult among the refugees. · A

what

is being conveyed to out went more bedding- Pakistan no less-is faced with a through floods, then the long sneaking in overnight and taking dividual

unnecessary away cattle in lorries. Formers have

new impulse of optimism scat coned:

problem of rehabilitation that would This practice sommer drought, means that been telling me in Markel Har-surged across the dusty field.

them pattering along beside the reils and trunt, despite the bitter crush and break any land but India, stopping and delay, thus putting the that mitc sheep

off schedule. their ownoTY. all day for plane even before the brakes cries of All night and

In where life is counted Britain will be about 2,000,000 berough market

Looked upon with equal in- Aung himself at a sulicase, it isn't many days before that the re-

dug riches in halfpence. another-and

who were put on.

dignation are the "Jumpers" tons short on last year's supply, have been taken from one farm, 12

sheep from

We fugees had been waiting jam-

madly inside 1. was dragged back their straying;. question of

board and alight before vehicles are conductors grasping one shoe.

standstill. The 4 be the victims of black market men packed together in a sprawling

cannot understand why people risk stocking up or Caristmas."

shanty town of lean-tos and

Co our passongers crawled out, of their necks in this manner. tents on the edge of the air-

-the uircraft- al-Ambulu- here, all. field.

The potato this winter is remartie as a good money-maler by e gangs which store these stolen sacks. Already the shortage is hitting the towns. A new notice in 250 Lyons fea-hops said: "We regret we are

*

✰

only able to serve a half-partion of cannot compare in scope with

pulatung." in Manchester green- grocers began rationing their cus tomers.

All this bad news of shortages makes good reading for the rocke- teers, Bul potatoes are only, one of their

frum money-making! lines country to town.

*

*

WHAT else is there? Farmers have

revealed the clues in this wide spread country crime. This is what they said:-

RIME among the country barns crime among the city warehouses, Even so, it is growing far beyond the control of the country police, strict who cannot hope to keep watch over wide rural areas.

Food shortage is at the bottom of this national social phenomenon of 1947. A few more years of queues at the green-grocers', the butchers', and the bacon counter must strung- the crime out of town,

The

on

the

village policeman bicycle will be a tragi-comic figure then. The need will be for a rural Flying Squad.

BY THE WAY

by Beachcomber

VENTREGUENNE! Palsan but vital,

Bravis,

When they heard the noise of our engines they broke through the perimeter like confetti in a gale, scampering, pushing, capering, waving,

For hours the problem went on of sorting out from, the mass the few

who could travel, There was a priority list of some kind: it was quickly lost or forgotten or abandoned.

for 24

One

in lakhy and

Only two left

It

Causey

We tried again. Mercifully the runway was 2,500-yards, and, we...) needed every List foot of it. The walling done, all repining past, to

a homeland that they suddenly and On every vehicle, provision

airfield sank and diminished, litter- ed with broken luggage and scatter- ed belongings.

far the Arst time to be their home.

hood

Without

made for

certuin

Is

number

of

out the last two, an standing passengers, and straps are So it goes on, some days better old man with a baby in his arms, provided. However, the conductors a smile or a tear, with encounter many who like to prove he Newton's laws of motion by refusing thon that, some worse. The alr neither thanks nor regrets,

to hang on to the straps, hus, when The car come to a standstill, these ex- in- perimentalists bounce from ene he might now be asked to do,

knock- evacuation scrapes only the thinnest bat on the hot ground among the

dignant passenger to another, top skin of the great exodus, those swirls of dust and waited for what

He had lost his wife, his son, ing off hats, sticking elbows into with much money and those with little money whoare, nevertheless,

toes. h15 daughter, and thla Way stomachs and stepping on

often leads to unpleasant in- ready to spend what they have and and hostages to fortune if the killings left these two, the old man end the

baby. start again.

lose all they own to avoid being his daughter's child here with him This

1:0w. of the family there were cldents.

Pull and Graft ALL the factors of pull and Somehow we dropped the graft and baksheesh had Dakota on to the runway with- gone to its manufacture. A day out chewing anyone up in the or two ago the price of pity on When we climbed the mercy plane hud stood at propellers. out they were 50 deep round around 1,000 rupees the aircraft and still coming. single sent plus the fare of 100

It felt like Lindbergh arriv-.

When the refugees sensed the ing in Paris-except that no- inevitable moment of indecision body cheered or spoke. They the silence broke. There rose a

there wordlessly, clamour and a ory, just stood

and the with that silent, searching In- bearded Sikh and the mild dian stare, neither hopeful nor Hindu pressed forward in hopeless, tens of thousands of fearsome competition of en them, and one 21-seater air- treaty, protest, grovelling, vast convoys across the Punjab,

craft,

*.

The air evacuation from these West Punjab airfields goes on daily in an effort to speed up -human, dynamic Vita this enormous mass migration guienne! Morgulenne! What hor, a tiny pulse beat in his

When the Captain saw before winter comes. has become of the 74,000,000, wrist, and he swallowed heavily dollars? Riddle me that, me fine like a man who has shaved in too economist! Man-hours, work- large a mouthful. Across the floor Then fo

по hours, staggered ragamadolio, his eyes sought hors

moved towards her, An whe በዚ

cram me

sald

This one

to the extent of £684,981,2ng the money he had lavished on her.

