POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 143, 13 December 1935, Page 10

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAG!)

Another reason why married men never know when they'are well off is that they never are. "* * • « It is good to have Mr. Nash's assurance that he will keep his feet on the ground. We mistrust those fellows with their heads in the clouds. Then there was the Scot huntsman who bought only one spur: he calculated that if one side of the horse went the other side would surely follow. ' ■ ■ •. • « . From a Rochester (N.Y.) daily:— But on the bright side of the Soviet Union, the speaker pointed out that 90 per cent, of the population is illiterate as against only. 10 per cent, years ago. * ■ « » FUN IN THE ADS. Unconscious humour. Poster headline. WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK. The announcement referred to the glove clash between Kid Berg 'and Harry Mizler. * «■• • •» QUATRAIN. Two knights contended in the list— An optimist, a pessimist, But each by mist was blinded so That neither struck a vital blow. R. T. WOMBAT. » * * LONG-LIVED NEW ZEALANDERS. Dear Percy Flage,—Your list of longlived families in England opens the way for one of the same for: NewZealand. Here's a start: The ages ol nine (out of ten) living members, sons and daughters, of the late James Knight, Lower Hutt, total 605 years. —Yours faithfully, W. KNIGHT. CROSSWORD LETTER. You have heard of Babu letters, but have you ever encountered a crossword one? If not, here's an example for the scrapbook—it won first prize iv a competition for that class of ingenuity:— ■ I*am exact rear from my primary attend to your rural. I enjoyed my suspension and hope to recur nearest year. The English were so nature to me. I guarded several cricket examination matches, but some were corrupted by weighty raia calamities. I dissipated an evening at what you summon an Esplanade Harmony. I laboured globular the rustic in a bus and elapsed not few facetious hours in the approbation sediment of a notorious seashore resource/ Behind a greatest cheerful recess I had to trap an educate to Folkestone. Very sorry to bequeath your rustic. Suppose me, Your straight relative, Now try to clue it out. * « ■» * NEWS ODDITIES. Frank Hook fell into a tank of tar in the Adelaide council's yard It took two policemen nearly two hours to clean him. using petrol, hot water, and soda. ■ And later he was sentenced at the Police Court, to fourteen days' imprisonment for having been in the yard, where he had no right. Fighting between football players on opposite sides is not uncommon, ■ but something which was rather unique happened at Upton Bishop (Herefordshire) last month. For fignting. two players in the same team were ordered off. At Hornsby, New South Wales, a man bet that he could eat 25 eggs in 20 minutes. The stakes ■were £1. He fried the eggs in vinegar to make them small. But even then they were too much for him. He gave in at the twentieth. Now •he is ill. A diver of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, was instantly killed when lightning struck a barge above him and "exploded six sticks of dynamite which ha held in his hands. * * *. LINCOLN'S MOTHER. Emmett Walpole.—The poem, relating to the mother of Abraham Lincoln, is "Nancy Hanks, 1784-1813," by Rosemary and S. V. Benet. Thomas Lincoln married Nancy Hanks in 1806. Their second child, but first son, was Abraham Lincoln, who was born on February 12, 1809, on a farm in Kentucky. He became the sixteenth President of the United States. The poem reads: — If Nancy Hanks Came back as a ghost, Seeking news Of what she loved most, She'd ask first, "Where's my son What happened to Abe? What's he done? "Poor little Abe, : Left all alone, • Except for Tom, Who's a rolling stone; ' He was only nine , The year I died; I remember still How hard he cried. "Scraping along In a little shack, With hardly, a shirt To cover his back. And a prairie wind To blow him down, Or pinching times If he went to town. "You wouldn't know About my son? Did he. grow tall? Did he have fun? ■ Did he learn to read? Did he get to town? Do you know his name? Did he get on?" * ' •' . • CROCKETT. The death of that veteran umpire. Bob Crockett, recalls the tune when a decision of his in a Test match on.the • Sydney cricket ground caused something of a riot. The Australians; over 250 behind on the first innings (we write from memory) were again batting. Vie. Trumper and Clem Hill, the former playing inspiredly, Hill in the die-hard manner, had the bowling mastered, and the runs mounted and mounted. The pair ran a close fourth run. Lilley ('keeper) whipped off the bails, appealed dramatically* and Crockett at square leg held up his hand. It was an obviously bad decision; sitting on the members' stand we were directly opposite the crease, and Hill was a stride oyer the crease when the bails flew. Mild pandemonium started on the Hill and worked around the ground. Hillites flung -their empty lunch baskets—mostly beer bottles— on to the ground, raged furiously, and looked like taking charge. The game was held up until authority intervened. Then, as George Hirst, the fast-medium Yorkshire bowler, who took a longish run, with ohe-two-three-four .. . and —over-she-comes strides, resumed the attack, the Hill-billies chanted as he made his run: "Crock-Crock-Crock-Crock-Crockett!" Gradually, however, the noise subsided. The Englishmen were all out to win, due to Hirst's stubborn batting. He got over 50, but Layer at short leg dropped him —a not difficult catch —before he reached double figures.