WITHOUT PREJUDGE

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 59, 3 December 1926, Page 10

WITHOUT PREJUDGE

NOTES AT RANDOI

(By

T.D.H.)

'Hie one thing lacking to Ruania’s Christmas is an old-fashioned srol. The London idea is that it i wise to be friendly and do whateve America wants.—And the WashiugU idea is that it isn’t wise not to. Mention of Chang Tso-lin’a aay in the news from China to-day ecalls that this famed strong man of ti Far East was the other day intervievd by a London newspaper correspcdent. Chang since he gave up banditi and took to government as a more iterative profession was ruled with rod of iron over one of the richest provinces of Asia. All around his ipital at Mukden extend for many miles plains of the richest black eartl and with a very light taxation he caikeep bigger armies continuously in neing than anybody else in China. hang intimated to the correspondent the “Morning Post” that his idea we that if the Europeans had any sens: they would pull together and pitch th Red Army out of China. But just atpresent pulling together has gone it of fashion among the white men.

Marshal Chang, one gathers,; the beginning and end of the Mancirian Government. All the other officis are mere underlings and well awar that the Great Panjandrum has only . nod to his executioner and their heap are off on the instant. It is a very d established principle of governmet that execution is the soundest way < disposing of inconvenient people Ipunished bv deprivation of proper ’or status there is always long-comued complaint from their families, it' if the offender’s head is neatly reoved and his heirs get his property i the ordinary way everybody is happ; and if the Government wants the pnerty it is often quite simple to execu the heirs as well. Machiavelli long aj discovered the soundness of this coue of action, and Chang Tso-lin in Mtden acts freely on it.

• • * Marshal Chang, we are told, .rely appears in public. His home is i the centre of the ancient walled quart of Fengticn in the heart of Mukdet It is a three-story European house mi - rounded by Chinese courtyards, and placed in an inner walled cnckure perhaps a half-mile square. Wlieiver Chang moves out of this housethe city of Mukden completely shuts up shop. All businesses are required: to close down and all the inhabitants list take to their houses. When the stats are completely cleared and even :he windows shuttered, the Marshal saies forth. His’ royal coach is an armired motor-car specially built at a est of £6600. and this is surrounded by policemen on motor-cycles. When re Marsha! journeys outside Mukden lie travels in a special train with an esert of no fewer than 2000 soldiers, hemly armed. The streets near the railway line in each town are cleared of peole as he passes through.

Chang, it is reported, is master >f everybody in Manchuria, except Is wives. He has six of these, and thrteen children, and they all live > gether at the official residence. Nat’e gossip lias it that Wife No. 5 is nw the favourite, ■. and that recently tbre was a bitter dispute between her nd Wife No. 2, which all but disruped the entire Chang household.

The correspondent endeavoured to discover' Marshal Chang’s views a: to the present outlook for the vaious factions in CHna. The Marshal s’as asked as to reports current in the newspapers, that a • triple nationhst combination cf the Feng army in Mongolia, tin Cantonese in Snth China, and Marshal. Sun, of Harrow, was in prospe.'t. “If we start'd talking Chinese internal politics we should be here all day,” said the Marshal, with a sight show of petulmce. “No foreignercan understand th< intricacies of Chtiese politics.” r . . ’ ’ And then h‘ added, with a stale, “We do not understand them arselves.” . • Aid that sems to be all there is to it.

The death tie other day of Mr. k. B Walkley, fir manv years dramaic critic of the London “Times,” has ecalled the fet that he* once established a record for brevity n dramatic criticsm. He sat down o write a notice of a play entitled X. Dreadful Evetmg,” and wrote Exacly,” and left ,t at that.

Where on errth do the people whe design the fastens in women's clothes get their ideas'from? Turning over the pages of tie first of the new volumes of the ‘Encyclopaedia Britannica” we found the answer. Presentday fashions in women’s clothing, this great work exjlains, are merely an adaptation of rotor-car design to the human form. The motor-car outline, like the outlin of the fashionable female, was in 1910 a series of opulent curves. h 1917 the ladies had the tonneau, or barrel, skirt, and by 1923 the compete stream-line effect had been develped in female dress, following on its previous adoption in the motor-car.

The writer whi advances this interesting explanation of how it all came about is the editess of. the “Vogue/’ who ought to kiow. Bobbed hair, one gathers, is ccessary to a proper presentation of th motor-car in female form, shorn of all superfluous excrescence and frill. The present fashion, we are further told, reflects on the part of toman “a new clearness in her seniment, a new hardness in her intellct, and a new determination to live hr life on equal terms with men.” Ths, it seems that the less there is of waian’s dress the more it convevs. Horn dressmakers who wish to be up-to-he-minute would apparently be well a vised to take a peep in the motor weks at Petone and see what the newst cars are wearing.

The Rev. Dr. Mac Lean Watt, _of Glasgow Cathedral made an amusing point at a. recent meting' of the Glasgow Centre of he British Empire Shakespeare Socity. His declaration was to the effet that Shakespeare had placed an Etxlishman and not a Highlander as porer to the castle of Macbeth. The faglishman was betraved bv his exclmation: “This place is too cold for HU; I’ll devil-porter it no longer”; th point being that the Hell of the Hghlauders was not a hot place, but very cold place! They craved heat or its comfort in a land of mist am bleak winds.

Touching simplicit of an epitaph on an Edinburgh tomb sine:— Erected to tin memory of John Mafiarlane, Drowned in the Vater of Leith By a few affeebnate friends. ODI! God made, they sa-,' ten thousand races, With fins or wings cr beaks or faces. And from them all lit rhose and blest A certain species He iked best. To me it seems a litte odd And just a trifle hare on God, That those alone He oose as best Should eagerly destro the rest! —J. R. McCarthy, in tie "Forum.”