Maclean's

Articles

VICTORIA: TWEEDS IN EDEN

SPEAKING not quite as an Early Victorian but at least as an indisputable Mid-Victorian, I’m glad I knew Victoria before its fall. Even fallen it is a pretty good place to live in, among a hundred thousand postgraduate Canadians, half a million rose bushes, enough daffodils to turn the nation yellow with envy, a hundred imported English skylarks by my last census, one sea serpent named Cadborosaurus, plenty of assorted lunatics to make life saner than anywhere else and a civic mentality which baffles the psychiatrists. By BRUCE HUTCHISON

20

Fiction

THE STATELY STREET OF SIN

IN TORONTO they tell the story of a deaf old man who got on a streetcar and asked repeatedly to be let off at Jarvis Street. Finally the conductor shouted: “You won’t miss Jarvis Street. There’ll be two cops on one corner. There’ll be a police cruiser on the opposite corner. By GRATTAN GRAY

22

Fiction

Flight Through Solitude

WHAT did a man do when success turned to ashes in his mouth? A man like Jeffrey Grant, who took his law degree at 22, earned his wings, was a combat pilot nearly four years, and came back to a job with Fleming, Carson, Wilhams & Fleming. A man who had just won his first big case at the age of 30, and who now was filled with world weariness. By HAL BORLAND

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BATTLES AND BLUNDERS IN THE SCHOOLS

AGROUP of 474 Canadian and U. S. senior high-school students were asked to write essays outlining their main impressions of their biggest neighbor. One Canadian high-school boy chewed his pencil for a while, could only write: “Crime in the States is astounding. By FRED BODSWORTH

12

Articles

The Most Glamorous Girls Live In Quebec

WHEN I am in Montreal I sometimes stop at the information desk in the foyer of the Dominion Square Building and play a slightly wolfish, harmless and extremely fascinating little game with Paul Berlinguel. Paul, who has the bearing of a movie diplomat, the voice of Charles Boyer, the manner of a marquis, and the penetrating eye of a house dick, can usually tell the instant a girl walks through the massive doors almost 100 feet away whether she has a French or English background. By GORDON SINCLAIR

10

Fiction

THE MERCIFUL MISSION OF GENERAL KUNG

ALL THIS took place before the Reds moved down to encircle Shanghai and it should be filed in one of those "Now It Can Be Told" folds. Originally the deal had been for a cargo flight from Takhing to Hangchow with about three tons of medical supplies for the Nationalist Army. By ARCH WHITEHOUSE

18

DON’T BOTTLE UP YOUR TEARS

SUPPOSE your child, your mother, or your best friend died tomorrow. What would it do to you? How should you behave? Should you let the tears flow, or determine to “put a brave face on things”? You can never tell how you will act until the calamity strikes. By RONALD HAMBLETON

8

Articles

I SAY THE TORIES WILL WIN

LONDON (By Cable)—Three months before the British general election in 1945 the editor of Maclean’s cabled a request that I should predict what was likely to happen. My article appeared in the April 15 issue under the heading “Will Britain Swing Left?” By BEVERLEY BAXTER

14

Articles

BACKSTAGE AT OTTAWA

EVER SINCE ex-President Hoover drafted his plan to streamline the American bureaucracy Canadians have been asking, “Why can’t we have a Hoover Commission in this country?” In a quiet way we’ve been having one. Two years ago the Civil Service Commission set up a special branch to advise departments how to get more work done with fewer people. By THE MAN WITH A NOTEBOOK

4

EDITORIALS

In the Editors’ Confidence

ARTICLE editor Pierre Berton, who occasionally leaves his desk to write an article himself, tells us that his two-part piece on E. P. Taylor was the toughest assignment he’s handled. Taylor, it turns out, is a man who doesn’t like publicity.