Stalky and Co. To-day The Kipling Journal. The Organ of the Kipling Society. QUARTERLY No. 36 DECEMBER, 1935 Contents Plate: "Stalky and Co. Today." News and Notes......101 A Reply to "The Prodigal Son".......... 113 Reviews and New Books .. 109 Kipling and the Bible .. .. 115 Obituary..........109 Kipling and English History 116 "A Second-Rate Woman" .. 111 Letter Bag ........ 129 "Rutees"..........112 Secretary's Announcements 132 News and Notes OUR readers will, we are sure, be grateful to Mr. G. C. Beresford, a letter from whose pen appears in this issue, for the picture of him- self, Mr. Kipling and our President ; it is an interesting portrait Study and can well be called " Four Years Later," or "55 Years On." x x x x x We tender our apologies to Mr. T. A. Simmons, Hon. Secretary of the Victoria B.C. Branch, and to his Committee for the error in the informa- tion given on page 69 of No. 35 ; the news about this Branch came to us in the regular way from its Hon, Secretary, but, owing to a misplacing of two letters, Mr. R. Beauchamp of Williams Lake, B.C., was stated to be the source of these particulars. We also offer our apologies to Mr. Beauchamp and regret for the trouble occasioned him. x x x x x The first meeting of the Kipling Society for the Session 1935-1936 was held at the Rubens Hotel, Buckingham Palace Road, at 5 p.m. on Thursday, 10th October, 1935. Lt.-Colonel R. V. K. Applin, D.S.O., M.P., was in the Chair; in opening the Meeting and introdu- cing the Lecturer, Lt.-General Sir G. F. MacMunn, K.C.B., K.C.S.I., D.S.O., he said: "To attempt to introduce General Sir George Mac- Munn to the Kipling Society would be a most superfluous thing. Indeed to attempt to introduce him to anyone who knows the British Empire— particularly India—would also be quite superfluous. Therefore, It 102 THE KIPLING JOURNAL only wish to say in opening how delighted we are to have him here this afternoon and how interested we all shall be to hear what he has to tell us about Mr. Kipling and Early English History. ' ' Following the lecture by Sir George MacMunn, Colonel Applin said:—" We have had as we expected a most delightful and most enter- taining and a most instructive lecture from Sir George MacMunn, and, he, I think, has gone from early history down almost to to-day We will now, as after a good dinner we have to wait for digestion, wait to digest this lecture and discuss it later on. Meantime I will call upon Mr. Norman Menzies to sing two songs." Mr. Norman Menzies sang " The Jug- gler's Song " and " Danny Deever." Following the songs, Mr. B. M. Bazley, the Hon. Editor of the Journal, gave a finished rendering of "A Three Part Song," and "The Thousandth Man." In the second half of the programme, following the queries by members, Mr. Norman Menzies sang " Merrow Down," a very old favourite, and " Kangaroo and Dingo," most effectively. He has a particularly fine voice and his diction is excellent ; his songs gave us all great pleasure. He was accompanied in a most sympathetic manner by Miss Dora Livesey. At the close of the meeting, Mrs. Bailey played " God Save the King," in which everyone joined. At query time the Secretary asked on behalf of Captain A. St. John for the place of a quotation, from Kipling poems : If there be good in that I wrought Thy Hand compelled it, Master, Thine— Where I have failed to meet Thy thought I know, through Thee, the blame was mine. Major Dawson : I rather think "My New-Cut Ashlar" is the first line of the poem, but I would like to know the title. Mr. W. G. B. Maitland, Hon. Librarian: When I heard of this question I immediately thought of the poem " My New-Cut Ashlar." Captain St. John's quotation is, I think, the second verse of that poem. Hon. Editor: "A correspondent writes and suggests a Buying and Selling column in the Journal. That, of course, is merely ordinary small advertisements. You know what would happen. If you said, put them in, I know one or two people would promptly give me enough matter for six pages and others have their items crowded out. But if you have anything that you want to buy or sell or exchange put a small advertisement in. It does not cost very much. I would point out that this is meant more as a convenience than a commercial transaction. Charge: 1/- per inch, ½ col." THE KIPLING JOURNAL 103 In proposing a vote of thanks to the Lecturer, Major E. Dawson said: "Colonel Applin has told us how very grateful we were to the Lecturer and that we knew what to expect. It is quite true, we did. As to the matter of his lecture, it chimed in wonderfully well with a thing I have always thought about Kipling. So far as I know, in the whole of my reading, no writer in the world—in our language, at any rate—has ever succeeded in making the reader appreciate the continuity of history so much or anything like as much as Kipling has done. And that is a very important thing because all of us, I think, are apt when we learn history at school to think of it as a thing that has to be learnt. It is in books and you have to learn it. We are apt to treat it as something apart from ourselves, and it is not. It is what we grew out of and all the charming little stories and verses of Kipling—whether they are about Sussex or England or the whole world—all of those tend to show the continuity of the whole history of the human race. I think when we do realise that the continuity of history is a fine thing to think about, and I suppose if we think about it enough it might be perhaps even more useful than the League of Nations. I call on you to give a rousing and hearty vote of thanks to our Lecturer." Mr. Mackenzie-Skues : "In seconding this vote of thanks I should like to make a comment. I have always understood that the reasons why there are no inscriptions in the pre-Roman times was that the Druids went entirely on oral teaching and did not write their teachings down at all, nor did they write their histories. They cultivated memory to a very great extent, and according to a book which I read, by a man named Morgan about 68 or 70 years ago, there were something like thirty-two Druid universities in England to which people came from all parts of the Continent. I have enjoyed this lecture very much, and I have much pleasure in seconding this vote of thanks." In proposing a vote of thanks to the entertainers, Major-General Rimington said :—" It gives me very great pleasure to propose a vote of thanks to the entertainers. We always know when we come to these meetings that we are going to have very first class music and enter- taining, and we certainly have not been disappointed to-night. I think those songs were simply beautiful. One of the entertainers to- night was Mr. Bazley, and I am extraordinarily glad that we are able to thank him too because I think we owe him a debt of gratitude for the No. 35 Journal, a most excellent issue of the Journal. It has not got any meetings in it, yet it is full of meat." 104 THE KIPLING JOURNAL In seconding the vote of thanks to the entertainers, Mr, J. G. Griffin said: " I have very much pleasure in seconding that vote of thanks. With regard to Mr. Bazley's excellent interpretation of his two recita- tions as far as my knowledge of him goes I believe you could put him on to any poem and I think he could carry on without any prompting and that the interpretation would be in the proper spirit. One of the poems he gave us was ' The Thousandth Man.' I suggest to the audi- ence that so far as the Kipling Society is concerned our Thousandth Man is our Hon. Editor. We have all enjoyed very much hearing Mr. Menzies' very fine voice again." Sir George MacMunn : Before we break up I want to say what some of us probably know, that Colonel Applin, having for many years served his constituency as an M.P., is leaving for South Africa. He is now going to a better Eden on the slopes of the Drakensberg where he should find trout more plentiful. I want you to thank him for coming and to wish him God Speed and great happiness is that most delightful of countries, South Africa. Colonel Bailey : If I may, I would just like to add my little person- al tribute. I am very sorry Colonel Applin is going. Whenever one wanted anything he has been always very ready to help me, and you all. We shall miss him very much and I wish him " Bon Voyage." Colonel Applin : I did not expect to receive a vote of thanks of any kind but merely to call on my old friend, Sir George MacMunn, whom I have known since we met on a kopje during the Boer War and when my men were simply panting from thirst he was a real good Samaritan. He only had two small barrels of water and he gave me one for my men I shall never forget that as long as I live. I would like to thank our Secretary, Colonel Bailey, who has been a tower of strength to us all. He is most energetic and I never can answer all the letters he writes to me ! I want to take this opportunity of my position of Chairman to pass a very hearty vote of thanks at the begin- ning of the season. It is the captain who runs the ship and he is the captain. I move a very hearty vote of thanks to Colonel Bailey, our Secretary, for the work he has done. x x x x x We have often heard of Kipling's Gospel of Work, but it has never been explained better than in an article in the Baptist Times (14th Nov- ember, 1935) by Miss Lily Titman. The writer makes a comment on Ernest Raymond's book, "Damascus Gate," in which one of the charac- ters tells