CLUB GOSSIP

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 10 September 1930, Page 8

CLUB GOSSIP

BY A LONDON CLUBMAN . HAPPINESS What is the principal concomitant of happiness? Certainly it is not wealth, for if one is rich and has not health how can he bo happy? There arc—l know many—people who, though poor, are happy, but what I should like to know is, how it is possible for one to be happy if. ovpn though ho'is sound in "wind and limb," he is forever face to face with penury? If wo know what, in the main, conduces to happiness, what is it which most makes for unhappiness? Is it bodily infirmity, or poverty, or unemployment, or degradation? Or is it Assistant-Bishop of Guildford declared the other day? "Tho greatest unhappiness in the world," said Dr. GoldingBird. "is loneliness," and, with a bluntness unusual to a bishop, ho continued, "the unfortunate part about it is that no one cares a damn whether you. are alive or whether you are dead, whether you are going to the devil or making a fight against him, whether you are rich or poor. Nobody cares a bit about you." True, very true, is this—of many unhappy souls. I have met some of them, and what I know of them and of their day-to-day lives, the dullness, the monotonoy, the heart-breaking solitariness, impels me to shudder Most of us are gregarious animals. We cultivate the association of our fellows, we love to hear ourselves, and others, talk, and we coldshoulder the folk who are unsociable, who love their own. company and would be alone." It may be that one of the reasons for the fashioning of Eve out of Adam's ribs was to give him companionship. ' , CHOICE OR CIRCUMSTANCE There are, of course, large numbers of people who choose to live alone and to themselves only. They find happiness in their silent communion with themselves, and they would not exchange their solitariness for the society of men or women. Others there are, in thousands, who are lonely by forco of circumstances. They, it seems to me, are the unhappiest of mortals. You can encounter them everywhere, in small towns as in London and other teeming contres. Hosts of them people cheap lodging-houses. It costs thorn little to feed their poor bodies, they seldom wear anything that is new, they spend their days aimlessly, longing for the night, that they may seek oblivion in sleep. Help would be resented, and sympathy would be hurtful. Distressing indeed,must it be to a sensitive sOul to realise that you are nought better than a bit of flotjfam on. the sea of life, and that "no one cares a damn" whether you float or whether you sink. LONDON'S LONELINESS . To very many, who are not Londoners by birth and upbringing'one of the loneliest places on earth is the most populous. That is not a paradox—it is a fact. Even,.many Londoners by adoption the Metropolis chills by what is regarded as its loneliness. London is so vast that it can never be regarded by them as their "home" town; neighbours . are strangers; that which may be characterised as "civic" pride has departed; and no longer does there exist the communal interest which manifests itself in small, self-contained centres. You may. live in a surbiirb, but after all is said and-done, what is the suburb to you? Its achievements, aims, and aispiraiions move you, not. You live in Richmond, .Putney, Balham, Dulwich, Kingston, or, elsewhere within touching distance, so to write, of London. Why? Because you earn your bread and butter, and, maybe, a little jam, in London, and; of course, you must sleep somewhere. So that, without exaggeration, it may be written that Surbiton, or Streatham, Tooting or Teddington, is for you and yours little, of anything, more than a "perch," as a dignitary of the Church oiice characterised a suburb to me. "There is no place so lonely as London. When Parliament is not sitting I feel far more lonely in London than I would in the middle of a moor," said a minor member of the Government, a Yorkshireman, recently. Tlie feeling is readily understandable. You "moon' 'about the streets, without a definite object in mind, you tire yourself bodily and mentally, and you exchange not a word with anyone save it is the waitress who serves you in. cafe' or the constable whom you aproach for information. You are merely an atom—one of millions. You do not know a soul !i you encounter in your days peregrinations, and no one is a whit more interested in you than he is in the mongrel who threads his way through the maze of London's traffic. CABIN BOY TO MILLIONAIRE A lad of 12 ran from his home in the North Country, and sailed the seas as a cabin boy. To-day he is Sir Walter Ruriicah,, a millionaire of 83, whose services to British shipping have been of immense importance and value. Mr Runciman was only 22 when he was given the command of a "clipper?" and becoming master of one ship, he became the owner of many vessels. Sir Walter is one of few living men who had personal experience of sailing craft in. the "sixties" of last century. Many stories of adventure does he tell. One of the vessels on which he was serving encountered a terrific gale in the Baltic. With another lad he was sent aloft to restow the top-gallant sail They returned to deck to tell the mate that something alive was clinging to the sail. They were ridiculed, an_d .again sent aloft,, to discover that in the sail was a large - eagle, which had sought refuge from the gale. The eagle bit the lads severely and tore almost all their rig off their bodies, but they captured it. Those were days when ships were largely manned by "toughs." One of the sailing vessels on which "Sir Walter was the chief officer had a crew of real cutthroats. The young officer was addressed by one of the men impertinently, whereupon Sir Walter, who was adept with his fists, landed the sailor such a blow that he was incapacitated for a week. After the lapse of 66 years, in London, Sir Walter found himself attacked by a man who was bent upon snatching his watch. He, too, received a knock-out uppercut to the jaw, and that was the end of that experience. SERVED HIM RIGHT! I like a story told by an "Evening News" writer who happened to be an eye-witness of an incident which, even for London, was unusual. A straight military figure, with something old-fash-ioned about the cut of his clothes, was pacing steadily down the road when a small coupe crawled out of a side turning. A young man was driving and a pretty girl was at his side. The elderly

pedestrian did not turn his head nor hasten his walk, and the youth did not sound his horn nor stop. Each seemed to take it for granted that the other would give way. The wing of the little car just jumped the pedestrian's legs, causing him to stumble slightly. The youth did the unforgivable tiling—he smiled a broad smile. The elderly man turned, transferred his stick to his left hand, and opened the door of the car. Then he dealt the upturned, enquiring face of the driver a sound slap with the flat of his hand, closed the door, and continued his measured pacing down the road. The car stalled abruptly and the youth turned pink and white by turns. He half-opened the door and stuck a leg out; but the girl clung to him, protesting.