POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 132, 30 November 1935, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PEKCY FLACB

When the new broom gets seriously to work there should be some dust * flying. * * »" ' ■ It will give us considerable joy to see Mr. Semple in a "plug" hat and morning cpat: x Signor Mussol.nl may be cock of the walk at home but he is, just a queer rooster abroad. * • • "That a war?" sneers "Cauliflower Ear," referring to the Abyssinian ar- • gument. "If I'd my way I'd 'aye both sides run in for disturbin' the peace." * * «< . Heard in. the Tottenham Police Court: "I am a man with a past and am trying to forget." Also: "I heard wild laughter coming from the kitchen. My husband was filling in his incomt tax returns." **• _ ■ . QUATRAIN. Tis one of human nature's laws • To see ourselves without our flaws. O wad some power the giftie gie us To make our friends the same waysee us! ' R. T. WOMBAT. * ■: ' •. . ;♦ MUSICAL AWAKENING. There is the musically-inclined Otago man who; according to the story from early morning keeps the gramophone going with the idea of encouraging his hens to increase their egg output. And now from Upper'Rutt comes a report, of a poultry farmer there who sets all his eggs to music. ♦ # DRUM- ' TWO OF A KIND. (Forwarded by Balbus Junior.) The convicts were doing their daily exercise in the prison yard. Two newcomers were carrying on the usual whispered conversation. "How long?" asked one. ''Five years," replied the other. "What for?" "Robbing the First Ballyhoo Bank. And you?" "Ten years." "What for?" ' "I was its manager." ■*. .. * • ELECTION HUMOUR. It is not yet too late to tell thim story. It was in Wl3. The new woman orator waxed eloquent. "And what" she demanded, as she came to the climax, "is to be the result of our emancipation?" She looked about her with the calm assurance of one who had asked a poser, and this was too much for the little man who was waiting for his wife in a far corner of the halL "I know," he shouted. "Ah," retorted the new woman on.the platform, "the little man with the bald head thinks he has solved the problem that we came here to ■ discuss this evening. We shall gladly give bur at> tention while he tells us -.vhat is to be the result." "Cold dinners and: ragamuffin children," roared the little man with the bald head. *•» • * ■ SCHOOL'S IN. Do .you know that— . . (1) There is a Winnipeg law firm whose plate rends as follows: Pitblado, Hoskin, Grundy, Bennest, DrummondHay,,. Pitbla3o, ; Turner, McEwen, and Alsaker? ■■■-■■■ , (2) Over 72,000,000 people in the United States ' went to the pictures every week last year? • (3) A Washington man has invented a safety-pin which a baby might swallow with little chance of internal injury? <4) High pressure water has been found more efficient than steel tools for a large-scale excavation work connected with the San Francisco Bay bridge? (5) An Ohio mechanic, aged 70, has built a clock which plays a reedless pipe organ, and can be made to sing, talk, and recite? (6) Adam Itouilly, London, is the only firm in the world that specialises in the eerie business of buying and selling skeletons? (7) Fat boys ("pyknics" to the scientist) are said to be lacking in zeal and ambition, but not necessarily in intelligence? (8) Like the pig, every part of a shark can be utilised—leather from its skin, oil from its liver and intestines, glue from its head, its teeth are used by jewellers, and its fins are considered a great delicacy by the Chinese? ■ (9) In spite of those romantic stories, all snakes are deaf to music and other sounds? (10) In an art exhibition lately held in Munich there were a number of watercolours signed A. Hitler? They were paintings! of the Fuhrer's earlier days. . * *;•■■- BALLADE OF ESCAPE. Out on mundane happenings, Down with stern realities, .. Loose the dog on,doubt that flings Shadows on our scraps of ease, . Banish dismal sophistries, Let your unleashed fancy run ' Over charmed and-magic seal. • « Rainbow chasing is good fun. . Let us play at queens and kings, 1 Millionaires, too, if you please, ' Give Romance its urgent wings Drive it through the scented breezat Armed then with the golden keys Of dream castles past the sun, You will learn from things lik« these Rainbow chasing is good fun. Seek the far Utopian springs Which all hurts of life appease, By whose banks the Blue Bird sings Heart-enchanting melodies; There (as all the world.agrees). ( None is overworked, and none I . Knows the economic squeeze . • » Rainbow chasing is good fun. Prince, when ruthless fate decrees Damnably hard days for one, And life's wine is naught but lees, Rainbow chasing is good fun. c * a BEDSIDE BOOK.' We have been vouchsafed a glanca into "He and She" (two volumes), which must be the prince of bedside books. It is so good that we hope someone will present it to us as a Christmas gift. It would be a churlish pillow that would refuse to be soothed (or stimulated) by the lady in "Miss Edgeworth" who "could not see the poker and tongs standing together without suspecting wrong" (surely the original version must have been "lying together"). Then there was Archbishop Tait's instruction to his secretary: "Tell the man he's a consummate ass, but do it very kindly"; John Hay's answer wher.. asked which was his favourite motto: "Love your neighbour, but be careful of your neighbourhood"; the ample style of the Czar Paul of Russia: "In my empire, there is no man of importance except the man to whom I happen to be speaking, and he is important only so long iis I am addressing him"; Keats's regret he was not named Edmund instead of John; or James Spedding's d». scription of Edward FitzGerald: "His tranquillity is like a pirated copy of the peaca of God."