POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 137, 6 December 1935, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGIi

Labour may be on the box seat, but the Nationalists are still in the cart. • # » No, Mildred,, a stand-oil half is not necessarily an ex-Public School snob. • * * If your chickens should come home to roost you can always sell tough birds like that to purveyors of "prime" Christmas poultry. • ti « We do not know what sort of a miner and engine-driver the new Prime Minister was, but he shows quite a flair for. Cabinet-making. «•e ■ • « A Scot told a Melbourne S.M. that he had lived in Victoria for three years on nothing. So that's how the exile regards the average Australian. * • » HEARD THIS ONE? Clipping from "Metho Jack":— Two Scotchmen were watching a football game; one had a bottle, the other had only a thirst. The bottle man was talking very largely about his knowledge of the game and what a fine player he was himself. During the conversation he helped himself very liberally to the contents of his bottle, whereupon the thirsty one said: "Weel, I notice ye're a fine dribbler, but ye're nae quid at passing." «• «■ « DRUNKS IN RUSSIA. They have a summary way Jn Sovietland with inebriate industrialists. A tipsy motor-lorry driver was fined a month's wages and transported to a backblocks farming district for a year. A seaman on a Soviet freighter got drunk when the boat landed at Tilbury. He was missing on the next voyage. On his return from the previous trip he was placed in a detention cell, and was later charged with being tipsy on foreign soil, failing to uphold the dignity of his country, and that of his fellow-citizens while abroad, wasting his fellow-citizens' money on drink, arid for not being a patriotic citizen. For all these offences the offender spent six months in gaol. Vodka-soddened, hit-or-miss motorists over there are not so leniently treated as some of our wild drivers who, well lubricated, go juggernauting along the streets and highways. « * » ST. CLAIR'S SEA LION. Dear P.F., —Mention has been made in "The Post" of Dunedin's sea lion guest. A letter just received from a Dunedin citizen, whose truthfulness I can guarantee, contains the following (which may appeal to • Nature-loving readers): "Were you aware that a sea lion has made its home on the St. Clair beach? It is, and- has all along been, quite tame. The children give it ice creams and lemonade, both of which it politely swallows. It sometimes goes flopping along the nearest street. Once it went into a shop, and had to- be hunted out. Another time it appeared on a tramline, and the car had to be stopped while the sea lion was shifted. Another exploit was to push open the door of a telephone box and go inside, where it was a prisoner till someone came along and released it. It is not very big, perhaps five and a half feet from nose to tail. Those who know about sea lions say it will not stay with, us much longer, on account of the heat." , One- can imagine .that sea lion, on returning Polewards, boasting to the other marines about the sweet ice it ate at Dunedin. CHRISTMAS GIVING. December's come with Xmas nigh And shops just full of things to buy Proclaim to all folk, young and old That therein Yuletide gifts are sold. So now 'tis that we pencil take And earnestly long lists we make , Of. articles seemed suited to Good friends we have, both old and new. That book for Gran she's wanting so. (We'll add a posy with a bow.) Some cosy slippers, next, for Dad. (He wore them out, the ones he had.) Then Mum! A pretty wrap for her Some slippers too, but trimmed with fur. The gayest box of sweets- as well For each and—oh, for Aunty Nell A silken scarf, or gloves. That's it! But how does one know if they'll fit? A token here for that kind friend Who, in our need did give or lend. Then surely something we'll allow To aid the poor and helpless. Now, For brother Jack—um-m, let us see, Bright checkered socks. (A gay lad, he!) j And brother Jack's nice girl-friend Maud. • We must for her a gift afford. Then there's wee Peg. For her we guess A doll's the thing (pink frilly dress). Also, of course, there's small son Mike Who all the year has begged a "trike." Arid Joan would like a spade and pail. Young Bob; for him a boat to sail. Old Mrs. Brown! We're thinking that She'd love a cushion soft and iat. Some dainty hanks for Mrs. Grey (We saw the kind the other day.) We'll cheer up poor old Mr. Pine By sending him a little wine. Then, crippled Pattie down the street! We'll send her something for a treat There's Cousin Anne we have in mind— ' Blue powder-bowl for her, well find. And then, again, there's hubby—Jim Likes good cigars. That fixes him. "The wife" . has talked of ear-rings Jpearl), . We'll get them, sure, for the dear girl. Thus in their turn come friends to mind And gifts to please we seek to find. With "Merry Xmas" tag outside, What joy to give at Xmastide! • - F. E. M-S. Lower Hutt. •• . • TOLD BY THE WIND—AN IRISH WHISPER. Dear Percy Flage,—Whilst hanging on to my latest lid oh Lambton Quay I decided to tell the wind exactly what I thought about the nasty boisterous way it has been conducting its department lately. Imagine my surprise when the wind retorted breezily, "Now, Eve, don't you go in off the deep end, too. It was awfully sporting of you not"'to give me the air in the recent Column 8 controversy. That last Waitemata Willy gave me the stitch; I'm going to blow him back to Auckland. And. Flage, I'm going to blow his hat off for printing such hot air. Of course,- I can beat the Auckland bloke; it's my job, and although I say it myself, I'm the best breeze that ever blew. I'll admit that I've been a bit over the odds lately, but between you and me, I haven't been intentionally cutting; it's a matter of policy, that's all." "Policy?" I gasped. "Exactly; it's the head wind, you see. He's turned political ... all the election gas went to his head, and he swore that he'd never let a certain party 'turn the corner,' so he blew them back, and now he's so puffy that he can't die down. Why not come up and see me some time? I'm always' blowing about." "I think you're a hateful spoiler," I hurled at him. "Sour grapes," he yelled back, "you're just one of those windy wives." The next minute I was chasing my potae down the Quay, and he swept on to Karorl, screaming with malicious glee.

MOTHER EVE.