POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 48, 25 August 1931, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

BY PERCY FLACE

Chronicle and Comment

It. looks as though the laugh is \m .Messrs. Theodore and M'Cormaek after all, doesn't it? "X'osi" heading:— COUNTRY'S WEAL. Perhaps weals would he more appropriate, seeing that, wo have been under the whip for some time now. * * « i KKFLKC'HOX. j That. i« what comes of being a brand plucked from the burning. Mr. J. T. Lang ha?, been missing from the cablei for quite » while. If publicity is th« secret of success, it. really doesn't d» to be giod. * • » rrjs LiKr; this. Referring to that Sydney daily sprawling round in a drunken fury, hiccupping its hymn of hate, at us— If we are under The "blight of Otto," That's better, by thunder. Than being plain "blotto." * * * "MYSELF." Bear Percy.—lt's the silly season at "Coll." Exams are all over, and for want of something better to do, the class members were asked to write «. rhyme, the. subject being "Myself." One bright spark handed in the following— (With apologies to "Woodrow Wilson). As a "Swot" I am far from a star, There are others more clever by far; But my report, I don't mind it", Poor reading I find' it, It's the old folks at home get the jar. ROSE NEATH. * * ■# AKISTOPFAXES BEGAN IT. Whatever else may be counted against us, a. poor miserable sinner, we must b« unique in this respect: we have still t* see (or is it "hear"?) a talkie. Yessirs. Our friends regard us as qnaint—they are discerning people, too—but -we can. afford to tie misunderstood, for that dear old wise bird, Aristophanes, is on our side. He didn't like the canned talk either. Here's the proof—from "The Frogs":— I liked that silence well enough; at well, perhaps, or better Than those new talking characters. Now, if some can unearth a brief from, say, Thueydides, in. favour of Charles Chaplin we shall be invulnerably; justified. * # * MY PARTY IS—I. Mataura's always appreciated representative in the House chided Mr. Albert Harris, M.P., for seeming inconsistency. To-day, Mr. Harris urges that the only solution of the present difficulty is to put Reform back into power. In 1926, the same Mr. Harris was invited to "consider his position" because of his attacks on Reform. OH course, the member for Waitemata could argue that his party had improved in the interim, and that the caning he received in 1926 had made him a better boy. Or he might find ss.netuaiy ia (1) T. M. E. Fisher's cynical dictum (filched) that, consistency is the Tefuge of fools, or (2) Russell Lowell's price- ] less couplet:— . A lnareiful Providence fashioned n» i holler, ' 0' purpose tliat we might our principle* swaller. If any, or all, of these suggestion* will fortify Mr. Albert Harris—well, the- pleasure is ours. * • * IN PRAISE OF -ALB. 1 Plage Hate, —Apropos those lovely; ! lines of Calveriey's in praise of the amber-tinted nectar with a foaming : crest. Have you by any chance ha.p- ---' pened across Oliver Herford's jingled toast to "Adam's Crystal Ale"? Per--1 mit me— Here's to old Adam's crystal,ate, Clear, sparkling, and divine! 1 Fair H2O, long may you flow, We drink your health, (in wine-). Isn't that just naughty of Oliver^ "BIBULOUS BALBTJS." (We, the Flag.c, regard Mr. Herforil as a wine bibber and a scoffer, and * chap not at all nice to know.) * * » SUPER-OPTIMISM. Canon James would have it like this: "So far from going about with gloomy countenances, our faces should b» wreathed in smiles. .. . Instead of bemoaning our common lot we should b« congratulating each other on the opportunity to show our mettle." We met Bro. Jones in town to-day; His smile would scare the rain away* We wondered, for. too well we knew The outlook for old Jones was blue ... Bailiffs V so forth. So, said we: "Have you been left a legacy?"' "No chance," he roared. "I'm in great fettle; This blow has put me on my mettle." The little halt" reeled from the scrum. Battered and bent and overcome. When we rushed up to sympathise He smiled at us through, bloodshot *ye«. "Great stuff!" he cried. "I can't conceal The wild exuberance I feel. Nothing like this the mind to settle, And put one fairly on his mettle." Our next-door neighbour, for his skm, Received a nice new set of twins. (That makes eleven all told.) We felt He had been hit below the belt, And rang him up. his groans to hear. He greeted us with cheer on cheer. "I'm that slad 1 could bug a. nettle; At last, I'm really on my metti*." WEBSTER KNOWS. "Eldee Babyaustin" in interpretative hallucinations: Apropos the word "shanties," depicting fertain vocal proceedings at the shellbacks' whoopee on Saturday night, reported in "Master Mariners' Annual Social Function." ("E.P.," 17/8/31): Really at first, "shanties" rather jolted me, and I thought maybe a learned scribe had erred, and strayed in Mi reference into some of Wellington's less pretentious residential quarters. My concern over the matter, in fact, spirited me into the dark corner where my Webster lay in its ignominy of dust and neglect. "Shanties," as well as appertaining in name to small mean dwellings (some of our estate agents, by the way, carelessly call 'em modern bungalows), has a carte-blanche in vernacular, and also it can be applied as a variation for a chantey, such as "Barnacle Bill," and so on. Then, 100, the thought momentarily obsessed mo that maybe subtle referciKip was being made to the three an-i-iont mail liners of a heavily-subsid-ised foreign concern that, soeins to be annoying every Enzedder but Mr. .Forbes. . . . All's well, though ... 'Webntw set my mind at. ease.