POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 112, 8 November 1930, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

BY PERCY FLAGE

Chronicle and Comment

News of the first .importance. Nobody is leaving England for Australia by air this week-end. * * • Ambiguous headline from an English' daily. OXFOED'S "BAD EGGS." More revelations of high life at thai venerable homo of scholarship? Not so;! the reference is to eggs which had out« lived their culinary usefulness. « * * Complying with our customary lataj fee penalty a correspondent rushed ia hot-foot to announce the' "world's longest word." It is, he assures us, ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTABIANISTICALLY. "And it took the fneologians several hundreds of years to build it," lis shouted, after recovering his breath. # * * This is what you were all waiting for,j pen in hand, palpitating, puzzled. Wa have begun the story . . . you finisW it, ending, if you care to, with a high,' moral. Stories that exceed ten couplets (including ,an introductory pair)] will be warned off for life. Now then—* Our flappers have no thought to sparey For thrifty beaux with thinning hair;] Or early church on Christmas Day, Or lime juice at the cabaret; On your marks ... get set .. « Bang! * * * Now, what about this one? Dear Percy,—What with Guy Fawkeß Day in the offing and one thing and another, sorry I overlooked sending tha* rhyme yesterday. How's this? There was a haughty walrus, Tho' in him was some fin. He claimed that he was all Buss Despite the fin within! Please tell your correspondent that I expect to receive a complimentary, copy of the poem for which this was required.' "HEMI PANGO." ♦ * ♦ General Knowledge squad paradelf full strength prior to going into" action* Did you know that (1) Little jingle (not our own, an. fortunately), Rouge for the lips; For the eyelids, kohl; Henna for the finger-tips, Gehenna for the soul. (2) Captains of French and Italian, athletic teams, carrying bouquets worthy of any bride, greet each other, with embrace and handshake before joining battle? (3) Electrical energy involved in projecting a thouglit is so slight that it; would require at least 2,000,000 persona "hooked" together and thinking "in! phase" to light a sitting-room lamp? (4) The largest dam in Europe, thai Edertal in Germany, retains nearly 54,000,000,000 gallons of water? (5) The expression, "0.X." is derived from the Choctaw Indian word "okeh," which means'"lt is so"? (6) "Black magic" is still practised in Glamorgan, Wales, and belief in; ghosts and fairies is still quite common in Mid-Wales in the industrial valleys of Monmouth and Glamorgan? (7) Australia's Public servants, aparg from temporary employees, number 228,183? (8) Among the Quojas, in Guinea,when a boy is named, the fatheij parades the village armed with bow, and arrows and sings, constantly, ia order to drown the sound of the child 'i name, so that the spirits cannot overhear and use it? (9) In the national thrift movement; launched in 1924 in Ireland, 50,000, school 'children have saved nearly; £200,000, accumulated in instalments beginning at a penny, and in Victoria! 165,000 school children have amassed nearly £290,000? (10) As it has just gone three byj the clock the session automatically ter« minates? *' * # This morning's big problem .. . froai the "Buildings" to Victoria's gravea image. Young, middle-aged, and old, Along the street they lined, Their whole demeanour told Of something on their mind. With nervous steps or slow, Or halting now and then, They drifted to and fro— Strangely subnormal men. Was it the slump that gripped Them fairly by the ears? Had bank shares further slipped^ To multiply their fears? The price we have to take For butter overseas — Did that assist to make These fellows ill at ease? Did their slow anger burn That Forbes and Wilfprd, too. Should speak out of their turn— As they are prone to do? These speculations miss, They're miles and miles away. What worried them was this— Who'll win the Cup to-day? # ♦ * I hold that we are incarnations of spirit here and now, spiritual beings in contact with .the physical world and living on this planet for something under a century. Existence in the physical world is of considerable importance in the history of the soul, and appears to be the beginning of an individual existence or personality. Whatever has happened before, I know certainly that tho individual continues therafter and carries with him his, powers, his memory, and his affections.; These, and these only are his inalienable possessions; all else of the material order he has perforce to abandon and leave behind. Powers, memory^ and affections—these he retains. —Sir Oliver Lodge.

: # # * Corn does not hurry, and the black graps swells In the slow cadence of all ripening things; Wise pumpkins idle, and the calm lake dwells In peace above her unimpetuous springs. What most unhurried, most full-flavorous The earth turns slowly and the tida stands still For him who surely claims, as truly his, Firm fruitage that no hasty blight can kill. And we who flung ourselves to suddeni wars . , And would not wait for quick scars, to be healed, We must recall shrewd pumpkins and slow stars, And be as wise as lilies of the field. —Henry Morton Robinson ("Second Wisdom"). ■ ' There are some things that cannofc be put into a corner. Education is one of them. It belongs to all of life, and. when in the medieval ago education became sophisticated scholasticism and segregated itself from the great interests of humanity, mankind, awakening in tho light of (ho Renaissance, passed that kind of education by and left- it derelict. Education had to be humanised and brought back to become an integral part of life. —Dr. Fosdick,