New York Evening Journal - "What's in the New York Evening Journal"

Max Pearson Cushing - "Baron d'Holbach"

F. Max Mueller - "India: What can it teach us?"

Dane Coolidge - "Rimrock Jones"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Current History, A Monthly Magazine

N >> New York Times >> Current History, A Monthly Magazine




"The Emden now changed her course again, to the right, and disappeared
behind a group of several tramp steamers so as to enable her to turn
around without unduly exposing herself. While she was doing this the
firing diminished greatly, owing to the disinclination on the part of
either, I imagine, wantonly to damage harmless merchant vessels. No
sooner had she started on her way out of the harbor, however, than the
din arose once more.

"Just at this time the French torpedo boat Fronde dropped back from
her position alongside us and started in to take part in the melee
with a machine gun. This caused the Emden to devote part of her time
to us, and we were made the objective of a severe machine-gun fire
which, owing to our position in the shadow of the pier and of the fact
that the light was very poor, did little or no damage. Nevertheless,
it was rather disconcerting to hear the rattle of lead on the
corrugated iron sheds behind us.

"By this time the Emden must have realized that at such close quarters
she was subject to the danger of a torpedo attack, (although as a
matter of fact no effort seemed to have been made along these lines,)
and she accordingly started up the north channel toward the outer
harbor at full speed, firing broadside after broadside at the
Jemtchug, now badly crippled.

"Suddenly, as the two cruisers were abreast and no more than 150 yards
from one another, there was a tremendous crash. The Jemtchug heaved up
amidships, there was another detonation even louder than the first,
and she sank before I could realize what had happened. All that
remained was a large pillar of smoke to mark the spot where she had
been. A German torpedo had found its mark, and the Emden sailed around
the point without firing another shot.

"By this time--less than thirty minutes after the first shot had been
fired--the Pistolet had cast off and we started across the harbor
toward the place where we had last seen the Jemtchug, with the Fronde
close behind us. It was slow work, as we had very little steam.

"As we neared the scene of the disaster I received my first impression
of the horror of modern naval warfare. The water was strewn with
wreckage, amid which heads were popping up and down like corks in a
lily pond. It seemed as if it were alive with men. They were
everywhere, hanging on to pieces of wood, clutching life preservers,
clinging to debris of all kinds.

"When we reached them we immediately started in getting them aboard by
means of boats, ropes looped at the end, by hand, and in any way
possible. They were indeed a most terrible sight. Most of them were
wounded, and those that were were bleeding profusely. Practically none
were wearing more than a pair of trousers, and a considerable number
did not even have that. A few were frightfully lacerated, and we
recovered one man who had had his leg blown off below the knee--he
died five minutes after we got him on board. It was like living a
frightful nightmare. Everywhere you turned you met a groaning, greasy
mass of humanity.

"Discipline was thrown aside and Captain and men alike toiled in
their efforts to alleviate the suffering of the Jemtchug's survivors.
My partner at bridge the previous night, the doctor, asked my
assistance, and together we went from man to man doing what emergency
work we could. My pajama-decked costume was rapidly covered with
blood. It was a case of everybody helping everybody else.

"Finally, when numerous launches of all sizes and makes had put out to
relieve us, we returned to the Victoria jetty, which the ambulance
corps of the Sikh garrison, aided by volunteers and local doctors, had
turned into a temporary hospital. Here were removed what remained of
the Jemtchug.

"While the last few men were taken off the Pistolet, another
cannonading was heard. I hurried ashore, with no feeling of regret, I
might say, and took a rikisha to the outer sea wall to see whatever
fighting was going on. The ships were so far away that it was hard to
tell with the naked eye exactly what was going on. We could see the
little torpedo boat Mosquet trying to get beyond the range of the
Emden's guns while the shells were throwing up water all around her.
The chase had kept on for twenty minutes, I should say, when we saw
the little craft sink by the bow. The Emden lowered boats to pick up
any possible survivors, but, from the short time they were down, I
imagine most of the crew were lost.

"I have tried to give you some little idea in the foregoing of the
frightful encounter I have witnessed. It seemed like a nightmare
afterward, although while it was actually going on you felt as if you
were looking at a sham battle. Even when the bullets started in to
rattle on the iron-covered sheds above our heads there was nothing
terrifying about it. After the effect of the first few shots had worn
off I felt as if I were watching a play. That quiet, staid Penang with
her shaded streets and sampan covered harbor should be the scene of a
naval engagement such as I witnessed today is almost unbelievable. Yet
the sordid aftereffects are before our eyes.

