1927, #10, p. 4
first posted 20040803
latest minor change 20050506
text of article in Russian.
Although superficially framed as fiction (opening 5 paragraphs and final 2 paragraphs #18-#19), the meat of this article (paragraphs #6-#17) is a satirical account of an actual event, the world tour (1926-27) of Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram, Anglican bishop of London. Some biographical notes about Bishop Winnington-Ingram, sometimes known as "Reverend Ingram" or "Bishop Ingram," are given below.
Two minor items of interest in the article:
Paragraph #16 contains the Chinese taunt "paper tiger," apparently familiar long before Mao used it in the 1950s and 1960s.
Some sources
Autobiography:
Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram, D.D., K.C.V.O., Fifty Years' Work in London (1889-1939), Longmans Green and Co., London - New York - Toronto, 1940; cloth, 249 pp.
(hereafter WI)
1877 -- matriculated into Keble College (Oxford), where his "career... was successful but not glorious" (SCC, p. 11).
After graduation, spent three years travelling as tutor of a wealthy client.
1884 -- Ordained as deacon by Bishop of Litchfield.
Became curate at St. Mary's in Shrewsbury.
1889-1897 -- head of Oxford House, a "settlement" (religious and social service center) sponsored in poor east London by Oxford University. A deep mutual affection developed between Ingram and many of his parashioners.
Some biographers were amused to note that his accent, previously unremarkable middle-upper-class English, forever afterwards had an east-London tinge, something far more unusual then than now (2004).
1897-1901 -- Bishop of Stepney: a suffragan bishop working for the Bishop of London, with large responsibilities in east and north London.
1901-1939 -- Bishop of London. After the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, this was the third most important post in the Church of England, responsible not only for London, but also many overseas links. He made numerous visits to British troops during WW I.
1939 -- made planned retirement at age 81.
1946 -- died. June 7 -- public funeral at St. Paul's.
Ingram's Christian social work with the poor competed with, rather than complemented, radical socialism.
Ingram may have spoken publicly against Soviet persecution of the Russian Orthodox clergy, whom he had befriended on a 1908 visit to pre-Revolutionary Russia.
On that same 1908 visit, Ingram was invited to a private meeting with Nicholas II at Tsarskoe Selo. He noted the heavy security surrounding the Tsar (whose father and grandfather had been assassinated), but nevertheless they got along well. "We had a long and friendly talk over things in general... I can only remember one good-humoured retort; he had encouraged me to tell him what I thought of Russia, and I had frankly hinted at some of the things which I thought were wrong, and which ultimately brought about the Revolution, when, without snubbing me in any way, he just said quite good humouredly, 'and how are you getting on in Ireland, Bishop?'"
(WI, p. 78)
Editor's note: Nicholas II was not the first continental ruler to mention Ireland whenever some Briton sounded overly smug. I believe (but cannot trace the quote), that Catherine the Great had once mentioned British failures in Ireland.
"But though it was a monstrous crime to kill the Czar and his family, in my opinion Rasputin was rightly killed. It is not often that you have a murder described by the murderer, but Count Elston (as I knew him, who aftewards became Prince Yousopoff) came all the way to England to tell me how he did it. He is still alive, and I should not like to break his confidence by describing in detail how he did it. I had made my house his home when he was at Oxford, and had sent him to Oxford with an excellent companion, later the Bishop of Shrewsbury. His father had come over at the beginning of the last war [1914] to thank me for looking after him and he did not want me to think him a murderer without cause. When Rasputin thought he had hypnotized him and told him that he was going to make peace with the Germans and depose the Czar, this young man, whose family had been at the right hand of the Czars for generations, said to himself (so he told me), 'Then I shall kill you,' and he did so, and I will just leave it at that."
(WI, p. 79)
Some information about Ingram's 1926-27 world tour
Correspondences between biographies and Bezbozhnik u Stanka article?
Japan--
Ingram had much more, however, to say about pirates (naval, not software) near Hong Kong. This may explain the Bezbozhnik reference to a "fighting admiral":
"What also impressed me was the inability of the Government of China to deal with the pirates. They had their headquarters at Bias Bay, and had the audacity to board our merchant ships, overpower the crew, empty the ships and send them contemptuously on to Hong Kong, but when I was there the men of the Sunning were too much for them, they recaptured the ship and brought eighteen captives into Hong Kong.
"The authorities in Hong Kong were most anxious to deal with 'Bias Bay,' and that accounted for their hope that I should be captured on my way to Canton (sixty miles up the river). They thought that if the Bishop of London was captured, they could get authority from home to act vigorously, but I disappointed them by turning up quite safely on Monday from a visit to Canton, where we really did see China as China and not as a 'port of foreigners.'"
(WI, pp. 181-182)
"At a great Meeting of 3,000 people in the Town Hall of Auckland the Bishop writes:
"'(2) National Softness, illustrated by the saying already quoted from Vancourver: "Send out as many serfs as you like to cultivate our land -- our young people don't mean to do it!"
"'(3) National Gambling, as illustrated by a mother who said to her daughter, "If you want any new clothes, my dear, go to the races: I can't afford to give you any."
event | date in Times | page ref. |
---|---|---|
1926 | ||
departs Euston (station?) | July 30 | p. 17f |
In Ottawa | 17 Aug | |
in NYC | 23 Oct | p. 11g |
in DC, received by Pres. Coolidge | 30 Oct | p. 11b? |
at Hong Kong | Dec 28 | p. 10a |
1927 | ||
at Singapore | Jan 6 | p. 13g |
at Batavia (now Jakarta) | Jan 20 | p. 11g |
at Sydney | 17 Feb | p. 13g |
at Adelaide | Mar 30 | p. 15g |
returns to London | May 9? | p. 9?a? |
The American part of his tour was also covered in American newspapers.
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