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The Brussels Post, 1953-11-25, Page 6Prates Still Rove The Eastern ' Seas "Chinese pirates attacked the British steamer 'Wing Sang' in • Formosa Strait, the vessel's Mas- ter, Mr, Harold G. Goddard, re- ported today when the ship reach- ed Hong Hong," How many years ago, do you guess, that item made news? Two hundred? Fifty? It was this year —in June, 1933. Nor is the attack on the "Wing Sang" an isolated ease. Owners of shipping lines sailing Far East- ern routes can echo the story week by week. The presence of United Nations' ships and air fleets, operating in those waters, has not checked the pirates. Al- most daily their daring brings fresh peril to the crews and pas- sengers of peaceful vessels. The "Wing Sang" was machine- gunned: other craft have run a blockade of cannon fire. Piracy on the high seas in 1953 may sound imposible. But mar- ine insurance policies still cover it as a real risk in a special clause.- "Be it known that , , . we the .Assurers are contended to bear and do take upon us in this Voy- age . .. Fire, Enemies, Pirates, Rovers, Thieves, Jettisons SurpriseIs, Takings at Sea , Dusk was falling on a July evening two years ago as shots ripped across the motor vessel "Taluef," on its voyage from the port of Tsingtao to Foochow. An officer and a rating fell wounded in the volley. Vainly the radio officer tapped at his gear. The radio was shot away. With excited yells the pirates swarmed aboard their prize from their junk and took command at gun point. Into the darkness the "Taluei" was piloted to a secret hide-out, There part of the general cargo, all provisions, and all the crew's personal effects were looted. Days later the ship was releas- ed. Piracy of Captain Kidd days was echoed when a large motor junk let fly with machine-guns at the steamer "Nigelock" and then clsoed to fling grappling - irons aboard. British crew battled hand-to-hand with the invading Chinese who scrambled up the irons, Even when the enemy were repulsed, the master of the "Nige- lock" reported his ship was under fire for half an hour. Strong-arm aid sometimes comes from an unexpected quar- ter. For when the British coast- ing steamer "Lady Wollner," a motor vessel, was fired on and then boarded by pirates, a Chin- ese Nationalist gunboat raced to the rescue, There were no casualties and no cargo was broached, but be- fore the gunboat sent them scut- tling to shelter among the is- lands the pirates rifled the crew's personal belongings. Why doesn't some authority Mop this piracy? "Take a look at the map," said an engineer officer. "There's a lot of sea around there, There's a lot of China's coastline that isn't anybody's responsibility. And as for islands—all the way from Shanghai to Hong Kong the map looks as if someone had shaken Out pepper from a pot!" It is down that run, between the mainland and Formosa, where many pirates operate. Three junk - loads of them slid out of the jig- saw maze of marsh and islands to take their richest post-war prize. They boarded the Dutch steam- er "Van Ileum," smashed her radio, stripped crew, passengers ShovemOn Device Simplifies Adjusting Necklace Length' Bit EDNA MILES?' GwantE'IN(i a peeklace adjusted to ih�" ed• length without revealing how it's dou: is a problem,N Be- cause it's.a woman's problem, it.tookttl woman t(i• solve it. She is Judith McCann, who previously dreamed; up the revolutionagy'earrings that alt without pinching,or pres- sure. Her ,new indention is a device that shupi! shoves onh a necklace.. fastening it firmly In Place, With the shove -on device, a woman can make a neck- lace into a choker, if she likes, or wear it at any length tate prefers. She can change the length with the neck- lines of her various dresses and, further, find new ways 'to drape and fasten the necklace, Each necklace may be detached from' the shove -on de - ,vice and the device itself worn as a clip or hair ornament. 'Each necklace may double as a bracelet, Ornaments'have a custom-made look but actually are in the inediunt-price bracket. Compankm pieces to these necklaces are the earrings that even women with tiny lobes can wear with comfort, These are the only earrings that come in "lefts" and "rights" for perfect fit. Veda necklaces are en wined as hair ornament while single` 7> shove -on device, detached from Its necklace, becomes a otitis and safe of valuables and jewel- lery totalling $375,000. Their information is accurate, Halting one ship, the pirate chief asked for an American passenger by name. He was held to ransom. For 10,000 American dollars. They are up to all the tricks. Half -naked Chinese on a junk will shout for help, then open fire and board a vessel whose master slows to aid them. They will feign bad seamanship, and one junk of three or four "help- lessly" sails across the bows of a victim so that it has to slow down and become easy prey for the rest of the pirate fleet. Hardest trick of all to defeat is when the pirates sail on a steamer as paying