1949-12-24 — Page 11

:

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1949.

Those unjustified sneers at the man

VINBURNE By Hum

phoy Hare Witherby 15s. 216 pages.

R

ARELY hns man been BO scurvily treated by history as Theodoro Watta-Dunton. What is the of this supposed crime amiable literary solicitor?

That he clipped the wings of one of the cagles of song. That he reformed Swin- burne's genius to the ac- cepted m standards of

a middle class,' the Victo That he sostituted for the w life in which inspira- tion is supposed to thrive, the prim monasticism of No 2. The Pines. Putney.

How, the blographers have tasked themselves fraignantly, could Swinburne have allowed this

profaning decline into domestic tranquillity? In what consisted the "rattlesnake fascination of "the old horror of Puthey" (Watts-Dunton)?

The whole storm of abuse and sneers in which Humphrey Hare

who saved Swinburne

NEWS BOOKS

the

But

CEORGE MALCOLM THOMSON

+

botiled ale

for Jolas is completely unjustified, mubstituted Swinburne's poetic gift had brandy.

It was

auth- no doubt an itself out before the

climax as if ari unfinished burnt Futney plays began,

tragedy by Marlowe had been Would it have been better if completed by Mr Attlee.

who the only people he had died, like his scandalous friend,

artist. Simeon suffer because of it are Swin- Solomon, of chronic alcoholism burne's blographers, who ind that their final chapters are in St Giles Workhouse?

inmo. That Or, like his even more sinister unconscionably

Howell, in a may be why they are annoyed. sono guiter with his throat cut acquaintance,

Humphrey Hare's life of the between his poct is a lively, revealing pieco and a sovereign clenched teeth?

of writing. Buh oh, what a price! Swinburne was heading in

direction. Perhaps THE some such he would have died of his own hand after receiving some com- munication from a blackmailer, From all that Watta-Dunton saved him.

black- He bought off the mailers. Ho put a stop to those

A establish visits to "Mrs ment in the Euston Rond. He

FROM HERE AND THERE:

BEND. OF THE RIVER. By Godfred Winn Hutchinson. 12.. 6d. 232 pages. WHEN a man reaches forty.

he has come to the bend of the river. It is time to pause and take stock. Hence Godfrey Winn's title.

They Plan To Write On

Whales' Backs

American playwright IRWIN SHAW,

Let nobody suppose, however that he has suddenly become pompous. Not at all. And so far from pausing to take stock, the book is mainly an account of a hurried four of America- and of the people thai Winn Ins been meeting.

He has the Rood photo- Krapher's knack of catching his silter in A characteristic

to talk on paper.

moral

condemnation.

"With

my mother, red hair sually meant that sho' was engaged to a foreigner": that is the tone.

Allco's young man is stolen by her older, Joveller sister, Sonta: Allen slicka pins in a plasticine model of Sonia and marries Д natural platinum biond named Cassius.

With a husband whose hair is that colour, nobody can be surprised when. Allee takes up old enough to be with Felix, her mother's lover and bad- tempered enough to be her Inther.

Nor is it a shock that Fellx Anally beats Alice up. Why he has to fly into a blazing_angs before. performing one of the few. zutional acts in the whole novel, I cannot think..

Helped by the bump on her head, Alice malcez her first serious effort to grapple with life. After making a success on the West End singe, she loses memory. This ia garded an unspeakably sad."

But there is a lot to be said for forgetting what Alice has to remember.

her

“ཧ་

Recommended to the Nancy Mitford public.

stable.

Ploneers” Stamp

4 AIR MAIL

161

UNITED STATUS POSTANEJ

the airmail

new lamp

This American lesued on December 17 in commemoration of the Wright Brothers' first flight Kafa In 1903. It want on first at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where the fight. took place.

London Express Service)

Secret of ship in bottle is revealed

WITH the aid of a book just

W published.

and

THE YOUNG LIONS. By Irwin Shaw, Cape. 158. 665 pages.

and a lot of

BIG, A

lough, American patience, you can achieve the repair leaks; Broadway's most attitude.

"miracle" of He has the good journalist's soldier's novel. Not so old sallorman's blatant skysign, a waterfail, has been furned off; bars are put-eye for a "story." He has his foul-mouthed as The Naked and a full-rigged ship in a bottle.

