POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 148, 20 December 1930, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

BY PERCY FLAGS

Chronicle and Comment

"Millions now living will novel! die."—Well, they have a fair chanco of seeing the slump out. * «• * Summer this week has been the real thing. We can tell by the number of hats flying round the street corners oa one wheel, so to speak. * • ♦ Street tragedy under our very eyes this day. A small, shapely sea-greea balloon, with cord pathetically oscillatting, waggled' up past our fifth storyj window, heading for the Tinakoris. * * •* This lyric is entitled "Clothes Maka the Man." Lounge suit, dinner suit, and tweeds..« < But still we women think ... and frown. It's not the dressing-up he needsj It's dressing down. This, it is probably unnecessary to state, is from one of our own feminine confederates. Our acceptance of this miniature masterpiece does not, of course, connote an endorsement of tha opinion expressed. If any mere mala should care to couch a lance in replyi well . * * • We—or rather they—progress. Pe- • tone yesterday enjoyed the official open-, ing of a new street, and- the switching on of a new water-pumping equipment. The fact that the electricity! supply promptly failed and switched thai pump off again only added colour ancl gaiety to the proceedings. Eastbourne decided last night to put in a telephone for the man who is in charge of tha fire-engine so that people -can really, give alarms. With such an efficient alarm system in the borough, we ques. tion whether a fire-engine is realljj necessary. * # # Can, and will, any gilt-edged elienS of ours oblige? Dcrc Pere,—lf you no of some place were 1 can raze money please pas3 this on. My idea is to owe someone some money for so much a year. I have the good security 200 u sheep. Them u's are very valuable. If you like I give you a stranglehold over them u's for a loan. Some people lend .money on cows but look here- if a u doesn't have a lamb you can still shear here but if a cow doesn't have a calf you can't shear her. I hope I'll be able to o you some money by; jove I want it. Yours faithlessly,. Pukotitiri Percival. Strictly speaking, this note should be classed as advertising, and paid for as such. However, straining a post—• we mean point—and seeing that Christmas is nigh, we pass it on to the printer. As for a loan—we always insist oa a Boston crab-crucifix hold in com* bination on our security; those strangleholds are trappy. And we prefer i.O.TT.'s tO U'S. ' I .: * * * For the last time prior to the Great Day, 1930, the General Knowledge Squad answers tlie roll . . . looking lika "culls" from the Foreign Legion. Did you know that (1) Wo are not joining up with the carol singers on Christmas Eve unless we get a retainer? (2) If good King Weneeslas wera alive to-day he'd have missed a lot of publicity? (3) James I. popularised roast turkey; in England because- he loathed the thea chief Tuletide dish, boar's head? (4) Our maiden aunt's usual seasonable gift to us is a packet of shaving papers suitably autographed? (5) The person or persons who chant hoarsely, "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," under our window late next Wednesday evening, will have something ' coming to them? (6) One of our first Christmas tips will be a tipple—to ourselves? We've earned it. (7) That ever-so-true dignity beginning Christmas comes but once a year,; And when it goes it leaves us queer. (8) Mamie M( Clancy, who is slimming, intends to backslide terribly nextThursday, and go in off the deep end? (9) The big catch in being Kjjw of England is the size of his Chr/H4(/n&s gifts bill? (10) Out of regard for tly, *;nad's post-Xmas headache, there vAff foe no parade this day week? « • # ■» We don't quite know how to account; for this Walt Mason Saturday complex of ours. It- may be our protracted, intense, windless summer—or just a desire to £keep the Mugwumps in their - place, at least until Santa has coma and gone. liven so — We met a chap this morning-tide His eyes were kind, his smile was wide. Ho said: "Old summer's back again; It's nice to see her now and then. My garden felt those gales a bit — The flowers and such—but what of itf, There will be days again, wo know, When trying winds no longer blow. "This year," he said, "I'm down a' lump— My bank account—thanks to thej slump, But do I wail in public, or Sack my employees by the score, Or drink myself into despair? Or beat the wife and claw my hair? Nay, nay. vWho is there docs noli know, That slumps, like measles, come ani go? "If life were one long eumincr day, -.! If cloudy skies ne'er j^me our way, If everything could 60 just right, Year in, year out, morn, noon, anj night, This rather child-like human hordeWould grow, I'll bet, extremely bored; Would howl arid yowl in sheer■ distress For change ... and Avant it. post *K«ress. ?Tot; ««nray>.' does the clock strike! twelve, No matter how- wg scheme and delve. Xiongface—oxasperafisg loon— Must have it chime naught -else but' noon. That's nursery stuff . . . the pampered. brat Who wears a vacuum 'ueath his hat." There is a moral planted here That's rather obvious, w"e fear. «- » « Optimism, cheerful, never-failing reasoned assurance in the outcome of every undertaking, is on© of the most powerful aids to success. The Briton's inborn proneness to look on the bright side of things has helped him over many a difficult sti^e, and carried him safely through a lo't of bad weather. Sunshine, laughter, and song are tlie invigorating tonics that support his genial spirits and help him to keep; the stnr of hope continually shining.. —Cauon Richards. J