POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 47, 25 February 1937, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

By Perct Flag*.

On the field many batsmen flinch : from bumpers, but off it they hava no trouble in keeping them down. ' * * * '_ Cannot the B.M.A. do something about making the Government's medi--7 cine more palatable for taxpayers to i swallow? i * * * 1 The summary rejection of five of the > six loan proposals yesterday is further ; evidence that our ratepayers are just ; an overrated mob. As Bob Semple crushed that wheel- ' barrow and shovel under his jugger--5 naut one can imagine him saying to ■ himself: "So perish all our enemies." * .» * « INTIMATION. Up to the time of going to press no: "- communication of any kind had been 1 received from the ineffable Mrs. c McClancy. A word has crept through • to us via this city's underworld that the lady is not quite herself; she is re--1 ported "worrying herself stiff" over the Sino-Japanese problem. Perhaps : the mystery (of her silence) will be | cleared up tomorrow. : * * * SOMETHING TO GRUMBLE ABOUT. Food prices during the Siege of Gibraltar, 1779: £ s. d. Fresh beef, per lb 0 4 10J Pork 0 4 1 Cheese, per lb o.' 4 1 Salt and Butter, per lb 0 4 1 Potatoes, per lb 0 2 6 ' Loaf Sugar, per lb .... 0 17 1 Flour, per lb 0. 2 1 Tea, per lb 2 5 6 Eggs, per dozen ~ 0 4 0 Fowls, per pair ~..,,, 1 1114 A goose ' '..,,., 110 4 A turkey '... ' 2 8 9 The figures should help to soothe the dissatisfied housekeeper. They show that thipgs are not yet as bad as it is possible for them to be. OMEGA. WINDSOR. There are signs that, the Duke of Windsor has decided to make Austria his" home. Well, he will be handy to Vienna,: which still retains something oi its gay life, and his English friends will still be able to drop in on him without much trouble or expense. Already several members of the Duke's old staff ' have followed their master into exile. A notable servitor is Major Metcalfe, who has elected to go out as equerry to the ex-King. Metcalfe has had a colourful and most romantic career. The stormy . courtsliip by which he won the hand of . Lord Curzon's daughter, Lady Alexandra, i 3 still remembered. Metcalfe said when leaving London: "I would rather a thousand times serve' the Duke now than when he was the King." By the way, Edward is to spend the summer.. on Prinkipo, a beautiful island a few miles south of Stambpul, on the sea of Marmora. Special permission to use the island, which is ideal for yachting and cruising, has been granted to the Duke by Kemal Ataturk. Further details (which we spare - you) of Prinkipo indicate that the island is simply ideal for a honeymoon. * •» ■ '*•"■•""■ ■- =■' -\ MILKING SNAKES."Tim" (to his intimates) Armstrong has a scheme by which' farmers will receive a wages ■ subsidy for, among other things, teaching lads to milk cows. In Australia there are young men who are taught to milk snakes. We refer to officers of the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories. The main purpose of these scientific pursuits ia to find specific antidotes to the bites of Australia's deadly reptiles. Expert catchers return from the wilds with .sometimes 150 copperheads and tiger snakes, which are milked at the Melbourne Zoo. Each snake is lifted with a special forked stick. The operator grasps the snnke firmly behind the head with his right hand, and the left holding its tail. Another worker holds a medicine glass, rubber covered, in front of the reptile's mouth. In a flash, ugly jaws and deadly fangs have sunk into the rubber diaphragm. Then the disengaged hand of the ■ second operator very carefully but firmly massages the poison glands. The venom passes by means of a fine duct through the canal in-the fangs and thence into, the container. Milking cows (or ths public) is far less dangerous. » ,■« . '• A NOISY NOISE ANNOYS.

Brr .. . urp. Brr .'. up. Brr . .'. Ip, It gives a bloke the pip, To hear those blinkin' blighters let it rip: I'll smite them hip and thigh. Those demons up on high; Assuming that one day I lose, my grip. I mean those noisome wights, Who climb to dizzy heights On girders. Con't they get some savage "bites"! ' . .. With rivetters in hand, : Their clatter beats the band. The memory racks sleepersI'nerves at nights. Our Mayor will fix those chaps: (I don't mean just perhaps). He'll limit them to fifty thousand tap 3 Per week of forty hours. And respite will be ours, A few more days before our reason snaps. , . . He'll not forget the drills That add some fancy frills, . To shattering cacophony—what thrills! To see dejected gangs Of drillers locked in cangues, We'd gloat to see the boards.rub raw their gills. JO WITE. * * * :

| INQUIRY DEPARTMENT. "Vac Victis!"—(l) A palindrome is a word or line which reads backwards and forwards alike, such as "madam," and Napoleon's reputed saying: "Able was I ere I saw Elba." One of the longest palindromes in English is "Dog as a devil deified Deified lived as a god." (2) "Sordello" is a very obscure poem by Robert Browning. ■ It details the conflict of a poet as to the. best way of making his influence felt, whether personally or by the power of song. Tennyson said of "Sordello" that there were only two lines he understood— the first and the last, and both were untrue. These are— Who will, may hear Sordello's story told. Who would has heard Sordello's story told. "Puzzled" (Marton).—An experimenter, David Hughes, was the first human being to hear wireless signals. This was in 1879. It was not until 1889 that the German Hertz convinced the world that wireless waves actually existed. In 1594 Oliver Lodga demonstrated signalling over short distances by means of what were then known as "Hertzian waves." "Mrs. Micawber." —Not so simple a question, that. We'll see what can be done about it. "Aeronautical" (Makara). — The round-the-world record is held by H. R. Ekins (18 days 14 hours 51.minutes). He covered 24,720 miles, "almost,exactly the length of the Equator."