of the four things that keep him at work when he would rather THE KIPLING JOURNAL 105 go out : a bust of Napoleon, and prints of St. Paul, Cecil Rhodes and Kip- ling. After this, he asks for " If " to be done for him in illumination. Miss Titman enlarges on this theme : " But it is not only ' the unfor- giving minute ' Kipling would have filled with some achievement. It is his cure, too, for depression. Indeed, in the delightful verses of the ' Just So Stories,' ' If we haven't enough to do,' is his diagnosis of that mood in which ' We get the hump, cameelious hump.' For it he prescribes : The cure for this ill is not to sit still Or frowst with a book by the fire ; But to take a large hoe and a shovel also And dig till you gently perspire. In such active work, he augurs, you will find ' the horrible hump ' is successfully lifted. Such lines find their reflection, also in a sentence from his novel ' The Light that Failed :' ' He fell to work, whistling softly and was soon swallowed up in the clean, clear joy of creation.' " From this we are taken through many quotations, all apposite, showing the call to work and ending with the call to faith and prayer. This article is an exposition of a teaching in Kipling's work that seems quite un- known to many outside readers. X X X X X Below we give an extract from a letter recently received by the Secre- tary from a new Member :—" Thank you also for the numbers of the Journal and my card of membership. It is a big thing nowadays to come across a community of people who meet together for the apprecia- tion of someone else and not themselves ! Perhaps the solution lies in Kipling's own words :—' Allah created the English mad'—and with a madness that polices the world." X % * X X Here are the latest rumours and reports about the Kipling films. The Evening Standard tells us that a film version of the poem, " His Apologies," is really and actually made, and that the author has seen and approved it. The hero is a prize-winning Scottie from Reading, whose name is " Penroath Drop O'Scotch." We are also told that Mr. Kipling has '' gone into the film business ; he has agreed to a profit- sharing scheme." It is certain, at any rate, that he edited the scenario, for he made a number of alterations, one of which was, " Nurses do not give babies biscuits broken into milk—not if they want to keep their jobs." This film is a silent one ; none of the characters speak, though the words of the poem are spoken by an unseen actor. " The picture 106 THE KIPLING JOURNAL world is not my line of country," said Mr. Kipling, after he had seen it, " but this has been extraordinarily well handled." Then we get this from the Illustrated London News :—" India will arrive on our screens in March in the shape of "Elephant Boy," a picture based on Mr. Rudyard Kipling's famous story, " Toomai of the Elephants." Mr. Robert Flaherty, who is directing the film in India for London Film Productions, is making excellent progress. He has set up his base in the city of Mysore. Here, in a palace built for the Mahara- ja's grandmother, studios and laboratories have arisen. And here a magnificent elephant from the Maharaja's stable waits patiently, and one would imagine, with immense dignity . . . for his call to take part as leading elephant on the set. The elephant was easy to find compared with the difficulty of discovering a native boy to play Toomai. The search went far afield, down the Malabar coast as far as Cochin. Finally, three likely lads had been collected when a fourth was brought in, the orphaned son of a mahout in the Mysore stables—a shy, pathetic, and probably completely bewildered child. . . . He embarked on adventure (crossing the swollen river) with the mahout and the elephant .... But as the trio finally returned, dripping, smiling and trium- phant, little Toomai was found, and thus another Indian starlet was born." Mr. Bernard Collitt, from whom we receive Kipling news from Mon- treal, writes to say that two Gloucester fishing schooners have lately been part in the making of a " Captains Courageous " film. The account of the filming of the various sea scenes sounds very promising. x x x x x Tit-Bits (9th November) gives the following story :—" This reminds me of a Kipling story, of which there are extraordinarily few. He was present at a fancy-dress ball. Each guest was attired in a costume in- tended to represent the title of a book. Most of them were easily recognizable, but that worn by one woman puzzled everybody. She represented a patent cigarette-lighter. At length Poet Kipling asked the dancer the name of the volume she had in mind. ' Why, Mr. Kip- ling,' replied the girl, ' it represents one of your own books.' ' Which one ?' ' The Light that Failed.' " X X X X X In connection with the Mark Twain birth centenary, which fell on November 30th, the Liverpool Daily Post had an extract from Kipling to the President of Columbia University, chairman of the Mark Twain centennial board and organiser of the celebrations. Those who remember Kipling's comments in " From Sea to Sea " will notice that THE KIPLING JOURNAL 107 our author's admiration for the great American humourist has not lessened with the passing of over forty years :—" To my mind he was the largest man of his time, both in the direct outcome of his work and, more important still, as an indirect force in an age of iron Philistinism. Later generations do not know their debt, of course, and they would be quite surprised if they did." X X X X X Comment has been made before in these columns upon those two amazing Kipling tales, " With the Night Mail " and " As Easy as A.B.C." It is surprising, however, to note that they seem to attract little attention from the general reader; perhaps it is because they are too lifelike—there are no purple patches, or curious rules laid down for the way of life for descendants. We give below a short ex- cerpt from the Evening Gazette of Reading (19th September), which makes one of the rare exceptions to the rule :—"I read last night his story ' The Night Mail.' It is surprising how accurately he foresaw the transcontinental air routes. Except that he gives 250 miles an hour as the highest speed, and he is a little vague in the matter of altitudes, he is wonderfully prophetic." There is no remark about the second story, perhaps because it shows ' democracy ' in a none too flattering light. From the Belfast Daily Telegraph and from many of our American members of the Society we hear that " the South End Parent-Teachers' Association " of Boston have made a demand to the superintendent of schools that " Captains Courageous " should be banned from the Boston schools. It was stated that the recurring use of the word "Nigger" would inculcate in the minds of pupils racial and social dis- crimination. Why this particular book should be pilloried is one of those curious mental puzzles that crop up from time to time, for the nigger of the " We're Here " is rather a fine character. How- ever, our Members on the other side of the Atlantic will doubtless ask some leading questions on the matter. x x x x x We make no remarks on the following quotations from the News Chronicle (26th October), though certain dovecotes will undoubtedly be fluttered :—" Mr. Bernard Shaw, always astonishing, has now aston- ished many of his admirers by catching up with Mr. Kipling at the point which Mr. Kipling had reached 40 years or so ago. His pro- nouncements in the Press on the war between Italy and Abyssinia 108 THE KIPLING JOURNAL are merely a prose version of Mr. Kipling's poem, " The White Man's Burden.' " X X X X X One of our Members in South Africa, Captain B. B. Myers, has written a long and most interesting article in the Cape Times of 16th October, on " Kipling and the ' Inevitable ' Word," a most fascinating subject and one to which Captain Myers does full justice ; he takes several good examples, of which one of the best is Kipling's use of words in the poem, " The Sea and the Hills :—" ' The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of comber wind-hounded.' Go down to the sea and watch. Watch what Kipling has elsewhere described as a ' big grey mother wave ' on a windy day. You will see the four movements—the heave, as the wave lifts ; the halt, when, for a split second, the huge mass of water pauses before passing to the swift downward hurl, that culminates in the crash of spray and flying spume. And mark the cleverness of the words—the smoothness of ' heave ' and ' hurl,' the staccato pause of ' halt ' and ' crash.' That line con- tains four words that simply cannot be altered. They are inevitable. From the same poem we get : ' The shudder, the stumble, the swerve as the star-stabbing bowsprit emerges. ' Have you ever sailed in a small yacht ? If you have you will know the shudder, as the little ship pauses on the crest of a swell, the stumble as she dips into the trough, and the swerve as she climbs out on the other side. And you will have seen the bowsprit reaching up and up and up to stab at the stars above. Again there are words that cannot be bettered. There is more. There is the gift of punctuation. You will notice that the only things used to describe the comber are words. The motion is continuous in that case, except for the almost invisible pause before the descent. And to mark that Kipling uses the staccato ' halt,' which does not break the evenness of the movement. But he leaves out