LONDON TOPICS

Evening Star, Issue 21253, 7 November 1932, Page 12

LONDON TOPICS

GENEVA MISFORTUNES [Tvou Ouu Correspondent.] September 22. Just at the moment nothing is going well with the League of Nations. Its ( main objective is the abolition of war, and, so far as the suppression of armaments is the first step towards that goal, the omens are grimly unfavourable. The Disarmament Conference looks very like being shipwrecked before it is launched. On top of this we have, in the urgent manifestos by the League Loans Committee, a grave reminder that its efforts to assist international finance are in deadly peril. Over eighty millions sterling have been loaned to indigent States under the aegis of Geneva, half of that sum being subscribed by British investors, but all the beneficiaries are now in default except Dantzig and Estonia. However much scope there may be in the realm of international disarmament for a game of ‘‘ let’s pretend/’ there is no elbow room for such artifices in finance. And finance may yet prove, to Geneva, as explosive as guncotton. - PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. My American friends are still cautious in their forecasts of the Presidential election. Their saying that the Democrats have a genius for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory may be justified on this occasion. The vote of New York State is an important factor, and Mr Roosevelt, as a popular ex-Go-vernor, would have had a strong chance of securing its support but for the complications arising out of his having ordered the prosecution of Mayor “ Jimmy ”• Walker. That has probably forfeited the goodwill of Tammany Hall, which, whatever its faults, is ruefully admitted even by its opponents to bo a most formidable electioneering machine. Even allowing for that, the chances seem to he in favour of the Democrats, especially as their programme on Prohibition is rather more “ moist ” than that of the Republicans, and they have all the advantages of attack. MUITSAI. What a lot of bother it will spare the British Government if the Chinese really do decide to abolish the muitsai system. Muitsai is generally interpreted here as “ slave-girl.” and the fact that muitsai are frequently to be found in the households, of Chinese in Hongkong is the continual cause of outcry on the part of our social reformers against the laxity of British administration in the island. As a matter of fact, this form of slavery, if it may be called that at all, is far from being as objectionable as it sounds. In a country of such widespread destitution and starvation as China, the purchase by the well-to-do of the daughters of the lowly is more likely to be a blessing than an evil. The system is open to abuse undoubtedly, but in the vast majority of instances the girls are well cared for. Though they are expected to serve as hand maidens, they are generally looked upon as being adopted by flic family that has bought thfin. The muitsai system is centuries old. and 1 should much doubt whether_ the present National Government will be able to enforce the decree if it orders its abolition. DR JOAN’S WEDDING. Despite rather damping weather, the wedding of the Prime Minister’s second daughter. Miss .loan MacDonald, M.D., was quite a brilliant and picturesque affair. And one noted bow character-istic,-illy its aura was part patrician and part democratic. There were important people down from Loudon and bumble fishermen specially invited from Lossiemouth. A bunch of lucky white heather. carried by the very animated and

dainty bride, was presented by the landlady of the local inn, and Dr Joan’s note of grateful acknowledgment was displayed proudly in the bar parlour. The officiating minister, a tall, weatherbeaten Highlander, who travelled specially from the north to wed the first Prime Minister’s daughter married from Chequers, imparted a sort of Thrums touch to the English setting, and the Prime Minister gave his daughter away with that distinguished air that never fails him on important occasions. SIR HENRY SIMSON, While the country has been deeply shocked by the death of Sir Henry Simson, those who knew him most intimately are by no means surprised that his end should have come in such a sudden and dramatic manner. For years he suffered from a weak heart, and little more than a year ago he was in such a serious condition that his friends in the profession had small hope of his recovery. The danger to himself in the circumstances of performing a major operation was very great, as, in addition to the prodigious nerve strain involved, the anwsthetic-laden atmosphere around the operating table has perforce a most trying effect upon the heart. Sir Henry not only had the honour of bringing more famous children into the world than any other living member of his profession, but was also acknowledged to bo the doctor with the “ ideal bedside manner.” He was a most lovable man, not only in the sick room and hospital, but in every walk of private life. His death has been a stunning blow to his wife (formerly Miss Lena Ashwell), for the two were a devoted couple, sharing, as far as duty permitted, in the quiet joys and unpretentious pleasures of the country homo at Walton Heath. FORGOTTEN WORTHY. Napoleons of industry and princes of commerce are even more quickly forgotten than other'at one time famous people. Andrew Carnegie’s name is to some extent perpetuated by his largesse of free libraries and other benefactions, but very few of the wealthiest millionaires are remembered after their demise. Even the obituary notices of that great scientist Sir Ronald Ross, whose campaign against the malaria mosquito almost entitles him to rank with Lister, the pioneer of anaesthetics, made no allusion to a once famous shipping magnate whoso interest and money greatlyassisted Sir Ronald’s earliest labours. This was Sir Alfred L. Jones, a former head of the Elder Dempster line, and a household name in Liverpool during his successful business career. Sir Alfred|s life was strictly according to romantic tradition. He started as an office boy with the proverbial 2d in his pocket, and became one of the foremost shipping magnates of his time. He realised what Sir Ranald’s scientific investigations meant to the fever-stricken West Coast of Africa and he was a staunch and generous patron of the School of Tropical Medicine. It was to Sir Alfred Jones moreover that we owe the popularisation in this country of the cheap banana which before his day was a rare and costly exotic. AFTER HOMER. Friends and admirers of the Poet Laureate are enthusiastic about his ‘ Tale of Troy.’ Even admitting that the work is essentially a recitative rather than a purely literary gesture, however, unprejudiced readers find it hard to justify Mr Masefield’s daring excursion’into the Olympian, pastures of Homer, ft is rather like trying to rewrite and remodel ‘Hamlet.’ The theme is an attractive one, but its potentialities have been exhausted for all time by the pioneer inspiration of classic genius. It is oven less profitable to glean after Homer (ban to try to do so after the combined efforts of Omar Khayyam and Edward Fitzgerald. Richard Lo Gallienno many years ago set out to rewrite Omar, and produced a very plausible volume of poetry. But very few people protended at the time that the ambitious author of the new version had justified his optimism. There is much really notable poetry and fine imagery strewn about the pages of ‘ A Talc of Troy,’ hut the effort to give modernity to the world’s oldest literary classic is, for most readers, a profound mistake. Our present Poet Laureate's memory will survive, so fains it may, not on this Homeric adventure, but on the strength of such fresh and poetic inspiration as he drew from