passengers. As one captain recently in China waters explained: "We can- not search every man, woman and bundle that comes aboard for concealed arms. But this method is so often used that many vessels are now fitted with steel bulkheads so that all passengers are kept for'ard. "Only one guarded steel door allows communication." When the British steamer ."Hu- • peh" was rushed by a surprise at- tack of pirate passengers, an SOS appeal brought the New Zealand destroyer "Rotoiti" to her rescue. But by then the crew had regain- ed control, so there were pirate prisoners. In the past five years about 300 pirates have been captured, tried, and imprisoned. Those found guilty of murder have been executed. Yet still piracy flourishes. Be- hind the screaming, gun -mad roughnecks who do the work are business -like Chinese who deal in piracy as a profitable speculation. Without them and their money for junks, arms, and information, this thriving age-old crime would die out. But among the current Par Eastern unrest the heads of the pirate "firms" must rub their hands as they see their present success. TABLE TALI(S eJane AnaPews. One of these mornnings you'll see the date on a newspaper— or hear some newscaster on the radio—and all of a sudden you'll realize that Christmas is upon us —"and not a single thing done!" Well, thank goodness, those puddings really improve with age, so here are a couple of re- cipes—the first for the rich "old- fashioned" kind, the other for the lighter sort so many famil- ies seem to prefer nowadays. s 4 b PLUM PUDDING 1 lb, flour 1 lb. suet .ai ib. brown sugar 1 Ib. seeded raisins 2 ozs, sweet almonds (finely ..chopped) 4 cups soft breaderumbs Juice of one lemon A little salt 2 tablespoons baking powder 1 lb. currants 1 lb. sultana raisins Ib. mixed peel What .Makes Doggie Run? — That's what little Judy Boatman is learning as Harry Miller explains to her some of the features of 'Vesta," the world's first transparent dog. Miller, director of the Gaines Dog Research Center, which developed the plastic model, is helped in his lecture by Vesta, who was equipped by electron- ics experts with an intricate sound system which enables her to "talk" about herself for several minutes, each of her organs lighting up it is mentioned, Every detail of her body, including internal organs and muscular system, is faithfully reproduced in plastic. Modeled after a female Great Dane, Vesta is life-sized, being 51/2 feet long and 314 feet high. 4• Nutmeg to suit taste 6 or 8 eggs Milk sufficient to mix to right consistency Sift baking powder with flour; add suet, finely chopped bread crumbs, sugar, nutmeg and salt. Then add fruit, etc., leaving eggs to the last. Beat them well and add to mixture with lemon juice and milk, Boil for eight hours. Enough for four puddings, 9 9 LIGHT PLUM PUDDING 1 cup finely chopped suet 2 cups soft breaderumbs 34 cup flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder sifted to- gether 1 teaspoon nutmeg A little finely cut citron peel 3 eggs A little milk 1 eup brown sugar 1 eup raisins Combine ingredients same as for dark pudding. Steam four hours, Serves four. • Here is a hot mustard ,auce to serve with ham or frankfurters; if you like it with brisket or other seasonable cuts of beef, add a little salt to this recipe. HOT MUSTARD SAUCE li cup eider vinegar 1 tablespoon butter or mar- garine 1 egg, beaten 1 tablespoon stigar 2 tablespoons prepared mus- tard 1 teaspoon paprika Combine all ingredients Stir and cook over low heat until thickened. a a 9 An onion sauce 18 sometimes liked for meat. Here is a de- licious one. ONION SAUCE 2 onions, sliced 2 tablespoons sugar 1 tablespoon fat 1 tablespoon flour 1 cup beef bouillien 1 teaspoon vinegar 1 teaspoon paprika. Cook sliced onions and sugar in fat until onions are lightly browned. Stir in flour bouillon vinegar, and paprika. Stir and cook until smooth and thick. Add I teaspoon salt for meats requiring it, Crack - alined Ways Of Committing Suicide It was Mrs. Corea's birthday. So good-looking, genial George Corea, always a thoughtful hus- band, if a little eccentric, decided to buy het a nice new pair of red sandals. Home he went with them one evening a few weeks ago, to their fifteenth -floor fiat in a Manhattan skyscraper. But as soon as his smart and pretty young wife saw the san- dals, there was trouble, "Take them back to the shop first thing in the morning," she exclaimed crossly. "I hate the colour and won't wear them!" Then George saw red. Anger- ed by her attitude, he hurled the sandals through the window , , , and his horrified wife was too late to stop him as he leapt out after them. Such crack -brained suicides don't occur every day. But the records of coroners all over the world reveal some startling and original ways of committing.self- destruction, A determined New Yorker, who had been jilted by a pretty girl he planned to marry, de- cided that life had nothing else to offer him. But he could not make up his mind how to kill himself. So he first took