POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 51, 1 March 1935, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

0Y PERCY FLAGE

Japan, is in favour of the open door in China—so long as she can remain. doorkeeper. ** ■ « To talk of a general contributory superannuation scheme these days is equivalent to asking a man to lift himself up by his suspenders—when he has any. * • * '■* It's a queer world. While Nature is doing her. best to assist mans planned economy schemes some ass of a scien-, tist goes and discovers a smut-resist-ing wheat. « » « Mr. W. E. Parry, M.P., suggested in the House yesterday that a Taranaki farmer who had built up an arsenal was "preparing for the Mortgage Corporation Bill." We wish we could have thought of that one first. •» « ■» A TIMELY QUOTATION. Now that Parliament is in session it may not be out of season to remind members of the remark made by the immortal Mrs. Poyser. In her opinion, "Some folks' tongues are like the clocks as run on striking, not to tell you the time o' the day, but because there's ■ summat wrong i' their own inside." ' ■ \ NEMO. THE GOOD PHARISEES. "Amos-'n'-Andy": Two young bloods were making their way along Hawkestono Street early one evening, supporting between them an older man apparently hardly able to walk. One of the kindhearted ladies who always apppear at such moments accosted the troupe. "Oh, the poor man!" she exclaimed. "Is he intoxicated?" The young men paused and surveyed her with a vague although not unkindly glance. Solemnly one of them said? "Don't know, but we are." ■ * # * - SIGNIFICANCE IN NAMES, There is something in a name, though the late Rudolph B. Straight determined to be crooked. Captain J. Dooliltle, an American airman, established a new coast-to-coast record, with an average of 200 miles an hour. He flew most of the way 15,000 feet up. The windshield was coated with snow when the aeroplane landed. "Do little," indeed. Another Little, tha houseboy at a guest house in Hythe, Kent, saved the life of one of the lodgers when the place was well ablaze. Then take Noel - Coward—no craven he. He has the courage to sing some of his own songs. * *- «■ THE WEALTH OF IND. L.M.T., Palmerston North, supplements our reference the other1 day ttf the wealth of some Indian princes with further details. The Maharajah of Kapurthala has a palace full of antique French furniture. His Highness .is careful of his collection,. and has it moved to the hills every summer, otherwise the varnish would come unstuck. The Maharajah of Gwalioi has a single string of pearls worth half a million sterling, and a miniature silver train to run around the dinner table offering ciragettes and liqueurs. in India is the most modern resident tial' building in the world./ It is the all-electrical air-conditioned palace of his Highness—take a deep breath here —Maharajadhiraj Raj Rajeshaar Sawai Shree.Yeshwr.nt Rao Holkar Babadur. It was the father of this lad who got into considerable trouble over that affair about Mumtaz Begum, the dancing girl. Lastly, the Maharajah of Cutch owns a 100 ft Diesel yacht which, with its elaborate equipment; 'cost « fat fortune. „;:; ' :* ' '.';*■, '.'■*. '■'• .',■ ■„■.-■ . A CAUTIONARY TALE. ■ (Henry Meek, the Boy who Made Noises with the Plug.) Now listen, readers, what I say! (I'd love to start another way ; With some short, sharp'antithesis, But custom bids me start like this). Young Henry was the type of boy Whose sole delight was to aunoy. He'd strew the doors with booby traps, And turn on full the kitchen taps, Allowing thus moist H2O To leak down to the rooms below, And open ancient sort of eggs, And strew the house with blowflies'' legs. ■ But pardon me—l am to blame— I've only told you half his name! Meek was the other—(though the child Was very far from being mild). . The reaiion is not hard to seek—• His mother married Mr. Meek, Young Henry's chief delight was this—* While mother dozed in dreamy bliss He'd sit, clad in his birthday suit, Within his bath, (the little brute) And, while -the water ran away, He liked to with the plug-hole play, And with alternate push and tug,: He made loud, noises with the plug! These howling gurgles pleased him so* Wherever Henry Meek would go (I conscientiously can state) These noises he would perpetrate! / Of course, that statement is all tosl} In places where they do not wash. To such a place they wenl one day With Henry's maiden aunt to stayShe lived hard by the foaming seas-* CTwas just before .young Meek'tf demise). ■ The little cottage that she had Contained no bath. (How very sad!) And so they had to wash and scrub Young Henry in the washhpuse tub! (Whose plug was, I regret to state, In size inordinately great.) One day young Henry, , wheti sheVl gone, Placed his wee podgy hand upon The plug-hole.CTwas, you've heard ma state, In size inordinately great.) And, 'midst the water's rushing din, The sucking, plug-hole drew him in!. Then Henry cried, "Good gracious mcl This may.be a catastrophe! Perhaps—who knows—l am a mug! I think I'm going down the plug!" But Henry, with expiring shriek, Called in his father (Mr. Meek), Who said, "Good Heavens, what a son! Oh, Henry dear, what have you done?" And Henry, sliding like a slug, Said, "I am going down the plug!" "How careless," murmured Mr. Meek, As Henry, with a ghastly shriek, ■ And awful crurichings, squeezed right through! Said Mr. Meek, "What shall we do If any lodger here complains? I'll have to see about the drains; And if that does not satisfyNext week a filter I must buy!" Moral— When in your bath, for goodness sake, Don't make the noises he would make; Take care that you are not. the mug, And slip, like Henry, down the plug! ANNE HOWE. « *■ « WHO WON? A fisherman at Snow -Hill, Maryland, found an oyster shell. Inside was a fish. What had happened was this:— The fish attacked the oyster while it was feeding. The oyster "swallowed" the fish by promptly closing its shell with the fish inside.

Imprisoned in the shell, the fish the* ate the oyster