commas, and the ' heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash ' is one movement. But see how he describes the movement of the vessel on the waters ' The shudder, the stumble, the swerve. . . . Those are all separate movements, and he makes them so." Later on, Captain Myers picks out two equally excellent samples of the use of the right word:—"Once again two words describe the vastness of an Empire : ' Dominion over palm and pine. ' Are there two other single words that describe the extent of the British Empire so well as palm and pine ?" The final example comes from "A Song of the THE KIPLING JOURNAL 109 English" and is no less powerful:—"What a description of a still sea seen from the coast on a summer evening, ' The lineless, level floors' '' We cannot help wondering why (with a very few eminent exceptions) we have to go to the Dominions or to France for adequate criticism of Kipling's work; perhaps it is still a case of the prophet and his country. Reviews and New Books All the Puck Stories (Macmillan, 10s. 6d.) In these days, when space in homes is limited and much time is devoted to travel, this issue in one volume of Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies will be most welcome. In size and format the book is identical with The Two Jungle Books and The Complete Stalky and Co. ; the result of the publisher's enterprise is a volume at once handy and attractive. All the twenty-one tales (with the verses) are included, the " Puck " stories with the original H. R. Millar illustrations and " Rewards " with the twelve pictures by Charles E. Brock ; an additional and pleasing feature is the new frontispiece in colour by Mr. Millar, showing Gloriana dancing to Dan and Una with Puck looking on. The binding, paper and type are in Messrs. Macmillan's usual excellent quality ; the cover is decorated with gilt designs, that on the front portraying Puck and that on the spine the very appropriate leaf trinity of " Oak and Ash and Thorn" leaves ; the coloured ' jacket' has a picture of Puck with the two children, with the three leaves repeated on the spine. This is the third volume of two-in-one in the Kipling collection ; we can say with the author " I'm just in love with all these three," for they combine the qualities needed for a library volume and a companionable book for the pocket. We are safe in prophesying that All the Puck Stories will have a large sale ; it will be a delightful gift book and is a worthy home for Kipling's most charming tales. The Princess Elizabeth Gift Book (Hodder and Stoughton, 5s.). Here is a book for children that should please all children ; it has that rare merit of being quite within the comprehension of the young without seeming to ' talk down ' to its readers. Bound in white cloth and sump- tuously illustrated, it contains an infinite variety of good fare, both literary and pictorial. To us of the Kipling Society it makes a special appeal, for it contains an entirely new Kipling item:—"Ham and the Porcupine," the fourteenth, but we hope not the last of the Just So Stories. Briefly, the tale might be told under a sub-title, "How the 110 THE KIPLING JOURNAL Porcupine got his Prickles:" Porcupine, who has bad manners like the Camel, is taught a valuable lesson by Ham. Two short extracts will show the general style of the tale : " So they all went into the Ark, two by two ; but not one wanted to go in with Porcupine on account of his spines, except one small brother of his called Hedgehog who al- ways stood still to have his hair brushed (he wore it short), and Porcupine hated him." Ham is in charge of the animals' food and goes down to feed Porcupine, who is described as being a little fretful :—" Ham said : 'Dunno anything about that. My job is to feed 'em.' So he went into Porcupine's cabin, where Porcupine was taking up all the room in the world in his bunk, and his quills rattling like a loose window in a taxi.' " Compared with the others, this story is a little short ; this, however, is a good fault in an age when verbose young people write many reams in bad style upon subjects about which they are ill-informed. Brevity is the soul of wit, and Kipling is never long-winded. We may add that by buying this book, one is helping a most deserving charity. The " Highways and Byways " series is too well known to need fur- ther comment here, but we should like to draw attention to the fact that a new and revised edition has just been published by Messrs. Macmillan and Co. The work has been brought up to date (it was first published 31 years ago) by the author, Mr. E. V. Lucas ; needless to say, there is some new Kipling matter in it, an epilogue—Belloc's delightful poem, " The South Country "—and an informative appendix containing details of some Sussex antiquities. " Sussex " is issued in both library and pocket editions. Two of our distinguished members have recently produced books of more than passing interest. Sir George MacMunn's " Leadership Through the Ages " is a valuable contribution to the potent factors in modern government, in countries less happily placed than ours; in it there will be found a fascinating account of the famous Empress of China. A wide range of subjects is covered—from Moses to Mussolini. Miss Pamela Frankau has had the honour of having her book, " I Find Four People," selected for the library carried on the famous Silver Jubilee London-Newcastle express. We offer her our congratu- lations, as this library is strictly limited on account of space. There is a rumour that another book of short stories by Kipling is to appear next year. There has been no definite announcement about this, so the statement must be taken with reserve. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 111 At the Sunday Times Book and Book Production Exhibition held at Dorland Hall, Regent Street, in November, there was a fine selection of Kipling's works by Messrs. Macmillan, Methuen, and Hodder and Stoughton. A very delightful article, written and illustrated by Donald Max- well, appears in the November issue of Popular Motoring. Mr. Maxwell as those who heard him at the Meeting will remember, is a racy and accurate writer on topographical matters (see his Paper in Journal No. 22). He notes Kipling's power in describing English scenes and characters:—"It is strange to reflect that Kipling, with all his vivid portraiture of the East and of India, should have yet sung of the English countryside with such deep attachment, as if he had known no other scenes." It is quite appropriate, too, that an article on Kipling should appear in a journal devoted to mechanical engineering. Obituary It is with much regret that we announce the death of the Rt. Hon. Lord Carson, P.C. He was ever a lover of direct and plain speech when the occasion warranted, so it was not surprising to find him among Kipling's admirers ; England and the Empire are the poorer for the loss of him. We offer our sincere sympathy to Lady Carson. "A Second-Rate Women" A Kipling Origin Collected by the Late W. M. Carpenter, V.P. (U.S.A.) In " A Second-Rate Woman " Mrs. Hauksbee says to her companion ; " Polly, what did that American-heiress-globe-trotter girl say last season when she tipped out of her 'rickshaw turning a corner ? Some absurd adjective that made the man who picked her up explode." " Paltry " said Mrs. Mallowe. " Through her nose—like this— ' Haow pahltry ! '" " Exactly " said the voice ; " Ha-ow pahltry it all is !" In a letter which I have R.K. suggests that whatever he reads or is told is grist for his mill, i.e., may be susceptible of being worked into a 112 THE KIPLING JOURNAL story ; in another he shows where he got the above. By the way, talking about Americans,—there was a girl of that nationality here last year who was tipped out of her 'rickshaw spinning round a sharp corner,—our men go as fast as they can and a swiftly turned 'rickshaw is very liable to tilt. Well, she turned out like Australian mutton from a tin, and a man dropped from his horse and hastened to pick her up. She wasn't mad—not very, that is ! She wiped the dust from her maiden cheek, surveyed the overturned contraption and the apologetic coolies with deep disfavour and said icily : " Ha-ow pahltry," meaning thereby " How paltry !" Her assistant, he told me the tale, exploded with laughter where he stood. It exactly described the unnecessary géne of the situation,— the smash and the abandon of flying raient, and the ignominious thud upon the Mall. R. K. had a remarkable memory, and probably carried a note book ! "Ruttees" A Little Red Seed: The Malingerer's Friend By Alyson Minchin, Indian Forest Service WHEN the Hindu child played the jewel game with Kim, he guessed the weights in "rutees." " Rutee" or "rati" is I believe the North India name for the seed of Abrus Precatorius— ' precatorius ' because it is used for rosaries. The plant is a climber, and lives in scrub jungles. Watt's Dictionary of Economic Products says much about Abrus ; and, as usual, should be taken not too seriously. (" Give a weaverbird a thread, or an old wife a tale !