The book, Ships in Bottles ting up posters

saying "Con-own enviable gift of being able the Dead, but out of the same

(Percival Marshall and Co., 38, serve water: drink our beer m-

The lives of three men meet.R. H. Biggs.

is by J.F. Lauder ed.). whales longer is there any need to guess stend:" people are being urged

No danger of this rasy bordelaise nicans. The take a shower or bath only what

Most people know that the narrative crumbling into mere though they are scarcely inter- Christian Diesel, 1 waiter will bring along a moder- every other day. But still the

sequence of anecdotes Winn's locked, named the reservoir levela are dropping excitable and confiding

"decent" Nazi; Nonh Acker-ships are "flat" when put into nisel stereoscope

nature,

and the rigging is the bottles. 750,000,000 gallons

American every retaining Vinnd visualiser". And by nick- by

Jew and then gently raised the boyish

of man, an zest

by pulling Michael show the day.

Whitacre, a stage ing a switch he can

the under-forties, carries the

on fine threads. manager at odds with his wife.

But render on.

of the here ore nome customer t-up sikles with shave pictures of the dimensional

As the end of the war comes realistic dishes of the day,

nearer, the trio meet in a forest, you can almost watch the butter

Chistian kills

Noah. Michael melting

Finish.

Whit OTTAWA; which swarm into Hudson Bay in summer are to be branded in indelible ink in an effort to learn the winter. where they spend This difficult project is to be un- dertaken by the Canadian Gov- ernment's Fisheries Department, They plan to use long sweep nets, 3,000 to 4,000 feet in length. When the whales come into Manitoba harbour with the tide, boats will drag the nets behind them forcing them towards the mud flats on the shore. They

in

Be

"Beefcake Boys"

In Honour of A Rescua

ROME: Countess Anfuso gave

Now Species

WASHINGTON: Baby silters

by the employed

Koverament are available now to all married But the workers civil servants will not ask for baby silters. HOLLYWOOD: Hollywood's The Government Insist on call will go to almost any length to plan to tienet women audiences try them "Child monitors."

void becoming entangled

end up on the by what they call "etcake". the nets so will

advertising of shoreline and as the tide cedes which conaista

pletures which show the manly leave them high and dry.

heroes

bare-chested poses, cause they are actually mam-

the calendar people mala they can breathe on shore

And one of the 1950 There, scientists will mark each

munalve- feature young whale with indelible ink. Information to be placed on each would Include alze, date of tag- ging and place. Then, when they are caught at some future date,

Changes that the scientists will know how

place in New York much they have grown meantime, the illstance they because the city is running out have travelled and where they of water-buses, taxis ond cars because 1 go after leaving the Bay.

are getting shubby

Stereoscopic

in the

has given

an isten. enlendurs museled pin-up boys

Short Of Water

NEW YORK: are taking

ALICE. By Elizabeth Eliot. Cassell. 8.. 6d. 216 pages.

HERE is Rood fun, lieve is a new recrult for the platoon of satirical Indies, Here, beneath the demure pratile is a not-so- gentle debunking of the British innded gentry.

The alleged absurdity, delin- quency and mental instability an enormous cocktail, pusty art of this former ruling group is

celebrate the reseus exposed Capri to

been

of a little dog which had nuspended for three days on a bush on a precipitous cliff face. the The dog had fallen down

CT ond landed in an inaccor alble bush between the villa of Axel Munthe and the Baths of Tiberius. While the whole the anxiously awaited Island dog's fate, rescue parties in-

brigade,

made cluding a fre

rescue it. leave the fruitless attempts

is against the law to wash them; dentists по longer

NEW YORK: Menus which enable you to see what you are Roing to eat are to be adopteri by some New York restaurants. No to sumtion people who do not brought the dog safely back.

water running in those basins Finally an Alpine climber. An- beside their chairs; snoopers tonio Di Paggaro, offered to try. descent perilous are making house-to-house calls and after #

10

everything

Siva!

kills Christian.

Before that foot Acune, we have read. in effect,

three novels,

officer's

peculiar

into the book gives.

A piece of deal from an old or the firewood packing case Flore is best for the hull of the Uny ship.

for

A putty 'ROD' Orange sucks, match sticks The Germans section- Christian's Talr with his or splinters from an old box-

wife in wood ruler make the masta. Berlin; his moral decay-ace a

White cotton is used rigging and

for real imaginative feat.

lashings. The grimness of war

the Art book of exceptional power.

paper cut from border of a magazine will make The soils.

in

---(London Expren Servies}

TALIBERARY LIIS T

• Thai's Mo, Ali Oper. By Cornella Vits Skinner: Constable, TO: 12 je.