his early apprenticeship to the modern sea and its tall ships. LORD OXFORD’S BRIDGE. Mr Cyril Asquith’s life of his illustrious father will probably be the most notable of a spate of important biographies. From the published excerpts it is astonishing to learn that the late Lord Oxford not only consented to play bridge, but shared a rather prevalent weakness for not being dummy. More astonishing still is the fact that he had an incorrigible habit , of overcalling his hand to that end. Mr Cyril Asquith tells us that, if he was successful in these rash ventures, he acclaimed it a’ triumph of serpentine strategy. If, as usually occurred, disaster resulted, his partner had to draw what consolation he might from the standard formula: “ We had to do it—they would have gone out!” Nobody who knew Lord Oxford only as a politician and lawyer would have imagined him ovorcalling his hand at anything.

The late Lord Birkenhead was another bridge player whose partners had to be prepared for shocks. He called high and played none too well, and was, asG result, a pretty heavy loser. Lord Oxford’s bridge, however, was restricted to the domestic card table and low points, which makes all the difference in the two cases. Mr Cyril Asquith also reveals that his father, despite his prodigious devotion to the serious work of life, found time to become a fair exponent at billiards. I wonder whether he ever tried conclusions, in a hundred up, with Mr John Burns, who has for years been one of the regular habitues of the N.L.C. billiard room? As a final unsuspected “human” touch in the late Lord Oxford, whom the world saw as an intellectual superman remote from suburban foibles, we are informed that he had a passion for setting off fireworks. THE BIBLE AND THE WORLD. When it is remembered that throughout European and Asiatic Russia the importation, printing, and even reading of the iliblo is forbidden, the fact that the British and Foreign Bible Society has distributed more than 10,500,000 volumes during the year shows that there is no falling off in world popularity of the Scriptures. The popular version of the report is always a work that repays reading; it tells you so many surprising things about the little-known quarters of the globe. The Bible goes everywhere, and its appeal to the human heart appears to be much tlie same whether among the Cbukgeo nomads of the frozen far north-east, or among the pygmies of the African jungle. The most amazing thing is that the society is able to spread the message in the tongues of all the tribes that go to the making of man kind. Primitive languages are naturally very localised in their vocabularies, and the problem of how to express the beauty of the Gospels in the lew words used by an Eskimo or by a native of New Guinea, would seem to be insoluble.- The society has, however, : succeeded to the extent of now supply i lug the Iliblo in G 35 languages. | JAMES. i The pair of giant tortoises from the Aldabra Islands, presented to the LonI don Zoo by Vice-admiral Fullerton,

will add new interest to their section of the Regent’s Park collection. Both the male and female are fine specimens, measuring over 3ft across their shells, and the gentleman is a strong, silent tortoise, which appears to recognise himself when addressed as “ James.” 1 have not yet heard what age these new arrivals are. Tortoises carry an infallible birthday book about with them. Experts can compute how many years they have been more or less alive by examining their shell-making. Even in the case of a coquettish female tortoises, of ostensibly uncertain age, deceit is impossible. The connoisseur in tortoises can reckon up the damning total of years as readily as a forestry expert reads the age of a tree trunk. It is unlikely, however, that these Aldabra emigrants have anything like the hoary antiquity of the Zoo’s veteran tortoise which died—probably in a fit of absent-mindedness —just after the war. He was actually nibbling carrots before Shakespeare wrote ‘ Hamlet.’ ITALY’S LUXURY LINER. To Italy will, now belong the honour ot possessing the largest passenger steamship launched since tlie war. This is the Navigazione Generate Italian’s liner Rex, which is to set out on her maiden voyage from Genoa to New York next week. Though the crossing from the Mediterranean port to America is, iof course, considerably longer than the more northerly route followed by British, German and French liners, the Rex will place the Italian company in a fair way to compete for the “ blue riband ” of the Atlantic. With a displacement of over 50,000 tons, she has a speed exceeding twenty-seven knots, and will perform the voyage from port to port, including calls at Nice and Gibraltar, in six and a-half days. The Rex, moreover, is a super-luxury liner, fitted with theatre and cinema, swimming pool, and “ Lido,” to say nothing of the more usual features of lavishly-appointed saloons, lounges, and sun verandahs. MILK IN PAPER BAGS. White the Ministry of Agriculture is still hopeful that a compromise in the milk dispute will ho reached before the end of the month, the feeling of the farming community in general appears to be one of eagerness to come to grips with the distributors. It is an old, deep-seated enmity, but this year the farmers feel more confident than formerly ot being able to defy the organisation of the distributors This, 1 believe, is largely due to the success which has attended the efforts of a number of producers to supply their milk direct to consumers in paper bottles. In Loudon this direct supply milk has met with rapidly increasing popularity during the past few mouths, housewives appreciating the convenience and cleanliness of these sealed cartons, which can he thrown away as soon as Iheir contents have been used How long it would take to organise an adequate delivery service in this way is a matter which is at present receiving the consideration of the National Farmers’ Union.