—what a wonderful thing they make of it !") The seeds are red with a black patch at one end, and they are as interest- ing as they are pretty ! You are sure to find them in a carved sandal- wood box, in the drawing room cabinet, in any retired Indian Official's home in England. Children play with them on wet Sundays ; and their elders use them as counters for vicious pursuits, roulette, etc. People in India use the brown pods, with their red seeds, instead of holly for Christmas decorations. The other day, I was in a forest in South India with a District Forest officer who is a Bengali, and an Assistant Collector, doing "forest training"—a young Muhammadan from Lucknow. We picked some seed-capsules of the creeper, and got chatting about them. The Dist- rict Forest Officer told us their use in the jewel trade. Abrus seeds do THE KIPLING JOURNAL 113 not all claim to be quite equal ; but this is strange but true : any three seeds weigh as much as any three others. (We got the village jeweller to give us a demonstration that evening). The link with English weights is thus :—Two rutees equal a " carat," and a " carat " is the 24th part of an ounce, 3.16 grains. The words carat, and rati or rutee are con- nected. I said my piece about the seeds. Do not give newly picked ones to children to play with. Inflamed eyes, which are so common in India, are often due to children touching their eyes with their fingers after playing with rutees. An invisible something on the surface of the seeds affects delicate membranes. What our Muhammadan told us may be known to Army doctors and N.C.O.s, but it was new to me. Suppose you are a military hero, but one that likes to take no part in battles ; what can you do about it ? Here is a recipe : Soak some rutee seeds for 24 hours, to soften them. String them together with a needle and thread. Afterwards, pull the thread out of the seeds and keep it for use when need arises ; it has soaked in some Abrin which is a powerful irritant. In good time before the Battle get ready your doctored thread, and a needle. Make a little fold of skin on your knee, and stick the needle through and pull the cotton after it. Presently pull out the cotton. Your knee swells up and it is even diffi- cult to crawl to the doctor with this inexplicable ailment ! Your next thought should be to cure your knee in case the army re- treats. Simply keep it in cool wet sand for about an hour. A Reply to " The Prodigal Son'' By Gerard E. Fox. The Elder Brother Gives His Point of View (With apologies to Mr. Rudyard Kipling). I had no wish for a scene, just then, For I knew how it would have been, just then, And the Pater thought I was mean just then, So I ventured on no reply. But my brother had called me hound, you see, So we chose out some quiet ground, you see, And, after the thirteenth round, you see, I feared he was going to die. 114 THE KIPLING JOURNAL But he opened his eyes and recovered again, So then we shook hands and discovered again, When our youthful scrapes were uncovered again, We were not so far apart. We had both of us proved we were tough enough We decided that there had been bluff enough, I knew that his path had been rough enough, So we said we would make a fresh start. I was out, more's the pity, when he returned, And I know I was angry as soon as I learned That no one supposed me to be concerned With the calf for which they sent out : I had stuck by the Pater through thick and thin, He admitted as much when he called me in He had always been frightfully close with tin, So I flew in a rage and went out. As a lad my brother was not refined, And I freely admit that it weighed on my mind, But I never intended to be unkind, In spite of all that's been said : So, when he suggested that by and by He would have to go back to his pigs and his sty, I turned upon him, and asked him why ? So he's stopping at home instead. Now the Pater will give up advising him, I have no more cause for despising him, The Mater avoids catechising him And we're having veal patties for lunch ! There is laughter again in the servants' hall, For he's not going back to the Yards after all, The Mater and butler led off at the Ball, And the Pater is pleased as Punch. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 115 But we hear of a Kipling Society now, And its Members are sure to have heard of the row I had with my prodigal brother, and how He publicly called me a hound, So we want them to know we are friends again, For he has made ample amends again, And here the curtain descends again On a son who was lost and found. October 18th, 1935. Kipling and the Bible [Reprinted from The Christian World (14th November, 1935) by kind permission.] " But it is to Kipling . . . that we must turn as the climax" writes Dr. James Moffatt in an article in " Church Management" showing what is distinctive in the part played by the English Bible as a factor in English poetry. " His (Kipling's) resonant verse has a use of the Bible which is distinctive and vigorous. Here it is not devotional in the narrow sense of the term." " Where Scripture moves Miss Rossetti to be wistful, and Tennyson to weave cadences, it stirs Kipling to treat the sacred text as an open-air book, with an extraordinary emphasis upon vital issues. Sometimes he has pungent studies of the old in new settings, such as ' Cold Iron ' (the Spirit of the Cross), ' The Thousandth Man ' (Ecclesiastes vii. 21), ' Gallio's Song ' (Acts xviii. 17), ' Eddi's Service,' ' Jubal and Tubal Cain,' ' A Servant when He Reigneth ' (Proverbs xxx. 21), ' Endor ' (1 Samuel xxvii. 7), ' The Rabbi's Song ' (2 Samuel xiv. 14), and * Gehazi.' Now and then he catches up prophetic rhythms, as in the noble ' Recessional ' and the ' Hymn before Action.' His style in verse betrays an amazing intimacy with the text as well as with the spirit of the Bible, not unlike that of Milton in the seventeenth century. Once more Scripture is read through imaginative genius as a book for the national life and for the welfare of the world. His handling of it is very far from being merely artistic and literary. Kipling has his limitations 116 THE KIPLING JOURNAL of sympathy ; but the Bible for him is by no means a faded antique ; it is a volume full of incentive to high action, charged with living appeals to encouragement and steady, bright-eyed living." Kipling and English History By Lt.-General Sir G. F. MacMunn, k.c.b., k.c.s.i., d.s.o., r.a. I THINK Colonel Applin has perhaps rather limited the scope of my talk. It must be " Kipling and English History," not " Kipling and Early English History." Otherwise I would not have enough to go round. When Colonel Bailey in that insistant manner of his said I must lecture I felt it was rather difficult because some of the people who have been talking to you on the various Kipling subjects have done so far better than I can. I found it rather difficult to find a subject. I remembered then two books which charm you as much as they do me — '' Puck of Pook's Hill "and " Rewards and Fairies "—and the extra- ordinary vista of our wonderful history which Kipling succeeded in giving us with that remarkable human touch for which everything he writes is so famous. He puts bits of our stories before us and he always teaches something that makes even such things as the knife, chalk, etc., seem quite human. I thought I would try and say some- thing to you about this vista of English history which he marshals before us in these two books, and also something about history of England, " A School History of England," which is very much more an adult's history of England. I was asking someone who knew his works very well what was the share between him and Fletcher in that book, and I was told that he and Mr. Fletcher had very much the same interpretation of the re- corded events of history, but it was the historical parts which were written by Fletcher and Kipling who supplied the verse—the little touch of romance. I remember some years ago sitting on a pillar in the Temple of Luxor and finding Rider Haggard sitting there. I was always intrigued as to how he had managed to write in collaboration with Andrew Lang, especially that book " The World's Desire " which I always think one of the very best they did. Rider Haggard said : " I wrote the story and Andrew Lang wrote all the wonderful verses." The other way is what happened in that book of English History. