POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 131, 1 December 1930, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

BY PERCY FLAGE

Chronicle and Comment

"A.M.S." (Wellington).—¥e would gladly publish those lines for their admirable sentiment, but you have written them too hurriedly, and the^ neither scan nor rhyme as they should.

From the cabled version of thafci Czeeho-Slovalrian tragedy on the moun-tain-top:— "I took her head in my hands; sha shut her eyes, and I fired." Thai was clever of him!

AVe' regard this as almost inspira« tional. Is the Mayor listening? Dear Flage,—Apropos the Christj church ■ cycle regulation. Can you tell me whether it is a fact that our own | City Council have- passed a. by-law cotni pelling all male pedestrians to wear Eton jackets and have the seats of their trousers painted with luminous whit© paint as a protection against the attacks of motorists by night? If true, do w© have to buy our own paint, or is it provided by the Corporation? Yours, ' Henare Wepita

From one -who scurvily conceals hij identity behind the pen-name of "Benedict." Of all the thousand readers of this rhyme, To those who look beneath the limping line i. And there discern the world-pain and th» wit : Which I have tried, yet failed, to put in it. To those twin souls I call through spaca and time (Per "Evening Post") and dedicate this rhyme:— j Between the dusk and the dawnlight, When the stars are all in flower, _ • Comes a pause in my wife's conversationThen I know one peaceful hour. Almost a parody—espeet you '11 recognise the echoes in this grotesque. Does the w.p.b. yawn? But I've enjoyed the sweet bathos of making the dedication overwhelm the test.

More "m" monologues manfully manufactured. "W.P.B." —Thanks for reminder. May find room presently for that really; clever alliterative poem beginning: — An Austrian army, awfully arrayed, Bravely by battery besieged Belgrade. "W.M." (Newtown)—Thanks, but we'd lost sight of that couplet on Cardinal Wolsey.- It goes— Besot by butchers, but by bigots bred, How high his honour- holds his haughty, head. Dear Percy,—Please excuse Matilda, for being away for two days. I kept her home, as I was afraid she'd catch' a chill, but she caught a mouse —enclosed. —Mrs. Mullins (Matilda's mother). Many merry inico munching meringues met Mickey Mouse making Minnie Mouse mad, murmuring mournful moony metres. Mickey meditated marrying Minnie. Mounting mother Mouse's mirror (miraculously; missing Morrison), Minnie made many; muddy miles mere millimetres. _ Melancholy Mickey, meandering moodily, met malicious mischief making magpie maltreating Minnie. Manfully mastering, marauder, Mickey makes marvellous marble-hearted maiden Minniar melt mousefully. Meanwhile, 'midst music, many: mirthful mice, mimicking monkey, motley ' minstrels, modest maidens, match-making mothers, make merry, masticating muffins. Mickey, makes Miss Minnie Mrs. Mickey Mouse. And this from "R.S.P." with whosai maternal parent be peace: Murmuringly mellifluously, my_ mattronly, middle-aged mother maliciously; manufacturing many masterly malapropisms misrepresenting my most materialistic malodorous motivated maehhinations, mangling my meaning-— meanwhile murdering me metaphorically—makes many mystified men manifestly more: merry methinks.

This too: — ' Dear Percy,—ln reply to your invitation to the alliteration party, "Much! Married, " Melling, makes merryModern marriage mostly means making mere man more mere, more managed, more miserable. i * * * Tivn Indian doctors, convicted of ft

Two Indian doctors, convicted of a. conspiracy to1 murder European policß ' officers with bombs and ao forth, havaj been sentenced to long terms of tran* portation. 1

Dr. Roy and Dr. Bose, With antipathy corrosive. Manufactured for their foes Tokens shatteringly explosive. To transport them free and gratis Where there's no Dominions status, And no Gandhi, super-salted, To distress big Heaven's exalted.; But alas for Bose and RoyEach a very naughty boy, Tinkering -with bombs assorted — ■ It is they who've been transported, Where no more they can concoct * Pill that ill becomes a doctor.

Thore are more -ways of escaping froai gaol than you imagine. The late Ed" ward H. Smith, whose took on gaolbreaking has recently been published, knew of at least one hundred ways of getting safely out of prison, and all o£ them have been tried.' In 1916, six convicts rode calmly out of Sing Sing on a lorry. The man who escaped from Pennsylvania Penitentiary in a consignment of shoes had a less enviable experience. This gentleman, who worked in the packing shed of the prison, was hidden by a confederate under.a pile of shoes consigned to a Pittsburg manufacturer. An essential part of the scheme was that the escapee's "trunk" was to be intercepted at the wharf by a friend. Something miscarried, and "Shoe-box Miller was in extremis when his followers broke into the factory, then into the case, and disinterred him. Another resourceful criminal feigning death (with the connivance of the prison doctor), was laid out in the- prison coffin and carried out for burial, but his friends were waiting at the vault for him. Scarcely; less desperate was the exploit of a malefactor in for ten years. While oa cleaning duty in the ward for the criminally insane, this man noticed that some window bars had worked loose. Ho had an inspiration. He feigned madness, and, despite the application of various searching and painful tests, would not confess to malingering. Finally, ho was offered a red-hot poker as a sword. Realising that if he refused it all his suffering would have been in vain, the pseudo madman seized the. poker and pulled at it madly, howling with pain. Shortly afterwards he was sent to the insane ward —and the next nigkj) escaped by. opening up the loomj* liarsj "■'.'• . - - ■;