"Tolstoy and you!”

rupees.

21

A minor "irritant" is the fellow who remembers that all he has on his person, when he is asked for 1 'left them altiing there by them- his fare, la a $100 note. The con- Millions Move

relves, the silent sythesis of the ductors say it is most difficult to the pitiful eternity. of India, the count change when, on top of

the vehiclo MEANWHILE the rest, the poor ignorance of age and the helpless jostling of the crowd, MA

en-aways from side to side. The waste and the lardless, the old and the ness of youth, the tireless

and the delay caused are still crawling young, are

in their durance, the patience that goes un of time

and on for ever,

bullock cart.

truculence, cringing, praying, weeping, threatening, & dread plodding along at the speed of the ful lowest common denominator of abasement and despair.

Onc earavun, 45,000 strong, is to Amritsar. Forty-five passed Rukhanwala

more just

And then the panic-stricken going dilumma of selecting 30lb. only thousand more from each man's assortment of into India, with 40,000 tan trunks, boxes, holdalls, sew- behind, Ferry planes

'ing machines. It is hard in-

As they grind on their numbers Exhaustion and discase deed to leave home for ever diminish. PLANES chartered - by

with 30lb. only; at a moment's are doing now what the dacolla and under the sky on an airfield you will never see again.

ald

Jave

the Indian Government from and tumble-cum-trivy can all be trying, on one of the bits of felt all the domestic airlines and notice to abandon all you own maruuderu no longer do. traced in the files, but where are phinted

Two and a half miäion Hindus the 74,000,000 dollars?

the house.

he muttered in her now several from B.O.A.C., are Aha! Where did they go! ear.

She turned to him coldly, ferrying back and forth across:

The thing rapidly built up to and Sikhs have already moved out Korean cheese? Almat petrol "I am not buying a defni," sha the Pakistan frontier-Delhi to

a crescendo of hysteria; of of West Pakistan Into East Punjab. "You never do,"

million Moslems Oh, potted turkey?

sold the Lahore, to Multan, to Lyallpur, pleas, stratagems, and force. Three with eels and stuff mo with card Captain, with bitter memories of to Mainwali, for up to pockets While the crew were struggling migrated the reverse way. More board sausage! "Lay off

in the North-West Frontier, at the door another half-dozen than a million and a half Hindus over the rich, neglected, for leadlike tin trunks would be cast over, and two and a half million Sikis are s.ill to be brought "Poal the Паук one

£08,714,298,148,368," erles another.

Jorn. strife-racked Punjab aboard, in the midst of shrill Moslems are waiting over North Oh, rivot me with little wooden There was fog along the river, plains.

dobato: I am a Government India, to be transported to their and carry me out in page

Foy over tower and tree, Baskell

"I promised land. WHERE ARE THE

Each one picks up its hand- servant. I demand, 74,000,000 COLLARS?

ful from the great scared multi- am the father of nine children, tude of Hindus and Sikhs, cut Bahib-bave mercy. ́.

Two stowaways would be off by the tide of arbitrary

found concealed in the toilet, a These people that State making. Brighton macecouzaa Is to be believe themselves, with reason, boy discovered trying to hide in rolled in reminds me that if you to be in mortal danger because the undercarriage housing.

of way sooth

Little Bo-Pest

DAD-DY, is it true that a Trede

Un-i-on-lat said

Fog in my eyes and fog in my

Acart, When Tolstoy came to me,

In passing

sho that mines need more wor-kers and not long or hours?

Yen.

THE announcement

KO A

little

"}

which

com-

What a fantasy of arithmellel The Governments of both

India and Pakistan.agree on one thing, perlingo the only thing on couple shúfile has got to be they do agree that this gigantic pleted in six weeks if winter, fatigue, raninutrition, and debilita-

road with another terrible crop of merifiers to theological polities. waited among the FINALLY the plane was full,

the door was forced shut And what is everyone going to do nt course I one, and the outlines of the ditches crowd tho planes began to ar-

gets

wherever IL and causaways can still be traced, rive Deccan Airways, Bharat against outstretched handfuls when he although they are now invisible. Line, Air Services of India, of hundred-rupee notes. Then she is going? Both sides wit have

people without 1obs and jobs with Only the passion of my readers then a smart silver Douglas the engine roared and we ground out-prople. But it is not as almpio for Neolithle earthworks

with a new name on its sido down the concrete,

no that. -in-to buy one of the now. hats to mention.this-in an immits me

the they are what they aro-Hindus Trunks overboard ten are not to sow this pilgrims'

Well, why don't they usu train-ed for-eign min-ers?

Shl dear,

stand.

Stand you will bo walk and Sikhs. Grand more

ing on the alto of a Neolithic earth-

Recent excavations that the camp was a largo shown

you don't un-der- work.

dad-dy! Stap me, don't. Nor does an-y-bp-dy else.

Maison Richelieu

AND, who should noma dashing

have

As we

to

DAVID

obvious.

LANGDON CARTOON

"Change next stop for the Zoo; Freddy."