poison, then cut his throat, and finally knot- ted a necktie round his neck — all while seated in an over -flow- ing bathtub, which would prob- ably have drowned him anyway if the poison hadn't done its work first. Returning to her home in Paris, Mme. Moreau fou -id her husband lying on the floor in agony. After his death, a doctor found that the man, who had been depressed for many months, had cut up a bath sponge into small piees which he had fried ina pan and then eaten! Or take the curious case of Marks The Spot — Charing Cross, a monument copied after one erected in the 13th century by England's Edward 1st to comma• morate his queen, Eteanor of Castile, was recently announced by the British Ministry of Trans. port as the official center of Lon- don, All mileages shown en sign• posts leading to the city are now to be figured from the monu- ment. James Bartle, a fifty -three-year- old man who was determined to save the police trouble in recov- ering his body from a reservoir near Rockdale, Lanes. He tied one end of a rope to his leg and the other to an iron fence before drowning himself. He also left a note stating where his body was to be found. The police had only to haul on the rope to recover it. At Innsbruck, a young tneatri- cai manager committed suicide before a mirror. It was clear that he had placed ,a chair opposite the glass in his bathroom into which he had looked, waiting for his death after taking a large amount of arsenic, Then there was the farmer in Spain who lost his wife and was so grief-stricken that he decid- ed he could no longer continue living. He took a chair and, plac- ing it beside his wife's grave, sat down and ate a baked apple which he had filled, with strych- nine. He died an hour later in great agony. Can a person commit suicide in sleep? It seems so, judging bythe story told at the inquest on a Bangor solicitor, It was sug- gested in evidence that hr cut his throat in his sleep. The man lived eighty minutes after the wound. He cried out to his wife and son, "Forgive me!" then, motioning for paper and pencil, he wrote:: '7 -dreamt that I had done it. I awoke to find it was indeed true." A ver- dict of suicide while temporarily insane was returned. Another man, whose body was Laken from the River Seine at Poissy, near Versailles, had his left wrist bound to the handle of a bicycle to which he was further held fast by a cord fast- ened to his belt. It was believed that aft"r mak- ing up his mind to end his life he rode full tilt into the water. People' who comniit suicide may be mentally unbalanced, but often they are normal folk driv- en riveen to their desperate course by worry. In that case, se)f-destrue- tion is a wasted life — for no problem Is so great, or worry so acute, that it cannot eventually be overcome, It is mistakenly believed by some that to commit suicide re- quires courage. That is utterly wrong. Suicide, after all, is the coward's way out, a selfish es- cape from troubles, usually tem- porary, with utter disregard for those left behind wife, hus- band, children — and thein ter- rible mental anguish. There is only one known in- stance of a man committing sui- cide in battle. He was Major Todd, the non of a butler, and he was serving under the Duke of Wellington in One Of the Pen- insular campaigns. Todd was famous for his skill as a bridge -maker, but one day a bridge he had erected chanced to break down under the weight of a gun it had never been con- structed to carry. The Duke abused Todd tor his carelessness. In the presence,. of some of his fellow officers, and then incensed ;the young man by saying;. "Are you now going to take up your father's trader" Next day an officer in com- mend of troops skirmishing with the French was amazed to see Todd obviously trying' to be shot by the air®my. He tried to save him, sayings "They can't miss you if you stay hore," But the young man, fired by the insults hurled at him the. night before, declared: "I don't want them fol" •--and rode with head high still nearer the French. Immediately afterwards he drop- Ded from his horse, riddled with bullets, Born Four Hundred Years Too Late , e . It is easy to imagine that James Robertson Jttstice was born four hundred years too late. With his six feet two inplies of brawn and enormous zest fOr living, he towers larger than life, a fabulous flgue stamped as a "character" or an eccentric. It seems fitting that such a man, who would surely have felt more at home with our beef -eating, sack -drinking an- cestors, should portray, In his latest role of Alm actor that unconventional character of the sixteenth century, Henry the Eighth, in Walt Disney's "The Sword and the Rose." • Disney was so impressed by the performances of Justice, Glynis Johns, and Richard 'Todd in this picture, that he decided to use the same three -star team in "Rob Roy," the choice for this year's Royal Film Performance.. For Justice, acting is only tile latest of sixty -odd professions, few: of • which can be . described as humdrum, . His blue