POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 67, 20 March 1937, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

Sy Perct Flags.

Wouldn't a high-class furniture factory bo the ideal place for a "sit-down" strike. « * # Curiously enough, it is the people with small families or none at all who are most concerned about the lack ot increase in population. < * * * j La Guardia, New York's Mayor, who j says that Hitler "can't take it."—"BetI ter a grave in Potter's Field for a crook than a medal for a police widow." * » ' »■ "Do We Forget?" (Hastings) .—A certain person used to always refer to Mr. Wilford as the Minister of Speeches, but who is the Minister of ■ Mouthshooting now? * » » RUTHLESS RHYME. Another of these metrical contraptions to complete over the weekend—if you are feeling that way: Daddy, in the stove one night, Pushed a plug of dynamite . . Said the Coroner: ". . . » Now let your creative imagination work. WIFE IS ALWAYS DOWN- : HEARTED. : The wife of a Hungarian stationmaster has a heart which is not only situated on the wrong side of her body but is also upside down. She is Mrs. Kiszely, wife of the stationmaster at Gyula, and this strange fact was only discovered when sha went to hospital to undergo an X-ray following heart trouble. No other case of this sort has evel been known. . * * * POOR NAZI PIGS! Housewives must learn to peel potatoes properly. That is the latest order to German women. ' : To shame the careless potato-peeler, statistics have been issued' showing how gigantic is the waste accruing from badly-peeled vegetables. ; This is how the waste works out, according to the order. For every pound of carelessly-peeled potatoes tne housewife wastes one-fifth. As there are 17,500,000 German homes, and it is averaged that each uses a pound a day, the total waste is over 378,000 tons in one year. The order suggests that the peelings instead of being thrown away, be harbored and bartered to pig dealers in exchange for wood. ' It doesn't sound as if the pigs will get very fat on their tissue-thin • diet of potato peelings! , ' * . * '.#■."' ■ ; TALKING OF PHOBIAS. V "You asked for more phobias," writes G.O.M. "Well, what about these?:— Rupophobia (fear of dirt), belenophobia (fear of pins), aichmophobia (fear of pointed objects). The cremnophobiac will stand on a precipice and turn pale, fearing that he is going to fall. Some people otherwise sane fear sleep or swallowing, dread diseases, or walking over street-gratings. Two curious forms are hypophobism and panophobism. In, the first the subjects, such as explorers and adventurers, fear nothing; they are bold and audacious,'blustering and' self-confident. Panophobia is a 1 vague' fear of everything, and yet of nothing in particular. Tycho Brake, the famous astronomer, would faint at the sight of a fox. Henry II of England would collapse in a dead faint on seeing a cat; Pascal, the mathematician, couldn't look on sea water without falling into a convulsion. * * # SCHOOL'S IN. Do you know that: , (1) People With incomes of £5000 a year, including Bishops, will be able to draw 10s a week old age pensions granted to black-coated workers under the new plan of the British Minister of Health? V (2) The smallest boots and shoes in the world—they stand on a farthingare made (but not worn) by a Brighton (England) mechanic? (3) Four duchesses, six daughters p£ Earls, and eleven other women of the aristocracy will attend Queen Mary in her procession at the Coronation? 0 Frau E. Blume, champion German woman jockey, won thirteen out of forty-nine races for women riders last year? ■ (5) Oldest inn licensee in England is 98-years-old Mrs. Ann Longshaw, of Shipton-Under-Wychwood, Oxfordshire? (6) Powerful loudspeakers to call the faithful to prayer have been installed on the minarets of the Grand Sultan Mosque, Singapore? (7) Sir George Clark, British Ambassador at Paris, receives f!2500 a year and £12,400 allowance? (8) Mr. Kunizo Arimoto, ij millionaire Osaka tailor, has ordered a solid gold kettle worth £1000, which will be used for special. social occasions? (9) Mrs. Earl Brigner, of Beaver, Ohio, the mother of ten children, recently gave birth to a baby boy who weighed 191b. (10) It was a grocer who put sleeping cars on the railways and a carpenter who invented the chronometer? * * • A SOFT DAY. A soft day, thank God! A wind from the south : . With a honeyed mouth; A scent of drenching leaves, Brier and beech and lime, White elder-flower and thyme. And the soaking grass smells sweet Crushed by my two bare feet,— While the rain drips, Drips, drips, drips from the leaves. A soft day, thank God! The hills wear a shroud Of silver cloud; The web the spider weaves Is a glittering net; The woodland path is wet. And the soaking earth smells sweet, Under my two bare feet, And the rain drips, Drips, drips, drips from the leaves. W. M. LETTS. * * • THOSE ROYAL JEWELS. ■ "Teddy Bear" and R.G.S. (Newtown). —This is the story as it appeared in several reputable American journals and later, in a London weekly. Queen Alexandra left her magnificent collection of jewels to Edward VIII, her favourite nephew. Emeralds from that collection were given by Edward, with other family jewels, to Mrs. Simpson. When, however, Edward decided to abdicate, Mr. Theodore Goddard was suddenly sent on a secret mission to Cannes to see Mrs. Simpson. Mr. Goddard had a long talk with Mrs. Simpson. He talked about the future, is credited with having been instructed to ask her about the jewels which Edward had given her from the family collection, as gifts to one who was to join the family. Mr. Goddard asked her if she would be so good as to return them. Mrs. Simpson handed back the family heirlooms, which she had insured, together with her own jewels, for £100,000. One royal stone was so valuable that no one would insure it.