A collection of the gayest non- sense, in which wa glance at many of life's more alarming numenia, from the inconveniences of having

■ baby to the tortures (for a male) of buying a botila of pertume.

• "The Windom of faruel. Antbo- logy by Lewh Browne: Michael Joseph, 128, 04.: 120 pages,

From the Talmud to the story of the two rival tradera.

"Where are you going 1 asked the first

VIGNETTES OF LIFE

'OHIT'S SO PRETTY... MATE TO OPEN IT!?"

"WELL, DON'T. THEN, PROBLY

A LOT BETTER OUTSIDE THAN IN,

ANYWAY!

I'm on my

way to Pink," id the second lo which the first answered: "You tell me you are #oing to Pinak because you want ma to believe you are going to Minsk, Dut I happen to know you really are going to Pinck, so why do you have to tell me a lie?

Family Trouble. By William McFeet Faber, tda. dd.; 200 pages The well-known Me, Spenlove unfolds for us the charncler of his neighbour, Jack Bannister, a man with family troubles.

London Krass Service.

I DIDN'T SEE ANY POINT IN WAITING UNTIL IT WAS

SOLD WHILE I TALKED JOUN INTO BUYING IT...SO I HAD IT SENT OUT ANYWAY!

fuse wire

Deck-houses and hatches can be made from match boxwood. The "sea" is putty or plasticine. wire. A A piece of stout safely razor binde and a child's paintbrush are among the tools needed.

Tip, for the beginner: When the boat is ready, have a dress rehearsal and pass through a hole in a piece of cardboard the size of the neck of the bottio.

Pull up the rigging without touching the model.

"DARLING.

WHAT A WONDERFUL SURPRICE FOR JOHN

-London Express Service)

STHEINR

MANUFACTURERS

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.

THE IDEAL GIFT

FOR ALL OCCASIONS

"Here It Comes Again"

BU REMP STARRETT

* HENRY! ARE YOU LISTENING TO M:3 I SAID, WHAT ARE, WE GOING TO GET FOR YOUR MOTHER FOR CHRISTMAS AND FOR MY MOTHER AND FOR JO... ANDET

NO! LETT

THE

LOOKIN

| BASEMENT.

THE VOICE OF EXPERIENCE.

SALE 30% off.

· THE LAD IN WHOM THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS LAYS LIKE A DUD FIRE - CRACKER... UNTIL THE NIGHT BEFORE THE GREAT DAY... THEN, CIDDENLY THE SPARK". GLOWS AND IT GOLS OFF IN YOUR FACE..HE WANTS TO KNOW WHAT YOU'VE DONE ABOUT GIFTC AID CARDS AND DRAGS HOME AN EXTRA TREE.

I SAM."

THE ONLY TIME IN THE SCHOOL YEAR WHEN THE KIDS GET OUT": OF BED UNDER

THEIR OWN STEAM!

AYOTHER CHRISTMAS PROBLEM: HOW TO BIY. AGIFT THAT LOOKS. LIKE TWENTY BICKS" MONTI FOR A DOLLAR: NIJETY-EIGHT.

"LOOK? {"

FOUND TWO DOZEN MORE

CARDS

WE'VE HAD EM FOR TEN YEARS AT LEAST. ALL NOU HAVE TO DO

IS CHANGE

THE DATES!

·SOME GALS MAKE SURE, WELL IN ADVANCE, THAT THE CHRISTMAS SHOPPING IS DONE IN TIME,

Ledger Syndicate IT SAVES LAMENTABLE MISTAKES... LIKE GETTING

COSTUME JEWELRY OR A NEW TOASTER

ALL THE PREPARATION NEEDED IS TO SEE THAT THE ISIT HAC ROOM ENOUGH TO ACCOMMODATE A REALLY

NOBLE AEAL.

"DO YOU SUPPOSE YOUR

UNCLE TOM'D LIKE THESE CHOPSTICKS... YOU BEVER USE THEM...

"THEY'RE THE ORES, AUNT BEE GAVE YOU FOR CHRISTALAS IN

1920-REMEMBER.

•WIEN SUE

CAME BACK FROM

PROBLER

ANTOIGI

AS A

TWENTY-

CENT

CHINA

TEAK

TREASURE

DESPERATION

'MUMMY I GUESS I DONT (

WANT DOLLS AND

STUFF AFTER ALL I WANT

12.19

ETHE LAST MINUTE CHANGE OR MID+A DECIDING ON A LOT OF THINGS NOU DIDN'T GET AND NOTHING YOU DID BIN FORTER SET