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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1950-02-16, Page 7Scholarship Pays Off—Say you're a student in a certain school on New York's lust Side and you got grades of 90 or more, or just B -plus or better. Run your report caret over to ice cream dealer Sam Miller and pick up, free, a half Dint of frozen custard. If yotir grades are lower, you get the cold shoulder. Miller is seen doing a rushing business after posting his sign offering ice crea:tn awards for scholars. Boxers Who ` .ake un All Gat.ers In Britain from Portsmouth to Uiverness and from Cardiff to Hull, -on every fairground of any size the caravans pull in and the canvas theatre' is set up, with its boxing - ring insider'.Then, over the blaring music of the fair, over the shouted invitations of other showmen, the age-old challenge to all comers is repeated again and again. The boxers are on view, standing n line or f i i a platform outside • the booth, lending point to the barker's reiterated phrases: "Any weight from seven stone to fourteen! Pick your own maul." The charge for admission is small, .generally a shilling, but even then It is difficult to get the fairgoers inside. until they have seen a con- testant come forward. However, the delay is seldom a long one nowadays. Young men who have boxed in the Forces are always eager to "have a go." Be- sides, every town and village has its favourite local boxer, who can gen- erally be relied on to .acceept the challenge. As soon as a fight has been arranged the paybox becomes busy and the shillings flow in. Seats are seldom provided, and the grass of .the fairground field is, the theatre's floor. In the centre the boxing -ring is roped off, and the crowd stands around it. With many ceremonial phrases the contestants are introduced, and the bell rings. Long experience and continual pradtice give .the booth boxer an Initial advantage. Also, he knows and has to know, every trick of the fighting trade. True, he may face a top -rank amateur in need of a little practice—and that night's pay will be hard-earned. But generally he is on his feet at the and, For if the booth boxer loses too many fights, SAL, Y3.ftkff$ "'You can put a lock on the ice box, Mother, sf'-^r we're married." or is often keocked out, he ceases to be a booth boxer. It is a hard life by any standard. Yet men stay in it 'and like it. Joe Beckett,. later in the championship class, was a booth boxer for years. Jack Lockyer tools on all comers at fairs until he was long past fifty, Red Pullen, a welterweight, has boxed with a Wood's saloon for twenty years, and is still going strong. TheyTh - e a that habit becomes sec and nature, and that may be the secret. Certainly my own first booth encounter was with a grizzled, fat- tish man nearly twice my age, writes Jim Phelan in "Answers." His midriff region looked so soft that it seemed a .shame to take the five pounds. When he concentrated on .covering that soft spot, leaving his jaw unprotected, I pitied the poor, fat, old man. But I smote that uncovered jaw nevertheless. Nothing happened, and I smashed at the wideopen point again. He still hung back, covering his vulner- able mid-region, and it was plain that -he dared not risk even one punch on his solar -plexus. Where- upon I myself risked everything in one terrific slain at the rock -like jaw. Justbeforethe punch landed I saw a knowing glint in his hard, small eyes. That time he did leave his midriff unprotected. But I didn't know anything about that until after I came roared. He knew no better move, that grizzled man, and it sexved hhn well in a hundred different fairgrounds. Night after night that unprotected jaw lured strong young boxers, as a I had been lured, into the all -or - nothing venture that ends with the monotonous chanting of ". , , seven —eight—nine—out." But what kind of courage must it take to go on doing that for years in the fairgroulnds up and down the country? It is. difficult even to guess why men stay in such an occupation. Money is not the answer --the booth boxers seldom get any large sums.. Norit is mere love of fightin, either on the part of the booth boxer or of the man who accepts his challenge, That type would not last long. There is something deeper, per- haps resembling the snap -and -slash play of dogs or foxes, which to really a training for the bigger struggles of life. Certainly it needs a vast reserve of courage to face a different crowd each night with the offer to take on all comers. To take on all comers—it isnot a bad slogan, for a man or a nation. Do Their Dancingg On Their Knees Goulinline, a former Foreign Le- gion outpost on the southernmost fringe of Morocco, is tie only place in the world where the ghedra is being danced. And the ghedra is probably the only dance in exist- ence during which the dancer ' re- mains on her knees, without moving legs or feet, I was recently staying at Gouli- mine as guest of the French Com- manding Officer, and on my second night my host arranged the ghedra, the dancethat travelled t t I had t ave led pun- dreds of miles to see, writes Ron Landau in "London Calling." We were about a dozen Europeans, chiefly French officers and their wives, and after a ceremonial din- ner at the officers' mess, we moved into an adjoining reception room to await the dancers. It was nearly midnight when they arrived—tiny, dark women, exquis- itely dressed in floating, night -blue robes that covered them from head to foot. Though by profession they -ranked not so much as dancers as courtesans, they behaved with the dignity of duchesses, and moved with the grace of gazelles. There were about twenty of them, and as soon as they had shaken hands with