JEROME K. JEROME.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20069, 8 April 1927, Page 7

JEROME K. JEROME.

FREEDOM OF WALSALL ' THE NOVELIST’S “KNIGHTHOOD." (From Oub Own Correspondent.) LONDON, February 23. Mr Jerome K. Jerome, author of “Three Men in a Boat’’ and “The Passing of the Third Floor Back,” has received the “Freedom of the City” of Walsall. In acknowledging the presentation he gave some interesting details of hia life. “Many of niy literary friends,” he said, ‘‘are knights and baronets, and one of them will soon be made a lord, while others have received degrees of honour from hands of noble chancellors of universities and heads of Roy*! societies.' But I am the only literary man who has received his honour from the people. ‘This freedom of the city (or the borough)—it is the people’s knighthood, and I shall always be proud of my spurs. , “When sufficiently educated,” continued Mr Jerome, “I went as a clerk on the London and North-Western Railway at 10s a week. But youth is a discontented age. I ran away, and went upon the stage. My salary there —when I got it—was often 15s (a rise of 60 per cent., I believe). I might have become a matinee idol. But Fate preserved me. POCKET OF PAWN TICKETS.

“After a year or two I returned to London : this lime chiefly with pawn tickets in roy pocket, and, after searching for my living in various directions, became a journalist. Then I drifted into the writing of plays and books: and to that I owe this rod-letter day in my life. lam glad my guardian angel has led me through literature to the Freedom of the Borough of Walsall. "And so, after all my wanderings, I return to you the happy prodigal, and in the family circle 1 will conclude with a few words about ourselves. I remember my first day at school. Some of the boys gathered round me. and demanded to know where I was born, I told them Walsall. and added, for their information, that it was in Staffordshire. AN OLD COLOURED PRINT.

“A boy with a shrill voice sang out: ‘Oh. I know Walsall. Just the sort of place ho would bo born in. 1 But he didn't sav it as though be meant it as a compliment to cither Walsall or myself. It worried me, and I asked my father what, was wrong with Walsall. For answer he drew out a portfolio full of coloured prints, among them one of Walsall. It showed a pleasant town upon a hill. There were two churches and a pack-horse bridge across it winding stream, an almshouse, and a school surrounded by trees. All the houses had high gables and tall chimneys, and beyond were woods and heath land. And over all the sun was shining. CIVILISED INDUSTRIALISM,

“That old coloured print still lingers ia By memory; so that behind your teeming streets and roaring factories I seem to sea that goodly town upon the hill upon which the sun is shining. It may come again, the sunshine and the clean, bright streets, and the pleasant country round about. “There is no reason why industrialism should not become civilised. There is no reason why factories should be ugly. There is no reason why men and women should live in sordid streets. Science holds ouC t) us the hope that one day—it may come sooner than we think—we shall obtain our power and hont and light direct from the electricity in the air. and smoke and dirt bo banished from the land.”