POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 144, 16 December 1930, Page 10

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAG^

"Warning to those of our women reacU ers who, like Mamie M'Clancy, ara slimming. "When definitely on a diet get one of the family to lick your stamps for you^ : * « # "Dunc'din is on the map again with a scheme for appointing junior traffic . officers to control children, crossing street intersections. "On occasions," adds tfie report, "the boys will probably; find it necessary to hold up traffic." On other occasions, no doubt, tranis wiH automatically do tho holding up itself. . • ■::- » * "When the Stratford County Council, was discussing uniform wage redue* tions, the chairman said: "We have a good staff. I don't want to give them a sudden slap in tho face." A "sudden" slap strikes us as rather severe, but what about the person who, as reported in a contemporary a day or two ago, was "kicked by a horse ou. the main road"? * o # Butter and wool are down, and th« owners down in the mouth, this weary; planet rolls uneasily on its way; but one of the favourites for the Auckland big sprint is all right, notwithstanding rumours to the contrary. Churchill has gate-crashed once more, Halving India feel sore; Mr. Forbes is sure that some Good will ultimately come From the famous confab which Seemed to end up in the ditch; Mussolini's well in front With his air Armada stunftj Farmers everywhere demand That the man iipon the laud { Must have help iustanter, or Ho must fall to rise no mor«. ; We should worry! Here is new* Over which we can enthuse: Harmon's (Jhromadyne, despite fecarefnl yarns, is quite all right. . ... • • * Keporta lead us to believe that th« India .Bound Table Conference ha« made some headway. That's interesting. Here is what happened at * meeting called by the London and Southern. Counties' Divisional Council of tbo Independent Labour Party recently, .when the explosive Mr. Saklat-va-la and % Begum Fernki got into holts. The meeting had been called with the object of advancing a policy "which would give liberation and selfgovernment to the Indian peoples." "The Indian people will never accept anything less than freedom and absolute equality with Britain and the other Dominions," declared Begum Feruki. Mr. Saklatvala: '"No Dominion. Ie is a travesty of Indian feeling; an. outrage to preach Dominion." Begum Feruki: "I refuse to be shouted down by my fellow Indian." Mr. Saklatvala: "Traitor." Begum Fcrulu: "I prefer to bu honest." Mr. Saklatvala: "Honest traitor." The Chairman, to Mr. Saklatvala:] "You will havo the opportunity to speak."'. ■ . Mr. Saklatvala: "And we have tha opportunity to protest. Dominion status be damned." Then tliu chairman dammed the flow of Saklatvalan eloquence, and the prospect of broken heads vanished. ■:■ * * Reformers in the Arcadian community of Stokes Valley urged, unsuccessfully^ on a memorable Saturday eveningl, secession from the Hutt County, anl the forming of a Town Board. • They felt they were not getting a square deal for rates paid. But don't wo all thinJr the same? Nevertheless — "We must go on. our own," Said some folk of Stokes Valley. "It can plainly be shown We should go ou our own. Let tts agitate, rally To have a Town Board, AVhieh we well can afford If we go the right way. The rates are, to-day, A burden indeed. To the Hutt lot us say. We intend to secede.* "We must go on our own," Said some folks of Stokes Valley. "Let us stand up alone For ouv rights, and disown The oppression. It's bally Well over the odds That the Hutt should peel rods For our backs. . . It's not fair. We most roundly declare To stay in with Epuni . Would be batting the air, If not monstrously looney." And they went ou their own, Those men of Stokes Valley. But their hopes they were blown Into bits, without moan. Thus nose-dived the sally For progress. All well! Time, later, will tell Who was right, who was wrong. But the point of this song Of reform double-crossed Is—to go alone long Means you risk getting los 4 * » • They do not intend to spat* th» *o4 so far as that boy scamp, a ringleade? in mischief, is concerned. He is to i« ceivc a few strokes of tho birch ... for tho good of Ms morals ,and, n» doubt, as an example. Which remind* us that at one of the great English • public schools they have recently rctirefl an elderly member of the non-scholastia staff after many years' service as thu "fusee." One of the "fusee's" regular duties was to assist the head in. administering corporal punishment to culprits so that the maximum effect was ensured. "When Pole-Carew minor was passed along to receive his deserts, he was suitably draped over a. desk in, ' the conventional attitude, and it was the "fusee's" responsibility to keep him so placed in order that the head's fine style might not be hampered. * * * If you go touring among the newly; discovered and 6pened-up tombs in Egypt, beware of the dark gentlemail' who wants to sell you mummy-wheat. Recently, "The Post" had a fill-up par telling of a sweet pea seed from an Egyptian Sarcophagus, which had flowered six years after being planted in Saratoga! A similar phenomenon is reported from England. Mummy-whe-at (so an American scientist warns us) is a real "spoof." The Arab guide is tho arch villain of the piece. He most solemnly shows the usually gaping traveller a stone coffin. "With intensified solemnity the guide lifts the lid, inserts a hand—and withdraws it full of wheat. Then, to quote from the narrator, "the gratified tourist slips the grain into a coat pocket, and the even more gratified Arab slips a liberal backsheesh into whatever an Arab uses for a pocket. Back Some, tho returned globe-trotter planted the wheat, and lo! it grew. Wheat buried with a Pharaoh, growing in a Gopher Prairie back yard! . . . The stinger to the -rrfwli quaint business is that the wheat . . . had been planted once before —by the Arab guide." Wheat is not an especially; long-lived grain; after about seven or eight years it loses life. Tl>" inMi* seed would be :'. )'•''-;■ been known to live 130 yearSj sprouting vigorously ;i1 the end of inora Uiuu * Bcntnry of: storage, ...»--*-..*"t**mr»'**«