"Only the masterly manoeuvring of that gentleman of the German
fleet--the Captain of the Emden--prevented the city from being the
scene of a terrible carnage. His refusal to sink unarmed vessels while
the crews were on board, his refraining from bombarding the town, his
stopping to pick up the crew of the Mosquet, although every minute was
valuable to him, at once made him 'that gentleman, the Captain of the
Emden.' On all sides you heard 'I hope they sink the Emden, but it
will be a shame if any of her crew are lost.'

"While steaming away from Penang he met the tramp Glen. Instead of
capturing her, he sent her into Penang with the message: 'I tried not
to hit the town. If I did so, I am very sorry, indeed.' Well, he
'played the game,' and he has made me, for one, feel extremely
doubtful whether the much-talked-of German 'atrocities' are true,
except where the exigencies of war have made them unavoidable."

Here you have the story of an engagement which will go down in history
as a demonstration that, even under the conditions of modern naval
warfare, it is possible for two ships of almost equal armament to
fight by daylight at almost point-blank range without resulting in the
disabling of both. A sight similar to that witnessed yesterday would
be considered by most naval critics as impossible, or, rather,
suicidal.

The sad, or, rather, disgraceful, part of the story has yet to be
told. It was true that the Jemtchug was caught unprepared. Her Captain
was spending the night ashore, her decks were not cleared, she was
slow to get into action, and when she did so her marksmanship was
poor. All this could hardly be excused, but it becomes insignificant
when we consider the case of the French torpedo boats and the
D'Iberville, whose help the Jemtchug had a right to expect. Here they
lay in a harbor with fully ten minutes' warning that a hostile ship
was approaching, yet they allowed that ship to enter the harbor, steam
around it, turn, and make her escape without so much as firing a shot,
when, if they had gone into action, the Emden could hardly have
escaped. The range was everything they could have desired.

What was the matter? Why did they remain silent? The answer is this:
Although it was a time of war, a large percentage of the officers of
these ships had been allowed to remain ashore over night. Not one of
the ships had steam up. Their decks were not even cleared for action.
Yet, even taking this into consideration, it is inexplicable that,
when two or three torpedoes from any one of them would have saved the
day, none was fired. The ships need not have moved an inch to have
done so. The range was ridiculously short--less than 200 yards at one
time. But surprise, lack of discipline, and general inefficiency
seemed to hold them paralyzed.

The prevailing opinion here is that they did not wish to draw the
Emden's fire on themselves--although one did use her machine gun
toward the end of the engagement. Whatever is said, however, it is
impossible to get away from the fact that the French Navy yesterday
sustained a blow to its efficiency that it will take a long time to
wipe out. Theirs was a "masterly inaction" caused by something which
they do not attempt themselves to define. Both army and navy
commanders here are one in their contemptuous condemnation of such a
spectacle.




The Belgian Soldier

[From The London Times, Oct. 17, 1914. By its Special Correspondent
lately in Antwerp.]


Before it fades I would like to record my impression of the Belgian
soldier as I have seen him day after day through the two months ending
with the fall of Antwerp.

I have seen him on every kind of duty and off, on the roads, in
cabarets, in camp and barrack, on the march, in trenches, fighting
from behind all sorts of cover or from none, on foot, on horseback, on
bicycles, mounted proudly on his auto-mitrailleuse, or running behind
his gun-team of dogs, each dog pulling and barking as if it would tear
the whole German Army to pieces. I have seen him wounded on
battlefields, by the roadside, and in hospitals; I have seen him, in
the later days at Antwerp, brought back from the forts and from those
terrible advanced trenches unwounded, but from sheer exhaustion in
almost more serious plight than any of his comrades whom the shells
had hit. And I have seen him dead.

As a result there has grown up in me an extraordinary affection for
him. Greater even than my admiration of his careless courage is my
liking for the man. For all his manhood he has so much of the child in
him; he is such a chatterbox and so full of laughter, and never are
his laugh and badinage so quick as when he has the sternest work on
hand. Unshaven, mud-bespattered, hungry, so tired that he can hardly
walk or lift his rifle to his shoulder, he will bear himself with a
gallant gayety which, I think, is quite his own and is altogether
fascinating.

