Carey, who discovered the beauteous Sally in the drabness of his own alley, would probably be driven insane if he lived in an alley which runs behind a certain residential building in the Central district. It specializes in nerve-racking noises and, like Cleopatra, "age cannot wither them nor custom stale their infinite variety." The ordinary noises which constitute the training course are the following: a machine which whirs and stops with exasperating frequency: motor lorries which un-Yoad from the godowns: handcarts which rattle over the cobbled road: numerous hawkers and coolles whose volees sound high and clear up the canyon caused by the buildings: one Chinese gentleman who buys petrol tins and flattens them out for' domestic purposes: and another who manufactures boxes, starting at the crack o'dawn, The symphony of noises has been enlarged and after preliminary tials with 2 pile driver the following additions have been made: one concrete mixer and an increased gang of coolies to carry the material to the mixer afler shovelling it from motor lorries: another gang straightening out mild steel construction al bars: more hammering on wood: and qn augmented choir of Chinese chanting as they work. The man who coined the beautiful fection of the somnolent East, steeped in that fage-long peace and quiet of centuries of meditation, ought to be subjected to some of the reputed tortures which this ancient land once used, or, preferably, incarcerated down this' alley for the term of his natural lite.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.