POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 21, 26 January 1931, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

BY PERCY FLAGE

Chronicle and Comment

Observed in qiiivo a good article inj an Australian journal the other day .011; "How to Keep Your Husband." We prefer ours to be self-supporting!.

This, from "Bashful." , Mamie: Have you got a full sizt stenographer's desk down there? Perc: I don't know, Mamie. ' HoTf; big is a full-sized stenographer?

News headisg observed the othelf day: . ■ MAORI'S "SERIOUS LIST." It looks as though it is up to. thj( Union Steam Ship Company to reassur^' the travelling public. ,

Editorial ""wisdom from a renowned contemporary. , j Instead, the country expects that a really comprehensive plan of administrative economies should be drawn up and executed. . But -why, after . all that trouble^ "execute" it? Why not put thai scheme into operation? ■ o

Apropos of that "goldmaker of Hili den." When you come to think upon it seriously, only a plumber bereft of hi* senses would want to produce synthetic gold when he could,- get busheli of the real thing merely by being a. plumber. ' '

Talking of'the evocation of spirits, we, like "Long John," prefer ouri with what may be termed a crystal ectoplasm. In the following manner— A psychic friend is a friend indeed 1 She puts you in the know— Calls spirits from the vasty deep, Who give a buckshee show. But the friend in deed is the : friend war need, Our spirit to renew, Who guides us to that cloister'd placaj Where all one's dreams come truejj And with his amber-tinted voice Calls spirits near to you. . Long John, j

"Eea Fed Eevived" forwards li dirge" (from an illustrious content*1 porary) which helps us to understand! why our capitalists are "bloated." It's* terrible, as the following lines disclose?----"No mercy ever comes from you As beneath the lash I groan. . ." , "You sup the blood and damn the lifi Of the slave I'll always be. . ." "I may be your servile sullage— But my soul belongs to me." "While you extort each pound of flesK And on every ounce insist.', . ." "Ghoulish vultures-though you be. .'*■ "You may have my battered car* cass. ..." "i Not so many moons since we listed ai number of antidotes against vampires . . . we must look 'em up again.

We remark that Calvin. Coolidge ha* been appointed to a high executive* position mV the drive against distress' in the States.

Calvin is a brother colyumist, at 15 cents a line, ,who refuses to work for the Sunday supplements, being an incorrigible Sabbatarian. Among his) own folk, he is looked up to as thei author of crystal sharp dicta like '' Two and two make four —when they don't make five"; "A boy's best friend is his mother—especially at meal times"; and "A rolling stone gathers'no mos3 —and what would it do with it if it did." It is understood that Carviaj was also President of U.S. at one time*

Jangling Jingles No. 1 (J. J. is ■! brother in blood to that slick money* spinner Nonsense Rhymes by EasycuaJ out of Ensigo.) O, won't you hire our taxi, mum, W« guarantee the maximum ./ Of care and comfort if. you ride With us, and no one else beside. One tire is a trifle flat, But you -will.scarcely notice that. As we start off the wheels'go round, The horn, makes quite a useful soun4 When,, at the corner of a street, We take the turn on all four feet} Ensuring, mum, your equipoise, And—let us add—but little noise. Born at the famous Black Sea, mum* We fled to Cotopaxi, mum, Then, fortified by native brandies,' We hiked off down the sandy Andes !_'. Until /we met the inky Incas; Unmoral men, and dinky drinkers, Who painted red Saints' days an# Sundays, And scarcely ever changed their undiei* We met their Poet Laureate— A curious bird. The more he ate The worse he got; that is to s»yy ■ He just grew skinnier every day. If you do tr3 r our taxi; mum,' We" tru^t you won H get waxy, mum. Because it's not been duco'cl since The visit of our noble Prince. Our terms —ton miles the minimum— Are only half-a-guinea, muni, ■ ' And for that miserable rate You have the round trip to your gate s Should you by chance fall through tb* floor The charge will not be any more— You have our word-—nor any less, Though you be aged and penniless. *'■ ':; * ..'*.'

Once in a while a learned friend of ours gallopa to the 'phone to upbraid us for the occasional use of what ha calls "rank Americanisms" in this feature. Actually, many of these are mere plagiarisms from old-time English slang. Probably the most overworked word in U.S. to-day is "guy." That was first recorded in Barhaa^s "Ingoldsby Legends," in 1806: — -' You'd lift up your hands in amaze* ment and cry: "Well! I never did see such a regnlai; guy!" "Beat it" was recorded in 1691. "They all beatcd it on the hoof to London." In 173:5, Grose, in the "Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue," defined "racket" as "some particular kinds of fraud and robbery are so termed when called by; their-flash names. . . Any game may; be termed a racket . . . by prefixing thereto the particular branch of fraud or depredation in question.' "Two bits." In 1532, "bit;', was-the name given to ah English coin of vary^ ing value (approximately fourpeace). The expressions "two bits," '/four bits," etc., were common. "Mammy^: Begardless of objections from Dixie, and Al .Tolson, "Mammy" was first released to the public in 1560, in'the play, "Nice Wanton": "Cards, dice, kiss, and so forth; all this our mammy would take in good worth." "Whoopee," pronounced as it is to-day, made its debut in a London . playhouse several hundred years ago. The first chronicled use of the word "boss" in a cant sense occurs in Marlowe's ' "Tamburlaine" (1590). "Mooch," one of the charter words in the Thieves' Lexicon, is as old

as slang. "' Will our critic-friend please takf note? Thank you.