POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Issue 99, 24 October 1934, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

Congratulations to Campbell Black, too, on the big prize he has landed. * c- * It isn't so much cheap money that the farmer needs now as cheaper land. J.i * •» As a rule, all that the modern girl knows about a needle is that you should uso it only onco on a gramophone. * it «• At last Scott's soaring ambitions have been realised to the full-—except that somebody else gets the gold cup. -:i » # Experienced nudists wear nothing but a nonchalant air, but, as a special ■ concession, the self-conscious neophyte is permitted to don a monocle. * « * "Arturio": Was Scott's a solo : flight? Should not the 'plane be de- • clared at least a little "Black"? i One for the committee that passed, , incomprehensibly, the Baines nnd Gil- ; man machine: Straining at an Altnir : and swallowing a Fox. : « * » 3 ALL CLE Alt! ! Clerk, at Willesdeu (Eng.) Police I Court: You say you aro not guilty, but l you have admitted driving past the rod t "lights. [ Irish Motorist: To bo sure, sor, now, i but you sco I did not sec them till I s looked back after I had passed them j without knowing they was thero. « *> * ', HO HUM! >. The fact that Parliament is just novr interested in noxious weeds reminds mo !of an incident that happened in the ; House when the same question was rife ; near tho close of Mr. Seddon's time. A well-known member, famous for his literary lapses, was one day addross- -. ing the House, and his remarks did not ) meet with entire approval, members ; frequently interjecting, "Oh, Oh." I These interjections seemed to annoy the speaker, and, turning on his opponents, I ho shouted: "Yes, my friends, you can 5 Ho, and you can Ho, but you can't Ho 3mc down. I'm not a noxious weed." 3 HO KAY. t -::- » -« " METHUSELAH OF A TUKTLE. Apart from the cottage in whick 3 Captain Cook once lived, thero is anT other interesting rolic of the famou» . discoverer south of the Line. Thia d is a turtle marked by him and left at 3 Nukualofa, Tonga, in 1773. It is 161 years old, totally blind, and spends its t days wandering dismally through the j grounds around the palace of Queen ; Salote. But, if report speaks true, j there was a very Methusaleh of a turtle l captured recently in the White Dragon v lake near Canton. It had a shining white spot on its back—a metal disc x bearing the inscription in Chinese: Ro--5 leased by a Buddhist of Kongo hew in s the 14th year of tho Ming Dynasty. s This would make the turtle 550 yean old. '■ * •» * A ROBOT COMET. The do Havilland Comets havo made s a name for themselves in the Centenary s air race. This firm has another Comet which, if the results of searching trials i are any guide, is likely to play anim--3 portant part in the next war. It is a , robot racer, which flies at a speed of 3 200 miles an hour under wireless control. It is reportod that this bus can • be guided by radio over a distance of ', 200 miles, ant Vis equipped to carry gas bombs. It is powered by two 230-horse-l power air-cooled motors mounted in tha s wings. It has a wing span of 44 feet 1 and a length over all of 29 feet. Tho a aeroplanes aro built at a cost of c £20,000 each. Experiments have alr ready been made with this ship over the English Channel, and each time it '" returned in response to remote control c after dropping bombs. For aeroplanes t controlled in tho usual way Britain has " secured the patent rights from a Swed--1 ish engineer of eleetrie dynamos cap--0 able of generating 450 h.p. apiece. These - powerful dynamos eliminate engine b noise. For experimental purposes ono t has beeu fitted into a "fury" interiopt ther aeroplane. The experiments so far s have covered more than 50 flying hours, - with a height record to date of 8000 > foot. 5 « c * i AD. FUN. j We have been talking about divertj ing ads.—-collectors may care to include P those in thoir list:— , From W. E. Hearst's great Christian periodical, the Los Angeles "Examiner": WANTED. Good-looking stcno-* i grapher; stenographic ability not essent tial. Apply 905, American Bank Buildr in St Here is the frank and engaging announcement of a popular mortician in the Waterloo "Courier," an lowa sheet; , Ed Kistnor is a very kindheartcd man, j To him you always can appeal; j He goes and gets his corpse at very; i high speed, Biding in his big automobile. ! Should you meet with death some night ' you feel And wanted an undertaker, : Ed Kistnor will be at your home very; : quick i For he goes in his big automobile. -■ No matter how dark tho night may happen to bo i Just telephone Ed and he will be ' there, . ■ For ho has light on his big automobile. Not exactly great poetry this, but > it does give one tho idea, don't you • think? t * * * ' VOTING BY BALLOT. With the Centenary celebrations of . tho Stato of Viotoria now well afoot, iit is an appropriate time to mention . that it was Victoria that gave the . world a valuable present in the shape of voting by ballot. As an idea voting by ballot is moro than a century old. Just beforo tho 1532 Reform Act in England tho Commons constantly had the matter before it, but the Lords, suspicious of anything progressive, as constantly rejected the idea, Victoria claims the honour of actually passing - tho first law bringing tho ballot into '. use. Her neighbour State, South Aus- ; tralia, had actually set the ball roiling - by discussions that had mado the sub- , ject a livoly controversy, and New ', South Wales claimed paternity of 1 Westgarth, the man who actually pioneered the whole movement in Australia, though he could not persuade ' his own State to try the political exI pedient until it had already been two years iv uso in Victoria. It was only after a bitter fight that on March 19, ! 185G, the first law substituting the ballot for the old system was placed j on tho Statute Book in Victoria, beating South Australia by a mere fortnight. The Attorney-General (Sir William Stawell), afterwards Chief Justice, completely misunderstood the idea behind the ballot system, and in- ' dignnntl.v opposed tho measure on tho ground that electors would have to re--1 iiord thoir votes for various candidates with pens and marbles! It was actually it South Australian, Mr. W. E. Boothby. who invented the simply mechanism of putting :i square opposite the candidate's name on the ballot paper apd requiring tho voter to register hiswß. h,v, putting Ji.eMss-jvithrttiTt,