eyes, looking out from a genial beard' • ed face, have seen adventure all Osier the globe while he work- ed as , gold -miner, coal -barge .mate, -racing=ear driver ice- rinle manager, soldier, police- man, lumberjack, truck -driver, schoolmaster, photographer, in- surance salesman, fruit farmer, ship's steward, and -news agency reporter, The last war, found him serv- ing in the Navy as an engineer officer, and in 1950 he was standing as a Socialist candi- date for the division of North Angus and Mearns, and aston- ishing even himself when he polled 8,304, votes. Born in Scotland, Justice was educated first at Marlborough College and then at Bonn Uni- versity, in Germany. This was in the twenties when duelling, though., ()facially banned, was a favourite . pastime among the German students, and Justice had a nerve-racking experience when he was called upon to fight a duel of honour. Only at the eleventh hour was he saved by another man making an apology. He can speak many languages. His Gaelic, French, German, Italian and Dutch are fluent, while his friends testify that he can swear competently in Turk- ish, Greek, Arabic, •: and the tongue of the Masai, . the 'tribe, of African lion -hunters, His pleasures are those of the countryman rather than the city dweller; falconry, shooting, fish- ing, and bird -watching, He has been ;shooting with Prince Phil= ip, and has a prized souvenir of a visit made to his home by ' the Duke and Princess Eliza- beth, before she became Queen. They both autographed his wall- paper! Music he enjoys, either from classical gramaphone records or from his own bagpipes. Theatres and night clubs do not appeal to him. He seems to find it difficult to keep out of the public eye. Re- cent newspaper items .have told Of the escape of his favourite eagle while on a training flight, and of his reasons for growing a beard, Typically, he defended his fa- cial: decoration by saying that if it grew there naturally. who was he to make so bold as to cut it off? He added that grow- ing a beard was also one of the few things that women couldn't do, and heaped to demonstrate the superiority of the male. Six years' ago Justice started on his latest career Of film act- or, After : a meeting with film director Harry Watt he was given a screen test at Ealing Studios on the strength of his appearanee and personality, It can be disturbing to work with the burly Scotsman. Qs'e» gory Peck was interrupted. when playing a scene for "David and Bathsheba" by Justice, who provided an uncalled-for ac- companiment on , the bagpipes, while technicians on the set of "The Sword and the Rose" felt uneasy when a young peregrine falcon darted murderous glances at them from the gauntleted fist of , "bluff, King: Hal,'.. where it sat ;every clay, Before shootiifg .began fort. the latter""film, Justice ;Wade a point' . of watching " 'Charles Fiauglitdn hi' the sante' rble, 'but did, not ..attempt toc-foliOwi' the Rmoµs! oharacterisatien, , rt nave, ,.Fny pwn, idaas,",, he saifl; A brave statement from a man 'who, until' fecently,'had neither 'stage training. nor stage ambitions of any' sort. - The statement was. „iustified. He preved a, "natural', fpr,;, the part. Just how natural can be judged from these lines which describe itim fairly accurately: "He was a brilliant scholar, an accomplished musician, and a versatile linguist, but he had not neglected the manly sports, being a keen follower of the hunt. Itis hair was auburn , he had a charming bearing." But the passage is not a des- cription of, James Robertson Justice, It is taken from a bio- graphy of King Henry the Eighth. - r Film -Stars Making With The Muscles Film companies, prompted by the box-office appeal of a decent- ly bared male torso, demand from their new leading men, not only acting ability, but bulging biceps and a stsetlig,ehest. The agniyj•n1 muscle -seeking film mal.,g iarhcreasing rapidly. Scores o : screen stars—and stage and radi • jiersohalities, too—have been bitten by the "big bleeps bug," and are taking regular work-outs with disc -loading bar- bells,° striving to gain that im- portant coating of solid muscle. Bernard Braden is one star who "muscles -up',' the bar -bell way. 4nfl.,acer ing to a recent maga- - sine ;trgoiineement, weights were recor;tinended to Braden by none other than Sir Lautrence Olivier! In Hollywood iieardo Mental - ban is a firm believer in the mus- cle way to a good appearance, and ,uses bar -bells regularly, Other t0p-flight stars who have taken, physique treatment include Tyrone Power, Jackie Cooper, Mario Lanza, Montgomery Clift, and Robert Taylor. In fact, it was Bob Taylor who started "beefcake" for stars when he put on almest 28 pounds in the right places in a. few months' training for his role as boxer in "The Crowd T2p(i>¢" Royal Tribute - Clad in black, Britain's Queen Elizabeth 11 places a wreath at the foot of the Cenotaph Shrine in London's White. hall section, The ceremony marked the highlight of Britain's tribute to her dead of two world wars.