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 117 So much have these two books—" Puck of Pook's Hill " and " Re- wards and Fairies"—been read by our rising generations ever since they were written, thirty years or more ago, that I think the present interest in English history—especially among the intelligentsia, people like ourselves and the equally highly educated people up from the Council Schools—is greatly due to this. Everybody is fairly well read in these two books. There is hardly a Roman site or an Iron Age camp where during the summer there is not some organised camp of young people spending their holidays digging. Last year I was up at Hem- bury Castle in Devon and found a hearty Admiral with a white beard, about twenty young ladies, one or two boys and a couple of navvies, digging like anything. That is going on all over the country. Well, to go back to this still more marvellous history of ours, the days of Neolithic history and the various stages of the Bronze Age and such remarkable things as the Iron Age forts. When you think that the people who built and who were buried in the long barrows were buried about the time that Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees : that the round harrowed folk flourished in the days of the Prophets, you begin to see what a tremendous vista there is in this country which has only been studied recently with almost German meticulous accuracy. The way the public open their pockets for historical research is very largely due to the effect of Kipling on the young people of the last two generations. With Kipling, of course, a lot of his history and a lot of his stories are placed for us in Sussex. I know Sussex pretty well. I live just within the fringe of Sussex—near East Grinstead—and, therefore, am very Sussex ! People round there are naturally very keen on Sussex matters. It is interesting because not more than a mile away, people are different—they are Surrey. Surrey looks to Guildford and Sussex looks to Lewes. Quite close to where I live is a Minepit Shaw. I often have quite a sort of wonder whether my friends might have tumbled down within a mile of my house. I live on the edge of the Weald where a couple of years ago a pilot in an aeroplane, taking a photograph of Ashdown Forest, saw a long dark furrow and said it must be a Roman Road. The Roman road authorities poohpoohed it. However, one of my neighbours dug and they have now discovered a Roman road right from Lewes to Downbridge. They have found a metal roadway which is 12 feet wide and 8 inches deep in solid concrete. The metal is the clinker, the lime comes from the Downs. I used to think perhaps Sussex was the most interesting of all places 118 THE KIPLING JOURNAL until I saw the development and digging in Dorset where I found even more camps and even more Roman remains. Kipling pitches his first story for us in the Weald and the Neolithic Age: • The Weald is good, the towns are best— I'll give you the run of 'em East to West. Beachy Head and Windover Hill. They were once and they are still .... ' The first story is ''The Knife and the Naked Chalk." Perhaps, the only story where you might criticise Kipling for inaccuracy. The story is of a Neolithic man, afraid of the reign of the wolf, who leaves home for over a year and makes his way down to some new colonies where some Iron Age people are and there he sees iron. He buys iron and is taught to use iron. He goes back to his own people and teaches them the use of iron, and the fear of their most dreaded enemy the wolf is gone. Then the tragedy comes. He has been set aside by his tribe as a god, and his young woman leaves him for somebody human—a little living touch that Kipling imagines for us. Possibly when Kipling wrote this story the Bronze Age possibilities had not been so much studied. The Neolithic people were probably the ancestors of the Picts. Be- tween them and the Iron Age there must have been 1500 years of Bronze Age with their extraordinarily well-made swords and spears and axes. It would have been all right if Kipling had written about the Bronze Age rather than the Iron one. His story appears to admit the Bronze age. But even if we poke a certain amount of fun at the inaccuracy of the story, when metals first came to the Weald and the Downs and when for the first time people got on terms with the Wolf, the interest and romance remain. Two or three weeks ago I happened to be up at Mount Caburn, an Iron Age camp near Lewes. And that very evening in the Evening Standard there was an air photograph of an Abyssinian village which was the dead spit of the bastions and outward defences of Mount Caburn —the hut circles standing anyhow inside this great parapet with its great palisade and the bastion gateways. There is one more story on which I am a little puzzled. When Kipling tells the story of the old god who became human and came down to earth as a swordmaker. I am not sure whether Kipling is telling the story of the Gauls or whether it is a Scottish or a Danish god of a much later period. A friend I was staying with down in Dorchester the other day took me down to see the Danish Camp there. We THE KIPLING JOURNAL 119 asked a farm labourer which was the Danish Camp ? "Oh, no, sir, they would not go as near the barracks as that ! " Another story my friend told me. There is an old Roman circle intact near the city. He said that a little while ago one of the Archaeo- logical Societies was digging and found two rather curious stone posts in the middle. Nearby, watching the digging, were two old gentlemen sitting on a seat who came every day. At last the archaeologist went up to them and said, "Are you interested in this ?" "Oh, yes, sir, we are waiting to see the bears. There are bears there in the corner.'' " Where ? What bears ?" " Oh, yes, over in that corner there, that is where fayther said the bears were." The archaeologist set the men down to dig in this corner where they said the bears were. And sure enough, soon they came upon a certain amount of old Roman masonry, and there was a bear's skeleton at the bottom. Kipling in "Dymchurch Flit" and similar stories, talks about the fairies, or, as folk do not like the word " fairies," he called them " the little people." They left England because they could not stand the quarrelling after the Wars of the Roses. You remember how the Widow Whitgift let her foolish son take them off in a boat? Kipling's stories only illustrate how extraordinarily insistant the belief in fairies was. The people in this country are perfectly sure that the fairies existed at one time, and I imagine that there is no doubt that some of the Neolithic people who were either enslaved or driven out were undoub- tedly a very small people and would not amalgamate and lived in a corner as the gypsies do now and gradually disappeared, and that the stories of the persistent legends of the fairies are the persistent legends of the pixies or Picts or people of that sort who lived in that time. Of course the word "pixies" is only another form of "Pictses." If you know the Picts of Galloway who are still there you would see how entirely different they were in their ways from the ordinary Scottish or the other people. In some parts of the Highlands, too, are remnants of these people who were the Picts Caledonian from whose memory the fairies come. We have the fairies again in the story " Cold Iron." You remember Sir Huon and the Lady Bordeaux-Esclairmonde.. How they steal or take over the derelict English child to bring up among themselves as a liaison between themselves and the human race and how the child insists on going back to the human race. Puck shows the children Thor forging the heavy ring. The boy clips it on himself and goes back to his people. The rather delightful poem—"Cold iron shall be 120 THE KIPLING JOURNAL your master "—iron is apparently anathema to all fairies—may be the memory of the flint or bronze people who hated iron. The more rather queer little points that there are in these stories and the more you poke about in documents and histories, the more you find that Kipling has been there before you and has worked into his stories points he has picked up in that voracious browsing of his. You will find that he has got it and is more or less always accurate. I daresay some of you remember last time I talked to you about " Old Mother Laid-in-Wool who popped out of bed ?" At that period you had to be buried in wool or pay a fine of 5s. This was to stimulate the wool industry. I had several letters from people sending me particulars out of Parish Registers of people being fined for not burying their relations in wool. This poem "Old Mother Laid-in-Wool" out of " Dymchurch Flit " is an example of this. But Kipling, I am sorry to say, does not deal very much with the pre-history. By pre-history I mean the time before the Romans. This is one of the remarkable things about that pre-history that there is nothing inscribed in this country—nothing on Stonehenge or Roll- right Stones. Yet if you go further East there are inscriptions going back about 3,000 years B.C. But there is nothing written before the Romans came to this country. I feel we shall find something some day because people who made the great cathedral of Avebury must have been sufficiently civilised to have some form of record. I am always hoping that something will turn up one of these days. Apart from those few stories, then, we can only go on to the " Gran- deur that was Rome," and there Kipling is extraordinarily picturesque and very effective. I do not think we always realise the tremendous lapse of time. The Romans were in this country twice as long as we have been in India. Twice as long as that this was a Roman province, highly civilised and highly garrisoned. We have that delightful story of Pertinax the Centurion of the 30th. Often he tells his story. He was a country-born Roman. His father had settled in this country and he had been born in this country and had never been to Rome. You remember the rather wistful verses. His young brother officers who had come from Rome were a little sniffy, as some people in India are inclined to be, about the country-born Englishmen who have never been to England. Kipling puts it very clearly for you. He might have said it of all people of mixed blood. You know the rather pathetic story of the two country born girls in India and their conversation : " Have you been to Home ?" " Oh, no, but I have been twice to THE KIPLING JOURNAL 121 Darjeeling." Kipling brings it out much in that way- Then you have the story in the same manner of Pertinax talking, even as we used to do of our medical officers before the profession sent its best men to the Army. Kipling was brought up at that time. The Centurion's sister had married a surgeon and gone to Bath, and he was not sure