As time goes on perhaps it will be the faces of the dead and wounded
that will live most clearly in the memory, but at present the pictures
of the Belgian soldier which stand out sharpest are less lugubrious
and more commonplace.

I walked one day back toward Antwerp, along that awful road which ran
by Contich and Waerloos to Waelhem. Daily along that road the German
shells fell nearer to the city, so that whenever one went out to the
place that he had visited yesterday he was likely to find himself
disagreeably surprised. One day I found myself, (I would not have
been there had I known it,) perhaps a mile inside the range of the
enemy's guns. A Red Cross car had dropped me and picked up wounded men
instead, and there was nothing for it but to walk back along the road.

Along the road from the foremost trenches came a dozen Belgian
soldiers, just relieved after twenty-four hours of what it is
difficult to describe otherwise than as hell. Muddied from head to
heel, they could hardly drag their feet along, and, glad of any
company, I fell in and walked with the last straggler of the little
band, while the shrapnel with its long-drawn scream--whew-ew-ew-ew-bang!--broke
on either side of us.

At every whew-ew-ew-ew which came too near I dived for cover. If there
was no friendly wall or vehicle or tree trunk at hand the ditch beside
the road was always there. And every time I dived my companion stood
in the middle of the road and shook with laughter--not unkindly, but
in the utmost friendliness and good humor--waiting till I rejoined him
and we resumed our walk.

A little man, shockingly bedraggled, worn out almost to the point of
collapse, utterly indifferent to his own danger, and taking a huge,
childlike delight in my care for my personal safety, the picture of
him as he stood and laughed all alone in the bare road amid the
bursting shells seems to me curiously typical of the whole Belgian
Army.

Another picture also--a composite photograph--I shall never forget. It
is the same man--sometimes blonde, sometimes dark, but always the same
smallish man--as, on picket duty, he stops you to examine your papers.
He does not understand the papers in the least. The British passport
begins with the words, "We, Sir Edward Grey, a Baronet of the United
Kingdom...." Sternly he wrinkles his brow over the formidable
document, earnestly trying to do his duty. At last, "Votre nom,
Edouard Gra-ee?" he asks. You explain that you wish that it was and
call attention to the place where your own insignificant name is
mentioned lower down. To his immense relief he has mastered the
central fact, namely, that you are English. And his face lights up
with the smile which one has come to know so well; a smile of real
pleasure and good-will.

Sometimes he speaks a word of English, and with what pride he uses it!
"All ri'!" "Good night!" "How do?" And you go on into the night
feeling that you are leaving a friend behind whom you would like to
stop and talk to. And he, you know, has been cheered in his lonely
duty by the mere contact with an ally.




THE HEROIC LANGUAGE

By ALICE MEYNELL.

[From King Albert's Book.]


When our now living languages are "dead,"
Which in the classes shall be treasured?
Which will the masters teach?
Kepler's, and Shakespeare's, and thy word, thy phrase,
Thy grammar, thou heroic, for all days,
O little Flemish speech!




Cheerful Spirits in Trench Inferno

[Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.]


Northern France, Dec. 20, (Dispatch to The London Daily News.)--This
week--a week of many significant things--has ended in the wildest
whirl of weather imaginable. The rains have been terrific, blinding,
tropical in their almost ceaseless roar and fury. Surely only madmen
or fiends would fight in such an elemental maelstrom. We may be both,
and perhaps we are, now that the whole world is topsy-turvy; for we
are going savagely on at this dread business, half blind and wholly
desperate. If the furious sky were to rain red-hot pitchforks the
contending armies would still be undismayed and would crawl, if not
fly, at one another's throats.

But there is no romance in trench fighting; it is sickening,
demoralizing. Ask any soldier who has been at it for a time. He will
pour a few plain truths into your shocked ear. Down at the railroad
terminal today I met some of them--a queer mixture. There was a batch
of German prisoners; there was a squad of wounded Belgians, and there
were four lost, stolen, or strayed British soldiers from the Seventh
Division--a Sergeant and three men. They were all so plastered over
with dirt that it was difficult to sort out their nationality.

What struck me most was their absolute and undisguised cheerfulness. I
have lively recollection of the first German prisoners I saw in the
early days of the war. They were in a gray funk, which is several
degrees more sheer than a blue funk. They absolutely believed that the
next moment or two would be their last on this woeful earth and that
they would be shot out of hand.

