POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 75, 26 September 1933, Page 6

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

Roosevelt's credit expansion scheme sounds like contracting liabilities, for posterity to meet.

Developments in the fellmongery strike in ' New South Wales indicate that the originating trouble is mori than skin deep.

The "Financial News" thinks that Mr. Coates should not have a difficult task if ho goes to London to negotiate • conversion loan. On the contrary it should be quite a nice jaunt.

"IT'S A DRY WIND."

It's a dry wind all right! Did you ' n6t know that G.W.F. went* Home during the recess so he could take the hot , air with him. Please do not rob him of the credit for reducing the butter ' output on the Continent. .

CREDIT TO WHOM, ETC.

. THOSE,CATS.; Brickbats, won't do, I state, Cat fiends that niew ' till late, Oh, how I hate them; •■'' ' Had I a loaded gun, Soon I would stop their fun, " I'd mutilate them. DRUM.

LET 'EM ALL COME,

Our Government's troubles continue to multiply. Mr. Baxter. warns that the : quota is inevitable. On top of that, there are big financial speculators in London underselling high exchange at a discount of 30s per £100, thus piling up our financial obligations at Home. No wonder our Cabinet headt need a trip every now and again.

, CONFETTI. After this week's, doings in Haining Street, how about a curtain-raiser for Saturday—John Hops v.. Wun Hops? Did you ever notice that sign outside the Public Library, "Pedestrians Cross Here"? After jumping to dodge two motor-cars and a lorry, coming three' ways at once,. I'm really not surprised. . . , ~....;.. After all, I suppose only time, will tell whether America's new national fowl is ,a Blue Eagle or a Blue Duck. • GROCK.

SWEDEN'S MANAGED CURRENCY.

; Current cables from Washington relative to Eobsevelt's monetary troubles include a reference to Sweden's managed currency system. For more thaii eighteen months Sweden has beenstabilising her price level. While gold standard 'countries have seen their price leveldrop 20 per cent. Sweden has held hers steady within 2 per cent., and. usually within 1 per cent. Before this happened economists declared, that it couldn't be done. Supply and demand would never permit it; : -But Sweden did it J . . partly by adjustments in the Riksbank's Rediscount rate and partly by open market operations in foreign exchange. But Anierifeaas b, slightly , >pro* position from almost every angle.

ILLUSION IN ■, THE -LAB* r «;. "Slim Jim": The story in the" E.P." the other evening touching on testing students' powers of observation reminds me of a classic one. A professor of chemistry mixed up a decoction. o£ evil-tasting materials in front of each of • the students. Then' he 'direetled' them to■"do exactly as I do." He dipped a finger into his own bowl and saw they did the same.. Then lie sucked his finger vigorously with an air; of evident enjoyment. They followed suit. There was a howl from * the assembly of spluttering, coughing, and expectorating students. The professor expressed astonishment at their signs of disgust and dipleasure. He said: "Gentlemen, had you observed me closely you would have seen that I didn't suck the same finger as I stirred the bowl with."

SPRING. Dear Mr. Flage,— ' ' No self-respecting pact (no matter how poor): will let spring go by un« sung. The- spring-poet, however, ha« become conservative and too idealistic. The following is an attempt to treat the subject in. a common-sense, practi* eal manner that should appeal to out business men and give a lead to out young poets:—

When the hefty football player take* ■ his ease, - And the young suburban husbani ■ plants his Vpeas, . When you see the housewife.rubbing} Eternally and scrubbing, ■ ; - You may take it, gentle maiden, ■ It is Spring. When the: tramper dons his rucksack and his shorts, And the cricketer upon the turf disport^ Himself ■in flannels white, With a blazer overbright— Shed your winter hat, dear maiden, 1 ' . ' It is Spring. ..'•■■ When you hear the pullets / cackling loud at morn, In,their cooped-up city quarters so for* lorn, ' If in lodgings you should be, , You may take this tip from me: Eggs for breakfast now, sweei maiden—

It is Spring. Should you see the lambs disporting round their mums > (That is, before their time for free* ing comes), And the butcher brings you ram (Euphemistically Mlamb"), Believe him, artless maiden, It is "Spring." s The Celestial purveyor now displays _ New potatoes,. peas,' and lettuce on nil trays, ■■ " ■ ' And the whitebait vender's cries In suburban streets arise— '■ ' I These, are portents, happy maidcajj Of the Spring. When round the drapers' windows ifull of hats, . ■ ■ You see women buzzing, thick as sumy mer gnats, . It is proof beyond all doubt' That winter things are "out'?; So Tejoice, I pay, fair „ maiden^ It is Spring. ' . ; e.j.p.

"PRINTERS' ERRORS. For the benefit of those clever out* aiders who sneer at occasional mis« prints in their daily paper, let us cita the experience of a Washington lawyer and publicist. In a letter to a friend) that gentleman wrotei— -,■■';"■■ Several years ago I prepared a brief of about thirty-five pages which I desired to have perfect, both in its legal statements and iv print. I read this proof myself, and requested the printer to send another proof on the following morning, which he Sid., Thereupon, I . stated, to the operatives in the typing room that I would give 25 cents for every error that they' found in the, second proof. Within an hour they,' pointed out sixty-four, and I paid them 16 dollars. Shortly after, I handed the brief to two girls stationed in the •ante-room to announce visitors and run. errands, and offered them one dollar for every additional error they might find - in the proof. They pointed out teu. I paid the money, and made no furth*^ effort to eliminate errors from the print*' ing. .-, : ■-■■ ■ ..■;■ ~■-.: ';>