he liked it. Then that delightful scene when he marches his men up to the Wall. They pass his father and a big Roman general and one of his men had been mutinous. The General says, " Slay him," and he says, V No, it is my show. I slay him only because I want to, not because you tell me so." The General says, " You will not get on if you talk like that." Then " On the Great Wall " : They are all rather casual. Duty is slack because the Picts and the Scots have not been there for some time. Then, the talk of the " Winged Hats," when he is left in command of the Wall and the story has begun to go round the Wall " Rome is falling." It was not falling then, but the " Winged Hats " thought it was. Among these stories is also " A Pict Song." I sometimes wonder if Mussolini does not at times cast his eye on " Ancient Albion." Why not come and have it again ? He had it for 400 years. Of early Saxon days : Kipling does not tell us very much ; I rather wish he had, but he waits until we get to the Norman period. There were many rather remarkable Saxon chronicles. When they first came they were some of the most unmitigated savages the world has ever seen. Then they intermarried with the British or made them serfs. Kipling, however, does show them to us in rather a charming way in "The Conversion of St. Wilfrid." You remember the delightful story of Meon, the old Saxon landowner with the tame seal. Meon will not be bothered about becoming a Christian. He has not been baptised though all his people have all been converted, but he is a coun- try gentleman in the best meaning of the world. The Bishop, St. Wil- frid, is doing a tour of the world and he has Eddy with him who hates the seal, Paddy. Meon says he is not going to become a Christian now, for the sake of being saved, just when his old gods are failing him and are annoyed with him, when they are cut off by the sea. You can see Meon to-day, the same rather typical old Saxon, absolutely straight and reliable in every way, though rather tiresome. When we get to the Normans, then Kipling begins to expand. The motif you remember of it all is how the Normans were captured by the life of England ; how they absorbed the ways of England; 122 THE KIPLING JOURNAL and how in a very short time the two people blended. You will remem- ber this in "Aquila of the Eagle." He did not mind the Saxons talking of ' custom ' but he was damned if he was going to have these Norman swine talking as if they were Saxon born. " I don't mind the Saxon grousing, but I won't have you fellows playing the same game," He must have been very typical of the fact of how quickly the lesser Norman chiefs became English or British or whatever you like to call them. " Young Man at the Manor," that charming story of Hugh, the young Saxon thane, who escaped from the Battle of Senlac and the charming love story of the coming of the Norman to the castle to find the young widow, Ælueva.. And we pass on to "The Joyous Venture," when the old men give up their manors to the young, and the Saxon and the Norman go off on some cruise and meet for the first time the compass. Then " Old Men at Pevensey." Do you know Pevensey ? It and its marsh, and Romney Marsh where Dymchurch, are to my mind now, the most fascinating of low lying England. Do you will remember how, in a room of the tower at Pevensey, they put Fulke down to the sea water below. As you probably know, the Office of Works have been restoring Norman Pevensey. Roman Pevensey has one of the finest walls in our England, but Norman Pevensey has been tumbling down for some time. The Office of Works have been putting back some of the stones in their places, and when it is weathered a bit it will be a great improvement. They have half rebuilt the Great Tower. There is now quite enough to make the exterior a very fine looking place. The man in charge there is bored stiff by everyone wanting to see the well in which Fulke was put down. As a matter of fact, nobody knew the well was there. Kipling made a shot at it, but it has only been dis- covered lately, long after Kipling wrote the story. Yet everybody who reads Kipling asks to see the well. The last of the Saxon and Norman stories, to my mind the most pathetic one, is "The Tree of Justice," the last story in "Rewards and Fairies. ' ' Henry has come down to the hunt at Pevensey and is hunting on the Weald and the arrows are flying about the wrong way, and the country people are rather upset. Somebody calls out " 'Ware Red Rufus' arrow.' " and everyone is searching for him. The King is there, and then there turns up the blind follower of Rahere, the King Jesta who is King Harold. The Saxon story is that Harold was not killed at Senlac, but was rescued and as a blind pilgrim spent his life journeying to all the Saxon shrines as expiation of his broken oath to THE KIPLING JOURNAL 123 William of Normandy to give up the kingdom. After Henry had given his cup to him to drink from, the old man dies. One of the most stirring and pathetic stories Kipling has ever written. Then from Saxon days and Norman days, he does not tell us much until we get vignettes of Tudor times. The only thing between is the story of the Jews in John's time, " The River of Gold " and "The Trea- sure and the Law," practically the only mediaeval stories that Kipling has told us. I keep on regretting that there are so many things he has not had time to tell us. He has told us nothing about the Wars of the Roses ; nothing about the British in France ; the story that has never been written in modern language—the story of the Black Prince and Crecy, or how we dominated a very large part of France, in the time of Joan of Arc, Kipling has never been able to touch on that for us. I imagine Atkins standing about in most French villages, bossing the whole show in that kindly dynamic way he did in France in the Great War. Sir Henry Wilson said once in France: " If I arranged with the French to let us control traffic we would in a few days be running the whole village !" I am sure if Kipling had turned his mind to it the parallel would have been exactly the same and we would have had some remark- able stories. Atkins has been Atkins whether Norman or Saxon soldier as he was in the Crusades or in the Great War. I am quite sure he enjoyed himself just as much in the Crusades as our men in 1918. I remember the British gendarme in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, describing everything to me: "And they do say, sir, as 'ow here in this crypt Moses and St. Joan wrote the Bible !" Very typical of Atkins ! You know the expression '' old codger ? '' Quite expressive of Atkins, though not quite so prevalent now to the man in the street as it would have been thirty or forty years ago. Who is the " old codger ?" The real " old codger " is our friend the Aga Khan, otherwise the head of the Khojas—the old Man of the Mountains—and he was also known to the Crusaders as the " Old Khoja," and Atkins brought it back from the Crusades as the "old codger" and it has stayed in our language ever since. Leaving then the Middle Ages with these Jews and the question of how they managed King John, we get to the Tudor times. Kipling does not really tell us very much of Tudor history, but he does give us two delightful pictures of Tudor life that are very human. We get that rather nice story of " Hal o' the Draft " and Harry Daw, the royal agent coming down for his guns to the Weald of Sussex. He could not 124 THE KIPLING JOURNAL get his guns delivered. The King's Navy was shouting for guns, but the gun contractor was shipping his guns to Sir Andrew Barton, the well-known pirate, who also wanted guns. Having found that the guns he should have had were lying in the crypt of the church on the Weald, Hal o' the Draft and Harry Daw managed to get hold of the local Squire, the magistrate, who poohpoohed the story, but brought his men at arms to see. He was not going to run his pal in, but he was going to see the King got his guns. In the other one, " The Wrong Thing " begins with that well-known song when the shipwrights are stealing the fittings off the ship and Bob Brygandyne insists on beating them. "Steal in measure," said Bob Brygandyne. Of course, this is a very common point of view. You may have a little but you must not have it all. There was a famous battery commander who used to say : " I don't mind my Quarter- master-Sergeant being a rogue, but I do expect the battery to go shares with him. He may not have it all to himself." The point about "The Wrong Thing" and how Sir Harry Daw was knighted by a funny looking scoundrel who was after found to be the King is that he did not knight Harry Daw because he had really done some good work. Katherine of Castille wanted one of his warships with a magnificent painting on the prow. Harry Daw had been ordered to draw this painting by the Chief and he produced a marvellous picture to be painted on the ship. The King saw this and said : " But this is going to cost a lot of money." " It will cost £30." " That's a lot of money all for a woman's whim. I must have something cheaper." Harry produced another design. Then the King said : " What about this ? How long do you think it will stay on !" " The first day it will knock it about and the second day will wash it off. " Because by this remark he saved the King £30 he was knighted, and the local builder cops it, saying : "I built a magnificent stable for the Squire and he never said, "Thank you," but because his new wife wanted a hawhaw and I said it could not be done because it would be so full of springs, he gave me £10 because I had saved him having it done !" We come then to that wonderful vision of "Gloriana," Queen Bess and her young men, and that poem " The Looking Glass :" Backwards and forwards and sideways did she pass Making up her mind to face the looking glass .... The story of Gloriana trying to satisfy her conscience for sending her young men to their death is rather charming. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 125 Then there is the much more cheerful and glorious story about Drake which Kipling calls " Simple Simon." Simon's aunt, the Widow Whitgift has second sight and you remember how she prophesies how Drake will open the road from East to West. On Carollan times when so much might have been written, Kipling has never touched, nor has he touched the Civil War or the Jameses, except the delightful story with the name of a very prominent man Thomas Culpeper, a chaplain. He really was a Doctor of Herbs— " Excellent herbs had our fathers of old." Thomas Culpeper was a great herbalist, one time chaplain to the "Man Charles," and respon- sible for all the Culpeper Herb Shops so fashionable to-day. Of the Georgian period there are some delightful ones, but he does not touch on the great war in France or Waterloo and he has never even touched the great sea fights and the story of the West Indies, but we have a charming peep at Washington and how the Indians tried to find out whether he was going to join the French or the English. Washington was Brother Squaretoes. When the Indians see Brother Squaretoes they greet him with the sign of the Installed Master, which is very interesting if you are a Freemason. Then we have a clever sketch of Talleyrand in " A Priest in spite of Himself." Kipling also puts for us the well-known truth of the great smuggling families and their wildness. It is interesting to note how these families English and French intermarried. I remember about twenty-five years ago I was coming home, back from India, and standing on the quay at Calais there was a French soldier exchanging first class Billings- gate chaff with the crew of a small British brig there. I was much surprised and I said to him : Well, you seem to know English rather well." But he said he was born in Whitechapel and had to serve his time with the French Army to get some property. Of course, I expect there is still smuggling in Sussex—where there is any smuggling to be done, look for it there. Probably silk stockings are coming over pretty easily by motor boat to motor cars waiting on the coast. Nothing stops in Sussex ! One point I missed when we talked about Kipling and the Romans. I don't know if you know the story of the Lost Legion. Kipling takes the name to that lost regiment of the Indian Frontier, but, of course, he took the story from history. One of the well-known puzzles of history is the Lost Legion. The Legion Hispanica marched out of York 126 THE KIPLING JOURNAL in the year A.D. 80 for the country of the Brigantines who lived in Yorkshire and Northumberland. This legion had gone off against the Brigantines who were notorious raiders, hence ' brigand,' 6,000 strong and were never heard of again. Never a prisoner came back ; never a slave came back. That legion was lost somewhere in the hills of Gallo- way and Cumberland and Kipling took this name for his tale "The Lost Legion." I would like one day to get into a car and try to find some valley in the hills where given a blizzard and bad weather it might be possible to be completely scuppered. For a great many years the places were not filled in, in the Roman Army List which is extant. One more story I mention because it is full of pathos. That is the story of "Marklake Witches, "about the squire's elfin daughter who suffered from tubercle and had a dreadful cough. She went to see the old witch master who told her to take a stake, 16 inches long, one inch for every year of her age and to put it under her window and to keep the window open and recite the names of the Twelve Apostles three times a day under the open window. Then there are the two suitors : the French doctor who knows that she is dying and the English one who does not. The village doctor understands nothing about hygiene, but the witch doctor knows. Then there is the touch about her father and Sir Arthur Wellesley—Kipling cannot refrain from putting in the touch about Sir Arthur Wellesley—who comes back and is put down to com- mand a little place on the coast and he grouses to the Squire. A rather natural thing like that might happen. This is often what happens to an officer to-day who has held high command abroad and they push him back a bit at home. I could go on talking like this for hours, but I have tried to point out the charm and human side and the romance of England and English history which Kipling brings out for us and which I think is largely re- sponsible for the great interest in the subject—especially in the pre- history—to which I have referred. DISCUSSION Mr. B. M. Bazley : I am sure you have all enjoyed the way Sir George has discussed this question as much as I have. I sometimes think in regard to this and one or two other things he has given us, that he will go down to history like another great antiquarian and soldier General Pitt Rivers, to whom we owe a great many archaeological discoveries. I was glad to hear Sir George tell us about the collabor- tion of Kipling and Fletcher, because there are certain phrases— THE KIPLING JOURNAL 127 although Fletcher's views probably are very like Kipling's—which suggest Kipling and which are just what you would imagine Kipling would write. Then there is another interesting little point on the slip that Kipling makes. Sir George mentioned the discoveries of recent years, and among those nothing has been more remarkable than the re-discovery of Anglo-Saxon times roughly between the years 450 and 1066. Until lately that period was always a blank book. In fact, a great deal of Roman times also has been re-discovered in the last twenty years, and this goes on. Of course, many of our histories were written before 1911, and, as Sir George mentions, very much has been discovered after that date. But the chronicles were there, and much digging has proved the truth of Kipling's stories. People pooh-poohed them, but most of them contained facts. There are little stories here and there, but the main history, like that of the Bible, is perfectly true. Things keep cropping up. This summer I saw a bit of a Roman road which is shown only in the latest maps. I hope Kipling discovers it because he might be quite interesting on it. On the Weland or Wayland question : there were three brothers Weland, Egil and Finn, the name Weland corresponding to the Roman Vulcan. They are well described by Miss Katherine Buck, who wrote a poem called the Weland Saga. I met her when she was writing this poem and she asked me if I had ever heard any story of telephonic communication on the Roman Wall, and that Kipling mentioned some- thing of the kind. Did he know anything about it ? I do not think he had ever been up there, but he may have been when very small. It is most extraordinary because he stumbles on things that the most learn- ed antiquaries fail to find. He seems to keep on doing it. That was the opinion of a very distinguished archaeologist. She pointed out several things illustrating the way in which he had absolutely hit the point. The story of the well at Pevensey is curious, for Kipling mentions it but nobody else does, and yet it is there. That is the extraordinary thing—how Kipling goes round and collects information from people and puts it into his work. He does not often go off the track. A Member : There are one or two things that occur in the story " On the Wall " that have always worried me. The first thing is when Maximus finds Pertinax putting out the fire. He says, "In future you will call yourself the Centurion of the 7th garrison of the 30th legion." and he is so pleased because he got three steps straight off in 128 THE KIPLING JOURNAL the Legion. Well, you gather from this that the promotion went up from the 10th garrison up to the 9th, 8th and so on. In that case, how could a man who was in charge of a detachment on the Wall authorise any step in the regiment. He would have to come all the way back from the Wall and another man be sent up to take his place. The only solution I can think of was that when Pertinax starts off from Regimental Headquarters he has this little trouble with Maximus on the road, and Maximus had originally simply intended him to be a draft- conducting officer to take up a draft up to the Wall and go home after- wards. But when he sees that Pertinax will never be any further use to him he says, "You may go to the Wall and stay there." I do not see how the promotion in a Legion could go on if it had detachments all over the place and the different men had to be moved in each step of the regiment. One other point: Pertinax, as you know, at one time said on the way " I must pray to Mithras." Again he meets Pertinax's friend. He meets him at the Church. The worship of Mithras was apparently at the time of Maximus publicly permitted on the Wall, but Christianity was the authorised religion of the Roman Empire from the days of Co- stantine, sixty years