POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 19, 23 January 1937, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chromde and Comment

Bt Percy Flags. Add similes: As lucky as the Wellington Racing Club with its weather. * * * I The in-and-out form of the ants in the Perry-Vines series carries a strong suggestion of racquetecring. # # » ' We can't imagine Dr. Marie Stopcs ever being invited to take tea with Mussolini. » ■» * Not so long since, the rich were getting poor and the poor were getting used to it. Today—well, finish it for yourself. » » • News note: "A savage tribe recently discovered in the Brazilian jungle uses eggs for money." No room for misers there. «i # # "TIC" ENDINGS. Here is another mental exercis* along the lines of the "city" one; it is sent in by "Bettikins." 1. The cheerful age? 2. The true? 3. The shrewd? 4. The terrified? 5. The unbelieving. 6. The popular? ' 7. The doubting? 8. The grammatical? ' 9. The satiric? 10. The ostentatiously wise? Those you cannot remember offhand any dictionary will supply. 'INFORMATION DEPARTMENT. J. Stuart Roche.—"lt," a synonym for sex-appeal, was not coined by tha somewhat egregious Elinor Glyn (in "Three Weeks"); she plagiarised Kipling. In his short story, "Mis. Bathurst," Kipling wrote: "'Tisrft beauty, so to speak, nor good talk, necessarily. It's just It! Some women'll stay in a man's memory if they ones walked down a street." J. S. Austen: In the opinion of all good cricketers the origin of the word "yorker" was settled once and for all by old Tom Emmett, who, upon being asked why a yorker was called a yorker, replied: "There was nothing else they could call it." # « ♦ FACETIAE. "Gran," an old admirer of ours, posts these for use in Col. 8. "Yes," said the old man, "I have had some terrible disappointments, but none stands out over the years like the one that came to me when I waj a boy." "And what was it?" "When I was a boy I crawled under a tent to see a. circus and discovered it was a revival meeting." Two London cabmen were glaring at each other. "Aw, what's the matter with you?" demanded one. "Nothing's the matter with me." "You gave me a narsty look," persisted the first. "Well," responded the other, "now you mention it, you certainly have a narsty look; but I didn't give it to you." « * * SCHOOL'S IN. Do you know that — 1. In New South Wales a restaurant keeper is liable under the Pute Food and Drugs Act to a fine of £20 for using chipped or cracked ware? 2. Franz Thaler, a German watchmaker's assistant, has used 268,759 matchsticks in constructing a clock? 3. A 69-year-old Lincolnshire postman, just retired, has in his 55 years of service walked about 150,000 miles —equal to six times round the world? 4. Captain Olley, former Chief Special Charter Pilot to Imperial Airways, has flown 1,250,000 miles and spent approximately 12,500 hours in the air? 5. The Roman chariots of 2000 years ago made ruts 4ft B|in apart and that is the gauge on which modern railway expresses run today? 6. In the list of world timber producers the Soviet Union leads the field with a forest area of .2,589,850 square miles? 7. Before he could meditate effectively, the German poet Schiller had to put his foot on a cake of ice and inhale the aroma of rotten apples? 8. Obsolete ships are now fetching as much as £4 10s a ton, whereas several years ago the price was only ten shillings? 9. Of all reputed Methuselahs probably the most authenticated case of longevity is "Old Parr," an Englishman, who died at 152, and is buried in Westminster Abbey? 10. Experience is what you have left when everything else is gone? y* » * DEFEAT. In the late days of last year we reprinted a poem by Gerald Gould, whose unexpected death shocked others besides an army of friends. Now Coral Quane asks us to publish "Defeat," a i noble and notable poem written by Gould when he was 20. Here are seven stanzas:— Here, swift assuagement and black night; Here, the cold end of the hot fight; Here, where desire and strife wera sweet, I have accepted my defeat . . , Here I put out my hand to try The thing the centuries deny: Here were the 'stablished stars assailed; Here have I fought; here have I failed. So, let them mock; the foe was strong And I was stubborn; we fought long; So, let them mock; I found at length The foe was stronger than all strength. [There came against me, first and last, i The sombre and apparelled Past, The stirring forces of Today, And the whole Future in array; Tall navies white against the sky, 1 Armies for ever drawing nigil, Vague hands and drifting feet of king* And silence at the end of things. If I will that and God wills this. It is not hard for me to miss; The stars and seas, for good or ill. Have made me subject to their wilL Ordered, invincible, and right, The stars are turning in the night; But brighter stars have vanquished me And waters of Eternity. * * * ECCENTRIC TITLES. There seems to be a fashion for eccentric titles (writes in "Whaffor?") John Masefield's new book is called "Eggs and Baker," which smells like a very bad pun. Now a new play is on the way with the name "The Astonished Ostrich." Not so long since we had "Yes and Mr. Thomas." Yet our ancestors could do that sort (if thing just as well, and sometimes with the excuse of high moral purpose. What, for example, of Richard Baxter's "Hooks and Eyes for Believers' Breeches"? A theological critic might well have retorted that braces art much more-reliable*