POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 48, 25 August 1930, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

Br PERCY FLAGE

It is reported that the city fire plugi are difficult to find.—So are the "firs bugs.'' "Australia Awakes. Must Take Hey Medicine"—heading in. "The Post".—lt is obviously a case of that morniug-aftcr-tlie-night-before feeling. «■ * * In "The Post" on Saturday a correspondent criticised Councillor B. A. Wright, M.P., for mixing up re-election prospects with sound tramway finance. —The point is usefully made, but it it unreasonable, in our opinion, to expect councillors always to think of others. « * » According to our news columns, "th» Hon. \V. Earnshaw declared that th« proposals of the Government (the Defence Bill) came from those who wera preaching the Soviet gospel. ... ."— "We passionately commend that important statement to the notice of the Welfare League. * * * Andreo-Strendberg-Frankel: Death snatched them, from.' an Arctic sky, With a white pall he covered them. The northern lightnings saw them, die, The Pole winds boomed their requiem. Back through the long slow years they came Who vanished in the mists afar; And the pale radiance of their name Takes on the splendour of a star. « * * "How do we know that Don Bradman is not a passing meteor —dazzling within its brief sojourn within our horizon, but anon fading into the outer obscurity whence it came?" asks, a writer in "The Post."—That, we protest on behalf of the Small Town* League, is scarcely fair to Bowral. * • • ■ Talking of the cricket Tests: we haven't noticed anybody moving * vote of thanks and congratulation, to the English selectors. —This is a- most regrettable oversight. It is true that in the last game they lost their heads, but didn't their tour de force win the toss? * ♦ *. . If we comprehend what he is aiming' at, the Hon. G. Witty supports the Defence Bill on three grounds in particular: (1) The hard-iipriess of the Government; (2) an army is a useleßs thing to-day; and (3) what wag wanted was an efficient navy and an efficient air service.—-How will Mr. Witty vote if an amendment is moved to sell our army as a going concern—pull-throughs and all —and buy bombing 'planes and submarine cruisers with the proceeds'! * * .» . An interesting and unfamiliar fact recorded in our news columns last week explained that the "turkey, was named after 'The Turkish Trading Company, which was the first importer of the bird on a large scale."—Now. will someone interpret hexamethylenetetramine for us. All we know about it —and it doesn't help much—is that under the new tariff in. the sublime U.S.A. the duty on it is now 11 cents instead of 25 per cent., while bobwhite quail is put on the free list. * * * "Plain George Forbes" had something to say on Saturday evening on, the thrills of Eugby. He asked for nothing better in that line (he said) than to see Nicholls pot a goal or Porter exploding from the ruck with the ball in his arms. So far as Porter ia concerned, our personal maximum emotion is when he meets another opportunist on the same quest as himself, and they proceed to argue. the right of way. However, this is the Prime Minister's paragraph. Probably, one of his greatest triumphs in the field of athletio prowess represents a record which, so far as can be gathered, is unique—even if Bradman isn't. Does any client of ours know of the Prime Minister, or ex-Prime Minister, of any, other country who holds, or has held, the fly-the-garter championship? I£ not, and a southern mayor who is responsible for this disclosure speaks of what he knows, then the Hon. Mr. Forbes stands alone among his political contemporaries. It is gathered from. other sources that the Prime Minister possessed an ideal back for leap-frog, rarely lost an agate at marbles, and played a hard, though perhaps a too deliberate, game of hopscotch. It is personal details such as these -which help to endear any State leader to the impressionable hearts of his fond public. It is a truism that you must go to the fountain head for the clearest water. Poulteney Bigelow, an elderly American publicist, recently returned, from a visit to Doom with it story; that throws a lurid new light on the origin of the World War. Only the cynical will question Mr. Bigelow's impartiality simply because he is a boyhood friend of the ex-Kaiser, and hopes to spend another holiday with that misunderstood exile, splitting an* sawing wood with him. His neutrality, thus established, we have it «tt Ma, Bigelow's word of honour that the evidence at Doom convincingly acquits his host of responsibility for the 1914-18 Armageddon. The witnesses for the defence were Wilhelm himself and certain documents in the library at Doovn House. Exactly. To clear himself before tho nations, Wilhelm desires to have his plea of not guilty testea before an international court-martial at The Hague. In the event of such a tribunal being set np, we strongly urge the appointment of "Papa" Hindcnburg as president. * ♦ * It would not surprise to hear, thafc our modern Methuselah, Zaro Agha, had gone, or been dragged, into thetalkies. Zaro recently starred in thn news as the oldest thing of his kind in tho whole wide world. He has arrived in the States to got himself a set of false teeth, and—for a consideration —let American scientists have a look at him. His dental purpose arose out of the loss of his third set of natural teeth, which put in an appearance when Zaro was 105, and departed prematurely fifteen years later. However, this ancient Ulysses has other worlds to explore. One of his first quests was to look up a "rich American lady who owns eight battleships and four yachts." She not only; invited Zaro to visit her (he tells us), but as evidence of her sincerity also sent him a dollar. "I may decide to marry her," he remarked with the aplomb of ono who has been married twelve times, and used a Eoyal gift to divorce the penultimate Mrs. Zaro on the grounds, it is reputed, that »ho was neither plump aor a brunette. Another reas«« for the pilgrimage to llio States is bis conviction that the people are sure to make a fuss of a man who lias bern "dry" for over a (vnirnry and a half. The Volsteaders will be entirely lacking in imagination and enterprise if they fail to exhibit this sly old Moslem throughout the I country us at napsrelMed ewrmpl* ** the benefits of total a-bsttneiwe.