us, they let themselves glide onto the cushions prepared for them on the ground. Meanwhile, in frorit of the dancers a semi -circle of mussiciani—fortned, magnificent - looking Blue -men, with the eyes of hawks and the faces of eagles. Goulimine is the heart of the Blue - men country, so called because of the exclusively blue garments worn by the population. Sometimes, the blue dye penetrates their skin, and gives them a dramatic appearance unlike that of any people I had ever seen. Though there were over a dozen of these men, only one of them played an instrument—namely.; the ghedra, a large, earthenware jar used as a drum. The other men were to provide the singing, and especially the hand -clapping which forms the main accompainment to most Berber dances. Each woman dances solo for about ten minutes, and is then re- placed by another one. Having re- moved her top garments, she now exposes the traditional silvery Jew- ellery that covers much of her front, and her complicated hair - dress of scores of little plaits, in which tiny jewels and ornaments have been entwined. Kneeling on the ground she dances chiefly with her arms, hands, and fingers in rapid, jerky, but beautifully sensitive movements that respond to each beat of the drum and of the clapping. Each new sound ushers in a new movement and a new pose of the dancer. You will naturally wish to know why the women crouch on the ground. The ghedra is essentially a love dance; originally it was danced by one woman for one particular man. Since the desert Berbers all lived—and, to some extent, still do —in tents that are low and not very spacious, there was not enough 'room for the woman either to stand up or to move about freely, and she was forced to remain kneeling on the ground. But because of these limitations, she put all her artistry into the movements of torso and hands, and I should be surprised if many tent - dwellers could ever resist those hypnotic staccatos of head and tor- so, and the evocative rhymn of those tiny, supersensitive fingers. ]Parted 25 Years Reunited By Radio (The author of this real-life story, Nina Epton, is in charge of D.B.C. broadcasts to French-speaking Can - ado, and here she tells how a chance encounter on an island in Quebec Province led to a blitzed Londoner being reunited by radio with the family that had brought bum up many years ago,) In radio, as in any other profes- sion, one can go plodding along at one's normal routine for weeks and even months without anything par- ticularly exciting to remember until, suddenly, the 'unexpected happens —the "highlight" of an unusual oc- casion, an .extra good "story," an encounter, perhaps, that makes you realize just how worthwhile the medium of broadcasting can be in helping to build up friendly inter- national relations. That is how I ani feeling at the moment of writing, after having organized a reunion between friends who have not seen each other for '25 years—one in London and the other on the Island of Orleans, in Quebec Province. It started while I was on a visit to 1' reach -speaking Canada, seeing some of the people I broadcast to nearly every evening in our London contribution to tine french "Actu� ality Review." Unspoiled Part of the Country Just before we left Quebec for a tour of the Island of Orleans, down stream in the middle of the wide St. Lawrence, one of the chief announcers stopped us to remind us "to be sure and call on M. Eudore Letourneau, in the Village of Ste. Famille. We called on him at the very last mihute,` because there had been so many other people to see on the island, which is perhaps one of the most unspoiled oilsd Parts of the county This it y near Quebec. s i sstl the romantic part of French Canada that has retained its old-world charm. It is only a few years since Orleans was joined to the mainland by a steel bridge, and that probably explains how the inhabitants have managed to keep up the old, French-Canadian traditions and way .of life. 1 arrived ono a bright, crisp, autumn day, and the maple leaves were flashing crimson between the fir and the spruce, almost the same color as the apples which Madame Letourneau was carefully polishing in the barn when we called. Her husband rushed out to greet us, very pleased to meet somebody from Great Britain. He said English visitors to the island were rare, very rare—in fact, the only English person he had ever seen on the island' was hls protege, a man called William Pearson, who had come to his farm as a boy and had grown up with his own family. He scribbled an address on a piece of paper: "Wil- liam Pearson, Reginald Road, Dept- ford, London." Could I, when I got back, find out what had become of hirci' Pearson had left the island years ago -25 years ago, to be precise. They had corresponded intermittently up to the Second World War, but, since then, there had been no news from Deptford. M. Letourneau was most anxious to know what had become of mon petit Anglais, as he called the now - mature William, and one of the first things I did when I got back to London was to try to locate him. To my delight, after a few inquiries, I found him. He had been blitzed, aR I had feared, and had sustained an injury to his spine which means that he can do only light work now. I wrote and asked him to come to the B.B.C. and discuss the possi- bility of broadcasting a message to Eudore Letourneau. I doubted, of course, whether he would be able to remember any of his French after such a long time, but perhaps, with a little coaching, he could read it short script. To my amazement, I discovered that William Pearson was perfectly capable, after a little preliminary discussion together, of broadcasting in French an unscripted interview with me about his