POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 16, 18 July 1936, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

By Pepxy Flage.

Sufferers from soil erosion find it a very wearing business. ; ; Japan protests that her activities in Northern China are all for China's good. Isn't, it just too bad!.. * * « We, don't know • what the. .world's coming to, «but at time of writing it doesn't seem to be coming-to. •' **. ■ * Hitler's watch ot> ■ the Rhine threatens to grow from the wri*t type to a grandfather deck. That Mr. Dick made. a.job of Brannigan is no surprise. When, a commercial traveller tackles a "prospect" he usually gets his man. * # • . •■ "Y. RARAPA'S". BRAIN-TEASER. A barik; clerk who filched £7509 was awarded six months' imprisonment, and a domestic got three months for lifting an .insignificant 4s 6d. Accordingly, the domestic should receive-, a sentence of 8333 years, 4 months, forstealing what the bank clerk stole, and] the bank clerk would be detained for-: 7.776 minutes (assuming six months to be 180 days) if he should swipe thu 4s 6d! -•• -'■■ , ■;•:'•' " . ■ ■•■..■-: FIAT JUSTJTIA. : 1 " ■' *■ ■ ; •" : - .'■■;■ • ...''...' .;. PSHAWS LINEAGE. ':: As the follow-up of your Shaw ruse (a not-so-wise) ; crack, writes "Barnyard" .(Karori), do you know that the name of George Bernard Shaw appears in "Burkes Peerage"? (A nice gallery, for a lifelong Socialist to find himself in!) Not that there is any danger of G.B.S. becoming a peer, though that would bean enlivening spectacle. But' he is a great-great-grandson of :Robert Shaw, of s Sandpits, Kilkenny-(1698** 1758), who is also an ancestor of the present Sir. Robert de Vere Shaw,: 6th Bart.' The late Sir. Eyre Massey Shaw, who was for 'thirty? years chief officer. of London's Metropolitan Firevßoard, • and is immortalised in the rhymes of; "lolanthe," comes from the same stock.i ■... -• '♦ " .". •'' ';- ' *'■ "■■ '•■:■ ■ -:/ ' : .SLIM NIPPON,: :•'.-;; ; Cabled the other day that, Australia',; who is having a battle with Japan on,] tariffs, is taking all sorts of; steps tpj prevent Japanese goods entering r the Commonwealth under another 'nameJ Vigilance is necessary, judging " from,past experience, and according to. J,| R. Remer, M.P.,'who represents rMac«i clesfield in the Commons.' Last month;1 Mr.; Reiner.-gave. notice "to. ask the} president; of the Board of; Trade" if "he is; aware that the Japanese have! christened a village in Japan Maccles-j field, in order to enable them ■ to" sell! ' their silk; goods as Macc-lesfield silk;' if he will take* the appropriate, steps! to prevent these goods being sold in i the Home and colonial markets' marked in this way; and if "he "will; make representations to the' Japanese* Government upon the matter." * " ■■'■ ' ♦ ; ■ *; .SCHOOL'S IN. Do you know m.that— (1) Due to drought 40,000,' famished American farmers have been taken from .'.their, farms and placed in emer-' ' gency jobs? (2) The. opossum-trapping season in Queensland, which lasts a month, i 3 expected to yield .1,50p,000 skins, ..this year? (3) In 1858 Allen McKeen, in. theVictoria Theatre, Ballarat, walked 1000= miles in 1000 hours? v (4) After ten years of involved diplomatic negotiations, the U.S.A. Government, has agreed to pay Norway 9000' dollars for a cargo of spoiled fish? (5) Ten million Germans, or almost. 18 per cent, of Germany's. 65,000,000 population, cycle to work every morning? (6) A parrot, which was \ rescued from a blazing house at Kingsdbwn, Kent (England), when fire, started ..and1 spread rapidly after the fusing, of an electric-light cable, said: "Jinks, what' a night!" (7) Stretching 164 feet. into .the"air, one of the tallest ...extension/ladders' ever constructed was recently placed in the fire-fighting service in BuenosAires? (8) Mount Wilson astronomers have\ found a star known as .Ross, 627" so" dense1 that a cubic inch of it would weigh, a ton? It is 210,000,000^000,000 miles from the- earth. (9) Three American scientists ara1 perfecting a gun, powered with the force of 15,000,000 volts of electricity,to blast the atoms? (10) According to the . "Economist,* Britain's annual betting turnover run* to £500,000,000 yearly, of which'horseracing accounts for £400,000,000? «• ■.'. ■ ■■* . . • IN THE CLOUDS. - (Sent by "Slim Jim," recently Jeturne^ from the wild country.) What if my head is in the clouds? • ' 'I like it there. There ■are such quantities of room. And such fine air! It. is exciting counting, stars, I And being still, to hear, Infrequently, exquisite strains -'From some far sphere. It is so quiet in the clouds That I can think; And lovely" things grow lovelier; And" small things shrinkV Annoyance, and perplexity Are not for skies; It is the place where one may grow ' More calm and wise. —Anne BlackweU Payne. * * * ■ /, BRAIN-TEASER. (The Suicide Mystery, by "Cameraman.") At 4 o'clock one afternoon Mrs. Ackroyd was found dead in her flat by a friend who, in her subsequent statement, said she l^ad called to' see Mrs. A. just after 8 o'clock that morning. Getting no answer, to her .knock, sha went away and returned in the afternoon.. • Again getting -xio reply, she looked through the very narrow fanlight—which was opened about two inches—and saw Mrs. A.' sitting in a chair at a table ten feet from the door. This door, the only exit from the 'flat, was locked. It was not' of the selflocking type. Becoming uneasy, Ehe called 'a policeman, who forced, the door. On the table was a cup and saucer (the cup was later found to,contain, besides the tea dregs, traces of poison), a bottle containing a few drops of the same liquid poison found . in the cup, the only key to the flat, and a farewell note to her husband. She had been dead about eight hours. Later her husband, an engraver, sa£d that when he left for work just before.18 o'clock Mrs. A. was pouring herself a cup of tea. Outside the door of the flat the policeman picked up an ordinary pin which was bent about brie-eighth of an inch above the point. Next day someone was arrested and charged with the murder. *"■■- There are three questions to answer: (1) Why did the police suspect the "suicide" was a fake? X 2) Who killed Mrs. A'ckroyd? (3) How did the murderer leave the flat? Remember, the only key to the flat was on' the table. '*■ Maybe (adds "Cameraman") "the local C.I.D. will have a try at" this. It definitely can be solved on the clues' givery'