Ex-Engineer Herbert Hoover used to be an engineer before he became President} of the United States of America and some of his pre-president habits Jcling to him with a tenacity which neither he nor Mrs. Hoover can' overcome. Recently he bought himself one of those self-winding wrist watches, the kind that stays wound by reason of the continual motion fof the owner's arm. As far as President Hoover was concerned the! watch was a total loss. It wouldn't run. He took it to a jeweller who examined it and declared the watch li the watch wouldn't to another jeweller, and another, and another, and they all declared that there' was! nothing wrong with the watch. At/£! last President Hoover decided that they were right, even if he were President, and that he was "jinxed" in some way. It was left for Mrs. Hoover to solve the mystery. She got her clue when she asked her husband the time one day and discovered that he didn't have his }watch on his wrist. Suddenly she ead an inspiration and without a word to Herbert she went to his office. There was the watch, prop: ped engineer fashion, on his desk.
Meals a la Titian The zeal for idiosyncratic eating] in America has reached ancther peculiar pinnacle, "There is a new restaurant in New York with fitty-five waitresses, all matches for Clara Bow from the scalp up, The proprietor will not even lod: at a prospective employee unless she has red hair. Any shade of red will do, trian, auburn, henna, carrot, brick, strawberry, or copper, just 20 that it's red. The restaurant is hung, with red wallpaper and the management wants to preserve the [colour scheme. The idea is unique, and even appealing, particularly to gentlemen, but it has dangerous possibilities, ya xed hair in tomato soup is not easily discernible and therefore tomato soup is pat in suspicious Tight and is being boy-fotted. Red hair on dark coat sleeves and. collars is oftentimes iticult to explain and it may readily seen that, the fiery tressed damsels who "deal them off the arm' oftentimes come in close proximity with their patrons, at Jeaet close enough for a falling hair to considerable damage. And then there is the slight uneasiness that at any moment fifty-five snow white horses may come galloping into the oom and trample the innocent diner to an ignominious death beneath their hooves.
The Child spite of America's alleged! practicality it is in many ways an irrepressible child, for its passion for symbols harks back to nursery days. The middle of the nineteenth century was marked by cherished iron fauna, and although the fad afternished to some extent it wz. That enormous doll called the Statue of Liberty has perhaps been sentimentalized bout more than any other object in the world. No city street would be complete without at least a half dozen wooden Indians down its length. "Huge wooden bulldogs are every haberdashery advertising garters. And every opulent lawn has at least one iron deer or tiger gracing its verdant slopes. Last, week a gentleman in Los Angeles devised a burglar alarm to' prevent} the theft of a bronze faun from his yard and when it gets to the point that burglar alarms are needed in Jorder to keep a useless and clumsy animal where it belongs, it eyrely means that America is going toy mad. In New York there is a poultry dealer in whose shop there jglowers down from the wall the head of a huge and ugly buffalo. [That buffalo was the original of the American buffalo nickel, designed by James: E. Fraser in 1912. The buffalo, while being sketched, got [temperamental and tried to demolish Mr. Fraser.: The Bronx Zoo decided to sell him and that is where Mr, Edward Thompson's Castigation of "Eminent Asians"
"Times": Mr. Upton Close Interviewed:
Under the title "Unparalleled In-. [formation the Times in its issue of July 22 publishes an article by Mr. Edward Thompson, devoted to "an exposure of the inaccuracies of a [widely read and influential author," Mr. Josef Washington Hall, better known by his pen name of Upton (Close, whose recent took "Eminent Asians" has attained a wide circulation.
Mr. Hall, who is at present in Shanghai and staying at the Astor House hotel, has been interviewed by a representative of the "North-China Daily News" and shown the article by Mr. Thompson, After reading it he declared "The man ig a moron. He is typical of London Times writers. And 1 ish he would stop putting words into my mouth.
He does not even "For Mr. Thompson ug feeling in America against British mis-government in India by picking on small details in my book is useless. Do you think the Ameri jean public would be interested in article, or that any reader in Kansas City would even read it? His remarks are too picayune. When the British Government uses Indian money to build a railway, and charges $15,000 more for each mile than it costs to build a railway in the United States, this is what oppos {to the American public."