memories of the Island of Orleans, ending up with a personal message for Eudore and his family, and he spoke French still with the accent peculiar to the island, I had cabled over to Can- ada before the broadcast so that Eudore Letourneau and all his friends oto the island were advised beforehand, and they all sat and listened in, as they wrote after- wards, "with the tears streaming clown our cheeks." Since that day, the two of theta are corresponding regularly again. Personally, I feel sure that William will manage to see his beloved island and adopted family again. With A Volcano Ones again Nature has declared war, On December 2nd, as dawn was breaking, Mount Etna erupted from new craters, and the people of Bronte found a stream of molten lava five hundred feet wide and twenty feet high advancing upon them at the rate of half -a -mile an hour. They knew that no power on earth could stop that advance, and they did the only possible thing. At ten o'clock that evening the town evacuated its 20,000 inhabl- tants. Eighty times since man started keeping records Etna has caused death and destruction. The last time was in 1928, when incandescent lava completely obliterated a railway and destroyed the towns of Hascati and Nuuziati. Living on the slope of a volcano must be like living in a house on a frontier and knowing that an enemy's entire heavy artillery is trained on the house. When hos- tilities break out you will be the first to be hit. Why do people live there, know- ing that at any moment they and their posseesions might be destroy- ed' One good reason is that the sides .,,of volcanoes are often the most fer- tile areas in the district. The slopes of Mount Etna, for instance, :are so fertile that as many as five crops are raised every year. There are between three and four � � R k ti •z. �Q ��. r xz �1 z ;may hundred active volcanoes in the world and the slopes of most of them are inhabited. In some cases the people know from past exper- ience that they will receive good, warning before an eruption, but in others they may have less than an hour to clear out with whatever val- uables they can take with thein. Vesuvius is one of the most un- predictable, In A.D. 79 it erupted so quickly and so fiercely that three towns—Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae—were completely destroyed. Pliny, commander of the Roman fleet, sailed at once to Herculaneum to try .to rescue survivors, but found the harbour completely chok-s: ed by ash and lava. He sailed on to Stabiae, only to find the population dead, suffocated by fumes. So well did Vesuvius do its work that all three towns were effectively buried in lave and ash, four hun- dred years later their very sites were forgotten and the stories of the eruption were treated as a le- gend They lay hidden until 1860. From that day in A.D. 79 Vesu- vius was quiescent, To all intents and purposes it was an extinct vol- cano, and towns and villages were built on the slopes while the people used to picnic on the lip of the huge brater. Then, 1,450 years later; in Decem- ber, 1631, it awakened. Without a moment's warning it erupted, and 18,000 people died. Since then there has hardly been a year when Vesuvius has not belch- ed flames and red-hot lava. In 1900 the explosion was so terrific that. 607 feet of the summit was blown off. The people of St. Pierre, on the slopes of 141ount Pelee, in Martini- que, hadplenty of warning buttook no notice of it. The volcano grumbl- ed for several days, and then cover- ed the town with a layer of fine ash. A few, days later it erupted, and 150 people lost their lives. Then a sister volcano on a near -by island erupted. The people of St. Pierre thought that the fireworks were over and continued their leisurely lives. But thirteen days after the first grumble, Mount Pelee exploded, and 40,000 people died before they could reach safety. Hes$ Way To Send Coins In A Letter .Next time you want to mail a quarter, dime or half -dollar to someone, you'll probably wonder j just how to do it. Many people use adhesive tape or Scotch tape to fasten the, coin to the letter. But an editor says: "Don't do it that way. Tape sticks to the coin and causes trouble. "Better way," he says, "is to wrap the coin in a piece of paper. Theon use transparent adhesive tape. The "'coin won't shake off or out." AC"`� gat• It's Cocoa Time—Belted and bloused, this pure silk shantung afternoon dress, done in warns cocoa with white embroidery, is shown in the French design- er's salon. The full skirt is topped by a belted blouse fea- turing the dropped shoulder line and full, long sleeve. Ten years ago a Dutch scientist, Professor S. W. Tromp, set out to prove water -divining was nonsense. Now he has published a 534 -page research report confirming the popu- lar belief that there is something in it, He thinks the power to detect underground water may depend ou the el-ctrical resistance of the skies. Diviners can increase their sensi- tivity by rinsing their hands in ssdt water. � Y t n .h x�. a � � � `'�•,�\ a ���, �, �a +i ate' ty�? i«raa+¢q.�,;,.,,�y�,yy}e�«.ne, usa.R,� . 7 h �43��,�3 �fi � :'�• What's Cookin' In TV—Mom can cook her hair and watch it on television at the sanne time, with this combination gas range and television set. Mrs. Bea Reeder, above, shows how the cook can stir up a delectable dish simply by following a step-by-step instructions on video. Closet Held A Fortune-- klilliouaire hw�ir:ry Ynanuiacturer Stan - tout Sanson and his wife, 1Vlaztins, look into the hall closet of their New York apartment from which thieves emptied eleven jewel cases white both were out. Mrs. Sanson, an enc -model, said it ww% a million -dollar laud, but poli.ce scaled the 9lguet dowst to i $l.