POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 9, 10 July 1935, Page 10

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

8Y PERCY FLAGB

There appear to be some dangerously Inflammable elements in that Fiery Cross organisation in France. * it # When the outsider .scores at a long price it is called a dark horse because of the black looks of the majority of bettors. « » « We regret if any of our readers were "put- off" Valpeen, Horowhenua, Astarth, Itasouli, and Lord Val yesterday by our "tips" on Monday. As a matter of truth, our sports specialty is Esperanto. • # * * No wonder many of our farmers have that sinking feeling when they realise that they must raise the wind somehow before the quality of their product can be raised. **. . * ' CHINESE HUMOUR. A man who had an overdose of the Chinese virtue of humility entertained a guest in his garden. While they were sitting there the moon rose. "What a splendid moon!'' said the guest. The host arose and saluted his guest. "Oh no! You embarrass me with your generosity. This is only the common moon of my poor hovel." **; . . • MAKE THEM FAY' v An inspector of dairies was lecturing a hall full of farmers on "Cows That Will Pay.1' On concluding, he was given such an ovation that he said, "Gentlemen, as an encore I will give you a further lecture on 'Cows That Won't Pay." Immediately there was a terrific uproar in the rear of the hall, and the grocer of the community came down the aisle clapping vigorously and yelling: "Give it to them, inspector. The d d hall's full of them!" A.D.L. * *:• • OBITUARY. Harihaha writes:—l, have just returned from Christchurch. The strongest impression I have of the visit 'is of the gap left by the disappearance of the "Times." It was almost as if the Cathedral had been pulled down and the Avon had dried up. In my time as a resident of the city, if your birth wasn't announced in the "Times," you were liable to be thought illegitimate. If your wedding wasn't, you were living in sin. If your death wasn't, you could still vote. TALKING OF POULTRY— Eggs may seem expensive at 2s 7d a dozen, but how would you like to pay £1000 for one? If you had the money to spare? We knew of such an ovum. It is the Easter Egg which the murdered Tsar Nicholas II of all the Russians laid—emphasis'on the "laid" —at the feet of his Tsarina long before the late Lenin left London and Switzerland to stand Muscovy on its head to relieve its blood pressure. Anyway, the egg is on sale in New York. It is a particularly fine example of its kind. It was fashioned by Carl Faberge, the then Russian Imperial goldsmith, is carved from a piece of moss agate, and originally •contained a presentation necklace consisting of emeralds, rubies, diamonds!, icarls, and turquoise. •;:• » * ALLITERATION. A.C.8., Newtown, appeal's to be disturbed at the alliteration that occasionally appears in our Saturday ballades. In a statement runningjo 600 or 700 words, the critic submits''a';case; against "apt (or inapt) alliteration's artful aid," which he stigmatises as "mostly sheer affectation." But natural, as distinct from studied, alliteration can be an'essential aid to real poetry. (Not that our hastily-done ballades ever even approach poetry!) Nevertheless, it does add, beauty, music, and atmosphere to verse or-poetical prose, when used by a craftsman, Moreover, Britain's earliest poetry, like the "Beowulf" epic, depends in a large ■ degree upon alliteration. Later on, La'ngland began his "Piers Plowman" with the following lines:— In a somer season when soft was the ' sonne, < I shope me in shroudes as I a shepe were, In habit as a^ hermite unholy of workes, Went wyde in this world wonders to here. . Shakespeare poked fun at the craze for alliteration in Elizabeth's days in "Love's Labour's Lost," where Holofernes says: "I will something affect the letter, for it argues facility," and then proceeds: The preyful pierced and pricked a pretty pleasing pricket; Some say a pore; but not a sore, till now made sore with shooting. Shakespeare satirised the vogue again in the lines of Quince's prologue, in "A Midsummer Night's Dream": Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade, ' He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast. Coleridge, in the "Ancient Mariner," wrote: The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, i ■ \ The furrow followed free: We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea. Then Tennyson, in "In Memoriam": This truth came borne with bier and • pall I felt it, when I sorrowed most, 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all. And, lastly, this from Milton: The air Float as they pass, fanned with unnumbered plumes: From branch to branch the smaller birds with song . Solaced the. woods, and spread their painted wings Till even. Now, Sir Critic, are we not in good company? * * * PUZZLE ORDERS. We are indebted to a country grocer tor some curious examples of "puzzle" orders which he has collected over a number of years (writes the farceur of "The Grocer"). Some of them require the genius of a Sherlock Holmes to unravel, particularly as they are usually written in pencil on a crumpled <=crap of paper. Take this example:— "too poud of wit sugr. too of bran. tin of corn flour. poud of sop. nous1 of nutmegs. 1 tin of cocoa. 6d eggs." A compliment which no trader could1 resist is conveyed in this letter:— "Mr. . "Sir, would you be so. good as send me a bit of bacon. I can't have but 21b now it's a very small order but I am very short just at present but it wont be so for long. I do want a bit bad I never eats the shop bacon nor butter. I am sorry to trouble you with so sm^ll a quantity be glad if you will oblige. "Mrs. —-. "I have sent 2s, perhaps that will b* enough'for post. I don't know."