The young Prussians I met today said that they had been having a very
thin time recently; that their food was bad, and getting worse and
more scanty every day; that pneumonia and rheumatism were rife in
their trenches, to say nothing of the dreaded typhoid, and that they
were tremendously glad to be out of it all. They understood that they
were going to England. Anyway, they hoped so fervently.

The Belgian soldiers were all slightly wounded, mostly in the legs and
arms. The mud and slime of the trenches north of Furnes had not yet
dried upon their sodden clothes. They were cold and benumbed and
desperately hungry, for their train had been held up for hours while
certain private and confidential military scene changing was going on.
In spite of the pain their hurriedly dressed wounds were giving them
they, too, were cheerful.

"We are in great heart," said one of them, "for we are moving on
surely and certainly. This week something new has come to us. The
knell of retreat no longer sounds in our hearts; the tocsin rings
there instead. We are marching on; we are driving the barbarians back.
Every inch of our motherland regained is sweet and precious to us.
Three days ago I saw our King. He was as muddy and stained, Monsieur,
as I am now. An officer who was with him wanted to remove the mud from
his clothes. 'But no,' said the King, 'let it stay. If my own land
clings thus to me, let it stay; it is better that it should be so,'
and he laughed as he passed on. We all cheered him, and he laughed the
more, showing a shining face and bidding us take heart, as a brighter
day was dawning.

"So we went into the fight that evening, afraid of nothing. In rain
and mist we charged a small village with a mighty shout. Though our
numbers were small we charged. We were beaten back, and then we
charged again. My bayonet broke off short in the breast of a huge
German, and then in the dark and mist a great crowd swept over us as
we both went down. I came to in the dawn. Our men were singing the
chant of victory. The gray enemy had gone. The village, smoking and
shattered, was ours. Our guns were rattling up the street to take
another and stronger position.

"A small victory, perhaps, but none the less sweet for that. Alas! I
could not follow, and they brought me on here. The fortunes of war
were hard."

He raised himself painfully. The big Sergeant from the lost legion,
coming along at the moment, picked him up like a baby, hoisted him on
his shoulders, and bore him along through mud to the clearing house
beyond the station yard.

"Lucky chap," said the Sergeant. "He is going to have a warm, snug
Christmas in a snug, warm hospital; and here's me only lorst in this
bloomin' swamp, an' got to report for duty somewhere in the
mornin'--Lord knows where!" he grinned ruefully at me.




King George's Visit to the Troops

[From The London Times, Dec. 8, 1914.]


_An officer in the Indian Expeditionary Force sends the following
description of an episode in the King's visit to the front:_

A red-letter day indeed--for the King turned up here at 10:45 this
morning and stayed quite a long time, inspecting detachments of the
Indian Army Corps. He only crossed from England last night I believe,
stayed with the General for breakfast, and saw us all before lunch,
going on to the next army corps. It was quite the most informal show I
have ever seen. He strolled up and down the ranks chatting with all
and sundry. He asked two of our native officers how long they had been
in the regiment, the General interpreting.

The secret of his visit was well kept. Last night after dinner the
Adjutant biked over from Headquarters and said he and I and ---- had
been chosen by lot from the officers, with thirty-three men from each
of the three squadrons here, to represent the regiment at an
inspection by the Commander in Chief. Well, we went off this morning,
and found similar detachments from all the corps not in the trenches.
It was a dull morning and the mud was awful, and just before his
Majesty was due a German aeroplane appeared heading straight for us.
Our guns opened fire on it and it made off north, but it added
excitement. Otherwise it was a quiet morning and hardly any firing
from the trenches. The King and Sir James arrived in the first car,
then the Prince of Wales driving his own car, and a crowd of staff
officers. The two divisional staffs were presented, and then they
started walking down the lines. My new horse is a real good 'un, but
can't stand "Present arms!" under his nose, and he nearly backed into
his Majesty as he came up from behind.

The Leicesters were in front of us. They had only come up out of the
trenches at midnight and were in a lovely state of mud and
unshavedness. The King simply reveled in them. He stopped and chatted
to quite every one man in three; wanted to know all about trench
fighting, and didn't seem to mind a bit their being covered with mud
and unshaved for days. The Prince was just as interested. He wandered
about at will, paying no attention to his father, and chatting with
all and sundry. One man was wearing a pair of German boots which
interested the King very much. He spent quite twenty minutes with the
Leicesters, and they deserved it. They have done splendidly all
through.