"Neither Thompson nor his farfetched attempts to say I impugn the British in my book are consequential in the least. He is the for Ameri most harm there: the British tome good men there, like Rateife, Formerly of the "Statesman My Srticle on Gandhi is. very friendly fo British role. It was written before the recent trouble. Thad never attacked "the British Government fEntil_two months ago when J got {ed up and wrote an article or the Soly amber of "World's Work' In which T quoted entirely from British 'Eminent Asians' ha been in print for a year, and is the Fret attempt to attack it." Mra.
fall, who was present at the inter-ow, said that if the article were orth repiing to, cold Swered paragraph. by—paragraph, Pitre Hall" said "Never Rood. advertisement"
"Thompson says "During the past sear two books have more than amy Siners Influenced American thought shout india He then attacks me quoting. from what the book says evading Colonel Laverence and th Near East. campaign, What the poultry dealer comes in.
the animal for eighty dollars, slaughtered him, sold the meat for two dollars a pound, made a robe from the hide which' is two inches thick, and mounted the head. Many people tried to buy the head afterwards, for enormous sums, but neither love nor money could get that Buffalo away from its devoted earth has that got to do with Indiag 'And then, right towards the end, he tackles what I have to say about Gandhi ding Mr, 'Thompson's exe posure of a historical inaceura regarding a "disastrous attack" on Baghdad, which never occurred, and the statement that Mr. Hall' wag Jconfusing this with the Turks' dex sperate attempt to regain Jerusaleny in December, 1917, Mr. Hall was firm. "This part of the Look was written by my wife, but I collaborate and stand behind it. We got four information from Turkish hi tories and, secondly, from the French, in preference to the British, which are most unreliable. The French were much more on the in= side in this part of the world."
Regarding the statement taken, from the book, and queried by Mr. Thompson as an historical inaccur= acy, "It is interesting to think that Kemal and Colonel Lawrence—so alike in resourcefulness and self feonfidence—were on opposite sides near Baghdad" Mr. Hall made the remark "This is rhetoric, in which English historians take a delight all the time, Kemal and Lawrence were jmilax, on opposite sides, and if both of them did not fight around Baghdad, I'd like to know where. they did fight. T did not necessary that they were there at the same time, Thompson attacks me on the basis of historical accuracy by put= ting words into my mouth: this is tory." 5 thetorie and not important to his
Similarly regarding Mr. Thomps son's statement: "We find that, Mi. Hall differs from other historia who allege that the date of Black Hole of Calcutta' was 1756, He places it a century later: for him it is the central event of the Mutiny, which broke out in Mi 1857.""' Mr. Hall referred to 1 ook itself and pointed out that, he did not say this, and that Mr. Thompson was placing words in his mouth again. "In the first, parao graph T refer to the birth of Gandhi, 12 years after the mutiny. Tu the next I refer to the Black Hole of Calcutta and to Gandhi's fathe The paragraphs are contiguous and not connected."
Again, Mr. Thompson's "I defy larly Orientalist to tell me what this jean mean or in what way a Vi ynava ix more orthodox than states that parents" wore both "devotees of Vishn orthodox of H wearily exp!
Jagain rhetoric—"most orthodox" me Jdicating "highly" or ''strictly" ortho~ Jdox, and not necessarily more ortho= Jdox' than any other strict sect.
Mr. Hall was then faced with another of Mr. Thompson's statements "That when Mr. Gandhi in Natal is set upon and beaten almost to death' the arrest of his assailant ject of deliberate craft. 'Here fine opportunity for a split community which would nullify his work.' What Ha" have said if t ad_s.0t been arrested?"
Parks and Posies The happy-go-lucky atmosphere Jessfield Park is not even marred bby an occasional egg stell or pickle jar when one contrasts it with the stiff formality of parks in America. The only thing visitors to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, and Central Park in New York, can do} is to wander formally in the straight, land narrow paths and look at the seals sunning themselves." Woe tide the kiddies who takes a paint tox along and tries to sketch the Tandseape. Paint is forbidden, so are bean-bags, lollypops, balloons, and roller skates, It is likewise against rule number thirteen to pick up and remove any building or part lof a building. No doubt that re-[gulation went into effect when some screaming child wanted to take home the museum, Another disconcerting law is one forbidding entrance into the park with picked flowers, viously invented to discourage visit-lors from walking out with the park posies under the pretext that they Jcame from a down town flower stall.
Still, it is somewhat annoying to thave to unpin one's lovely violets, jor remove a gardenia, and throw [them in the withered heap outside the gate—M.c. the British were seeking an oppor tunity to create a split? T do not, The fact is that with the arrest of the Mahomadan assailant of a Hindu the opportunity presented itself." So replied Mr. Hall.
Then, regarding Mr. Thompson pulling him up for using "Symon" for Sir John Simon and "Pierson" for Pearson, Mr. Hall pointed out that there had been some bad typographical mistakes in his books. "Twas out of America when the did not see 'Some crazy young proof-reader had allowed 'Symon' to go through the book. This has keen changed in the second edition. regards Pierson, this may have joceurred. I believe this is right, anyhow. I make errors like oth do, bat very few, while my publish-Jers have made some. Actually there sin the five books that I have pubbs Mr. Thompson, referring to the statement in the book that "Sir Rabindranath Tagore turned back hhis knighthood with one of the most cutting letters that a King of Eng-jand must ever have received" pointed out that Tagore, correctly and with courtesy, wrote the letter to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford. Mx
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.