before, and Maximus had conformed to the Christ- ian religion. Why should they allow their troops to go to public worship of a religion which had been prescribed by the imperial authorities ? General Sir George MacMunn : I am sorry to say my knowledge of Roman History is not strong enough for that. You are probably quite right. Of course the worship of Mithras was a very deep cult in the Roman nation. It caught the fancy of the Romans, but whether it was proscribed I don't pretend to know. But the Romans were extraordinarily tolerant about religion, so long as one did not make a song about it. One of the guests asked if Sir George MacMunn thought these bears in Dorsetshire were pre-historic bears or Roman bears ? Sir George replied : " As the story was told to me I gather that it was a Roman bear pit, but it might easily have been a much later bear pit." Mr. Campion : Was Frankie Drake a Sussex man ? (sarcastic) Sir George MacMunn : Drake was a Westerner, (innocently— The West went to the Americas—the East to the Indies). The Chairman : I am a Devon man myself and Drake came from my county ! THE KIPLING JOURNAL 129 Letter Bag A Schoolmate of Kipling. An interesting page re Kipling's schooldays appears on page 85 of the last number of the Journal. It seems to come (posthumously) from an old school-fellow of Kipling's, one Hon. George Huntley Malcolm ; but is really from the pen of a Mr. W. J. Healy in the Winnipeg Evening Tribune, who received the testament verbally from Malcolm (since deceased). These reminiscences are perhaps more recollections of the book, " Stalky and Co.," and hardly at all of Kipling himself in his schooldays. It is extraordinary how people give us lumps and chunks of " Stalky and Co." under the delusion that they are genuine memories of the old school. They are rather obsessed by what they see in print— and this drives out any of their own recollections, and they rush to en- dorse all and any of Kipling's airy fancies as set down in his fictional work of " Stalky and Co." They also add to the "olla-podrida" matter from Kipling's rather imaginative essay called " An English School." This latter little romance was apparently written in an American journal, to pull the readers' legs and given them the creeps with a vision of a real, fierce, hairy, fighting English school as contrasted with their own quieter day schools To revert to Hon. G. H. Malcolm, now beyond the reach of cross- questioning, it is alleged that he found himself at Westward Ho ! as a new boy in 1876, and lo ! and behold ! there was Kipling. Now this revelation supports " the occult," for he must have seen R.K.'s spook, as Kipling himself did not appear in the flesh till January, 1878. The guns are then turned on Dunsterville, and it appears he was " often in trouble." If there was one thing L.C.D. avoided with dis- cretion and skill it was trouble with the authorities, otherwise he would not have been Stalky. The Hon. Malcolm is made to say that Kipling's short-sight, excusing him from compulsory games, it " must have been at first hard for him, indeed." Four lines further on he contradicts himself by saying " Kipling hated cricket and football and the other compulsory games." An Hon. is privileged to be inconsistent. And now comes a strong imaginative lead with " Ducking, tossing in the blanket and all that sort of thing there was a good deal of." We passed our snoring hours in large open dormitories, each under the strict rule of a prefect, who could not possibly have allowed such a thing 130 THE KIPLING JOURNAL as tossing in a blanket, as the house master would have been on the spot instantly. This was a diversion that never occurred in the dormitories and there were no blankets available elsewhere. Again, "He (R.K.) was fond of rambling about the cliffs." This again is simply lifted out of " Stalky and Co.," as these dangerous places were strictly out of bounds, even to members of the Natural History Society (though some members were occasionally given special leave). "The school was run largely on army lines ;" what may be "army lines ?" This little idea is also a ' lift.' I am sure that the U.S.C. in spite of its name had no more " army lines " than the average public school ; in fact not so much, as under Price it was easy-going, and the other masters were all quite harmless Victorian civilians. King, the would-be inspirer of " ethos " was an anti-Imperialist—ripening into a pacifist,—but his gospel didn't " take on." Now comes the unkindest cut of all—after stating that "It is Dunster- ville, to tell the truth, whom I remember best. He was the head and guiding spirit of Stalky, M'Turk and Beetle." (More lifting, as the alleged formidable combination was unnoticeable in the real school), he says " Kipling was chiefly remarkable as Stalky's closest chum." Well, I never ! ! What a thing to say of our great Editor of the Chronicle, our sole versifier, who wrote the whole of the yearly School Epic, ' ' Vive la Compagnie " as recited by the head prefect at Christmas, also our encyclopaedia of worldly knowledge. The great "Metropolitan Gigs " was a far more noticeable figure than L.C.D. A last faux pas : " None of us, I am sure, had the slightest idea that in his person we had a great genius among us." Yes ; Beetle is a poor figure in the book, but in the school, Price the Head said " he would go far," and R.K's associates, aware of his ability and ambitions, looked for developments. G. C. BERESFORD (alleged) " M'TURK." I wonder whether any reader of the Journal can explain a small matter which has puzzled me for years. Why, in that superb poem " Mandalay " does " the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay ?" There must be some explanation for Mr. Kipling's apparent depar- ture from his usual meticulous accuracy and yet if one looks at the map China is decidedly away round the corner. J. S. KENNEDY SHAW, Colonel. THE KIPLING JOURNAL 131 Re " Rewards and Fairies," a book not yet come into its own. In reading it for the twentieth time, I notice that in "Marklake Witches," Una alone appears ; while in " The Wrong Thing," Dan is by himself. Now Kipling is the one writer whose every sentence must be account- ed for, and these two departures from the " Dan and Una " tales mean something. As a non-Mason through circumstance, but a lover of its symbolism, I notice " Marklake Witches " lacks any Masonic allusions while " The Wrong Thing " is packed with them. But I am puzzled, and wish, if possible, to be enlightened, as to why " Hal o' the Draft " in the latter tale, keeps his body out of sight " al- ways keeping behind the pile of planks so that only his head showed (page 59). Is this taken from Masonic ritual ? The rest is clear to me ; why no men appear in " Marklake Witches," why no woman figures in " The Wrong Thing," why Puck makes a purely perfunctory entry into the former tale, and why he is entirely absent from the latter one. While we owe much to Kipling's Masonry, it is a pity that any non- Masons should, ipso facto, lose the least bit of Kipling's artistry. T. E. ELWELL (227). 132 THE KIPLING JOURNAL Secretary's Announcements (1) Meetings, Session 1935-36. The remaining are as follows :— 3rd.—9th January, 1936 (Thursday), Rembrandt Rooms, 8.30 p.m. Lecturer. Miss Pamela Frankau. Subject—" Kipling and the Child." In the Chair: S. A. Courtauld, Esq. 4th.—20th February, 1936 (Thursday) Hotel Rubens, 4.30 p.m. 5th.—17th April, 1936 (Friday) Rembrandt Rooms, 8.30 p.m. 6th.—(Special) 9th June, 1936 (Tuesday) Rembrandt Rooms, 8.30 p.m. (evening before Annual Conference and Luncheon) Note : Monsieur André Chevrillon, LL.D. has kindly promised a talk on " Kipling's Fame and Influence in France," at either the 5th or 6th meeting. (2) Annual Conference and Luncheon. 10th June, 1936 (Wednesday) Rem- brandt Rooms. Note : All dates in (1) and (2) are subject to confirmation by card as usual. The note in Journal No. 35 regarding possible change of place of afternoon meetings in hereby cancelled. (3) Journals (a) An index for 1935, Nos. 33 to 36, will be distributed with the March number, 37. (b) Please see Journal No. 34 for details of the standard binding, and No. 35 for present prices of back numbers. (4) Advertisement. Your attention is invited to the advertisement on the inside back cover of this number regarding the Queen's Secretarial College, 67, Queen's Gate, S.W.7. This College has done all typing required for the Society during the last 5 ½ years ; and the Principal, Miss Simmons, is most helpful in providing us with an efficient Reporter for our meetings, for Journal purposes. I am able to speak from personal knowledge of the very attractive and efficient manner in which this College is worked. (5) Vice-President. Our latest acquisition is Sir James G. Fraser, O.M. (of " Golden Bough" fame), who, with Lady Frazer has just joined us. C. BAILEY, Colonel, Secretary. ROLL OF NEW MEMBERS TO DECEMBER 1935 Nos. 1357 to 1370 1357 Lt. Col. A. A. Irvine 1364 John J. McDonald Rye U.S.A. 1358 Miss D.M.M. Stanley-Turner 1365 M.L.Webb Ashtead. Haywards Heath. 1359 Lady Snell 1366 Mrs. Ruth Webb Fowey. Haywards Heath. 1360 Miss M. Dollman 1367 Miss A. P. Stairs London. London. 1361 Cosmo Hamilton 1368 Miss Pat A. N. MacMahon Ewhurst. (Transfer from Associate) 1362 Mrs. L. Walwyn Llanfihangel-ar-Arth. Egham. 1369 *R. V. Waitt 1363 L. F. Hemmans Canada London. 1370 Signorina Isabella Gallinari Italy *Donor Member