After that he gave two V.C.s to gunners who had won them very early in
the war, and then when he ought to have been moving on he began
strolling up and down the line again, asking all sorts of questions
and noticing everything. At last they got him into his car to move on
to the next army corps. The General came back to give us his message.
It was that he was very pleased with all he had seen and heard; that
he wanted the troops to know that both he and the Queen always kept
them in their thoughts, and that he meant to see all of them again,
with his own eye, as soon as the war was over. The General gave it out
very well, (he is fluent in Hindustani,) and it made a great
impression on the men.

It was altogether a wonderful visit, so quiet and informal and
businesslike; no apparent precautions or rehearsal; the King tramping
about in the mud as though he were partridge shooting, while the
Prince wandered about as he listed. My interpreter, a French-Canadian,
was amazed.


_A member of the London Scottish writes:_

IN THE TRENCHES, Nov. 11.

This is our third day in the trenches. We have not had an attack yet,
though there has been hard fighting on our immediate right and left.
We are fairly safe here behind barbed wire entanglements, and this
would be an easy job if one could get used to the row and the watching
through the night, which is rather nerve-racking. This trench is in a
bonnie fir wood, just like bonnie Scotland, but the shell fire has
damaged nearly all the trees. Today, being windy, they are falling in
all directions. We have not had a hot meal since we came here. We are
not allowed to build fires, and it is impossible to get anything hot.
We have lost our blankets again in the meantime. I am just going to
have my lunch of "bully" and bread and plain water.

Nov. 18.

We have had a pretty rough time lately. Last night was the first for
ten days that I have had a roof over my head. The weather has been
atrocious--pouring rain and driving, cutting snow--but it did not get
through my overcoat, which is richly caked with mud. We have had a
fortnight's fighting and have marched back now from the firing line
for a short rest to refit. It meant two days' marching through roads
and fields ankle deep in clinging, porridgy mud, but we were all glad
enough to put up with any hardship so long as we got away from the
strain of flying shells and bullets. In the trenches we lost some more
of our men, but not many. I just wish you could see our battalion now;
what a change from the crowd that used to march through London. Every
man, almost, has a beard, and you could not imagine the dirty,
bedraggled crowd we are. The strain of watching through the night in
the trenches is pretty awful. The nights were pitch black, and the
rain came pouring down, making the trenches an awful mess. One chap
gave a loud cry in his sleep. Thinking it came from the wood in front,
I blazed away. We sent a burial party out in front of us one morning.
There must have been hundreds of Germans lying there, with thousands
further on. All we could do was just to cover them with earth. It was
a horrible sight, and it is impossible for you folks at home to
realize anything of the awfulness of this war. This awful pace surely
cannot last long. But despite all the discomfort, I would not have
liked to miss the chance of doing my part here.

Nov. 20.

The Prince of Wales visited us yesterday. We are billeted in a cafe,
and he came in rubbing his hands with the cold. He looked jolly well,
and has a fine, healthy, clear complexion. We have been living in the
lap of luxury lately. Yesterday was just like Christmas Day. We were
inundated with parcels from home, and the room is one litter of all
sorts of comforts, and any amount of sweets, shortbread, cake, &c. I
cannot recollect two such happy days as these have been. You can have
no idea how all these luxuries are appreciated after living on "bully"
and biscuits. We have a perfect avalanche of cigarettes and tobacco.
We had a bit of a panic this morning, as we were under orders to move
at any moment, but by good luck it did not come off, and we are
looking forward to a few more days' rest. Our last week in the
trenches was a picnic compared with our first experience. This is a
grand, free life, a sight better than mooching around the city. I'm
just going to have a tot of rum now and turn in--it warms the cockles
of one's heart and makes one sleep like Rip Van Winkle.

Nov. 29.

I never felt so fit in my life and never had such a good time before.
This is simply a splendid life, and I am very glad, indeed, I did not
miss my chance of being here. We were inspected today by Sir John
French, who is tremendously pleased with us. Rumor has it that we are
still to be here a few days, which is giving us a fine long rest. Then
we may be wanted again. One of our fellows has just gone past the
window with a huge sack on his back. It is most laughable to see
immaculate city chaps out here doing all sorts of "orra" jobs. We have
been served out with fur coats, no less; what on earth will they give
us next, I wonder? We are still living in the lap of luxury and are a
most happy family. We have a march every morning, which in this fine
cold weather is delightful.

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