POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 50, 1 March 1937, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

By Ferct Flack.

The only fly in the ointment of his unprecedented 11 not out iS that Fleet-wood-Smith may get the idea lie is M batsman. .It is all very well for Germany to hold out the hand of reconciliation to her neighbours, but what has she got : in the other hand behind her back? ■» * «• Heard on the Hokowhitu links: Voice from rough (very rough)—lt didn't go as far as that, did it? Second voice (some distance further on)—No, but it's easier to find here! « *• *•-■-• The cable reference to Townsend recalls the story that the Scottish. Townsend Plan calls for a £16 pension at 200. ... \ :'•: * • • ' ■'..' ' FABLE. , . "Slim Jim" (up Waiouru way) discovered this choice simile in the editorial column of a N.I. provincial newspaper:— -.' . :r ;- - ' • "... ..like the Phoenix rising from the sea. . . . . Of course (adds "S.J.") it was Aphrodite who rose from the ashes, wasn't it? ■ , ■ -»;. ■■•:■* .*.."'■ ADD DEFINITIONS. "B. Anter" passes this one along— An engineer is said to be a man who knows a great deal about a very little, and who goes along knowing more and more about less and less, until* finally,, he knows practically everything about nothing: whereas a salesman, on tha other hand, is a man who. knows verylittle about a great deal, and keep 3 knowing less and less about more and more, until finally he knows practically nothing'about everything. .< * ,* * *...'.. WISH FATHER1 TO THE THOUGHT? Representative of a London daily on tour with the English team—after the first day's play in'the Test:. :., .;. • As soon as Bradman is out it will become an ordinary game of cricket • in which the Australians were lucky, enough to have an excellent start, but in which they will be -unlikely to make another-hundred. .: : : We wonder: what the prophet's; alibi was on Saturday evening. *■■.■.. «■ ' ' .*-■■,-:' :■/ ' '" EXOTIC: BLOOMS. The other day we received,/as a horticultural curiosity, •an exotic tiger-striped orchid-like bloom, j The giver did not know its name, nor did we. Then a friend came to our aid, and said it was known as a one-day flower. It begins to bloom in the morning, and dies at night. And. it enjoys no resurrection. In China thereis what is called a vapour (or East Indian) plant—three specimens only exist in the Far East. One, in, Shanghai, recently bloomed after a lapse ot 105 years. Some of these curious flowers have been known to live as long as 300 years without casting their sweetness on the Oriental air. A 4FT. MOUSTACHE; In certain of the backblocks parts of the West. Coast the old-fashioned moustache is still a popular adornment with the middle-aged. Not one hundred miles from Greymouth we came across in our travels a young grandfather whose "mo" would have made Bairnsfather's Bill livid with envy. It was the perfect "walrus," world without end. But there is an. elderly gentleman of 81 years, a Hungarian swineherd, whose moustachios are 48 inches long from tip to tip. Recently the old gent was in hospital, due to the fact that he lit his pipe carelessly after having oiled his moustache. The oil vapour flamed up and burned his eyes, but, most fortunately, the pride and joy of his life was undamaged. He confessed to the doctors that he spent most of his time tending his moustache, which he windsround a ram's horn to make it,curl. ■'*'. , *-. . :..*'. ' .'.'■. , "RABBIT" AT BAY. . When Fleetwood-Smith strolled dowrt the green . L To take his stand before the wicket. Fames thought: "Here is, a plum, I ween, ' . . Now all you good Aussies;watch mci pick it." , ' And all the Aussies round the ground Said each to each, a gay smile wearingl "Now, there's a 'rabbit,' nice and sound. Just made to order for the snaring." The 6ft 5 of bone and thew, A British-made high-powered bowler, Came tearing down with great to-do, As hostile as a lithe steam roller. The "rabbit," sudden brought to bay, Lashed out—the .threat of doom ignoring .... ' A swingeing fourer all the way, Which, set the startled Aussies roariiig. \ , Then Verity, astute and bland, Whose wiles have caught Don Brad* man napping, Girded his-loins to take a hand In the great game of rabbit trapping. He teased his victim for a space (Like dryads worried by a centaur); The "rabbit," hardened, set his face, And straightway glared, at his tormentor. He gripped his blade . . . leapt forward—Bam! A hush . . . has the poor "rabbit" blundered? A soaring sixer ... a grand slam, And how the grandstand rocked and: thundered. From this high incident we learn That "rabbits," like the worm, can!, turn. ** , * * "HOT SQUAT."' That newspaper -man in New Jersey (see recent Postscripts par) has set a world record by covering nearly 120 electrocutions in Sing Sing. It is not a morbid curiosity that has taken him to these grim functions: he has covered them for his paper. ■ His 113thi appearance in the "death house" was the occasion on which Hauptmanrt went to "the chair." ■ He came away, firmly convinced that the ex-German' machine-gunner had reached the stages when he was oblivious to what was happening—the killer was "out" on his feet This same journalist tells how: one homicide, a Bad little Irishman, begged and pleaded with the authorities to allow him to walk to the chairon his hands and knees: he wanted' to be the first ever to go to his death in that fashion. Another criminal, before he set out on the "last mile" pasted up a notice in his cell: After tonight This Cell for Rent. Yet another murderer "guy'd" in the face oC death. He entered the "death house" with a big black cigar drooping from his mouth, and made a speech to the assembled Pressmen deploring the "yellowness" of previous malefactors and jovially insisting on his ability to "take it." Before the accredited newspaper representatives are admitted to the "death house" they,are searched, four times literally from head to heel. They have to strip to their shirts, anct even their socks are examined—all this because some years ago an enterprising- reporter took a snap of an^ electrocution with a small camera^ strapped to one of his ankles. ,