POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 12, 14 July 1931, Page 6

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comm&nt

BY PERCY FLAGE

As our Gisborne client reports it. "Hell's Angels," sighed tha man in the dentist's chair as he yearned toward the- jawbreaker's two nurses.

You may have noticed "Howitzer's" absence from this columu yesterday. Well, he would go to the races on Saturday. For,his insubordination we intended to administer to him a severe kick in the scat of his pants, but Trentham saved us tlmt painful trouble. Tha going was holding, he pleaded, but punters weren't.

"SUDDEN DEATH." Dear Dis Pcrce,—Your incursion last night into the realm of "literature" with your own original "shortest, completest" poem on the virtue of vice, or vice becoming a virtue, or whatever it was, prompts me to make an excursion, into the realms of theology in search of possibly the shortest sermon on record. It happened, not in Monterey, but in Dublin a long time ago. . A priest mounted the pulpit, pointed first up to the skies, then down to the earth, and said: — "My Dear Brethren: Heaven or Hell—choose ye which." And that was the end of the sermon. How's that for brevity? Yours, still choosing, " . The1 O'Hogan.-

CORRECTION. Apparently we flew at too high game, and have crashed. Hero is someone who urbanely picks \is up. I read your persiflage to-day, Anent Lang doing lots^pf harm. Permit an Englishman to say Sir Philip's name's not Game —it's Game. Hope you don't mind! Far from minding, we arc greatly obliged to our correspondent. It was downright:careless of us. We ought to have looked for a catch in Game when it is remembered how the cultured Britisher says Wemyss, Lympne, Ffoulkes, and Choimondely. # ♦ • BEATING THE CLOCK. - They arc getting faster and faster on the airways. "Before long," said a well-known British designer, "when we' come to look upon flying at 1000 m.p.li. as the ordinary thing wo should, when we flew west, never get beyond break* fast time, and • should therefore never be able tq have lunch or dianer!" And then, on "the same "subject, the aptlynanied American ace, Captain Hawkes, told this one: There is 20 minutes' difference in the time kept at Brussels and that at Rotterdam, and the other day when he flow from the former to the latter, he left at' 4 p.m. and arrived at 4 p.m." If, he said, he had opened up the throttle a little more, ho felt sure he could have arrived befora he left!

"WIIOOBEE. The piece of aitless alliteration which, follows is an authentic telegiam sent fiom 'Wellington to a friend in Cambridge by two Hamilton sportsmen, announcing a highly successful day at; Trentham. on/Saturday—not forgetting the inevitable celebration. Ittjnust have been quite a jolly party.-Here's the •wire: — Conquest coming capital city.? C— creates capital choosing correct cattle celebrates convivially ' consuming considerable champagne cider causing canned condition consequently crook consider chances continuing collect chips " capital cheerio • But there still arc two'"days'-_racingj to go ... and Trentham is Trentham* Subsequent telegrams might make in* teresting leading.

" AFTEKMATH. It mostly happens this way—see below—and particularly at a Trentham winter meeting, which is "an occasion when the good old excuse book gets M severe thumbing. We didn't go outi on* Saturday. . . wo had 2YA working for us. However, here they are:— Tho jockey who, when questioned straight, Why he had loft his run too late, Retorted that he didn't knoW " His wrist watch was a trifle slow. The boy who failed, as home thejf rolled, To come away whc.ro he w,as tobl; Explained: "That's all d—a fine. ©# course, I couldn't come without the 'orsa. The rider "who a tumble had From off a well-backed jumping prad, "Gam! Why make such 'a blinking fuss? The mongrel just fell down on us.m The lad who had a troubled spin When tho field set: for the run in. "I hit the straight first; but it\ tough— I didn't hit it hard enough!" Tho trainer to the owner who Was feeling—woll, extremely blue: "Taint no" one's fault. But lisseri 'ere— He'll bo .1 better bet nex' year." The. tipsters who, when Martian Chief Came romping horne —to their ' great grief. . "It's been a rather frightful day, Whcro/s tho excuse book, anyway?"

' , ; . TAILS UP!. '. ; ■• ' Mr. Percy Flage, Dear Sir,—Your amusingly instruct tive column is avidly read by our family, and, of course, by others of tha intelligentsia; therefore.it is our considered opinion that it is the, place to ginger-up . the calamity howlers who abound, wailing "Woe; 'woe, woo is me," and you and them and us. ' To point a moral and adorn a tale—or is it tail—it should bo noted that silly sheep wear their tails down, and with vHiat result? They arc shorn, branded, eaien, tinned] frozen, and expatriated. Now what of the GOATS?. They always carry thoir tails up, and they arc never shorn, branded, eaten, tinned, frozen, or shipped, ' but' butt emphatically, .ilie day through as a diversion. Does not their happy life point a moral? Therefore TAILS UP. Even* Shakespeare has immortalised Billy, in one of his tragedies. He wrote "Stand not on the order of young going, but 'go at' once." 'The virtuoso recently with ,iis, Mark Hnmbqur"', plays a 1,-hapsodie, to Billy Boy. Poets have hymned his abilities: The dairy maid pensively millfod f]:o , goat1' ■'. .' " ' ■'.""■ And .pnusing, was li'eitnl to imittcr,.. "I wish, you brute, you.'would turn to .milk" . . . . : ■~':■.:' And the animal turned to BUTT ,'LR;; Once more, tails up, everyone!!,:';;;; "; CAPKICOEXUS*:;