POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 80, 5 April 1938, Page 10

POSTSCRIPTS

BY PERCY.FLAGE

Chronicle and Comment

Whatever else it isn't, the "social security" scheme is at least first-class election propaganda. * * » Scotty Morris.—You can always tell a Scotsman —but you can't tell him much. "*'* ■ ■ • \ Those offending British motorists to the educative British traffic officers: "You're telling us!" * • * ■ Maybe the miscreant who stoned those windows in the State dwellings at Ponsonby was a chap who had despaired of ever being able to live in a glass house. > • ■.•'•' * ■■■■./. MECHANICAL INEBRIETY. Says a daily paper:— ! In Blenheim recently a farmer was remanded for further consideration of the question of penalty on a charge of driving a motor-truck while intoxicated. .'..'. ■■.■ ■■ ' : ■-:.■ ".) i •■': . Farmers should, not drive motortrucks while intoxicated—even, when they are sober. ■ ...... ."'.'■.. K.J.P. ■Hr •■•.■*■'■•♦■ ' • ■'■■■■; . . DEAE JACK. This is the house that Jack built; ■ Enter it, anxious and eager. Give him no feeling,of guilt— , Say not the light is too meagr*. Say not the walls" are too frail. Speak of his skill and his power, ' Hark to his fabulous tale . ■ ' Of how he constructed this tower; "Of how i strength and courage were needed To build from the mud and the stone, Of how, out, of faith, he succeeded, Working in pain and alone. This is the house that Jack built; Findit delightful, enthralling. Say not the roof or the walls tilt,.: Say not it soon will be falling... —Helene Mullini. ♦ * . * .■■■;■- INQUIRY DEPARTMENT. Reader" asks: "Is it trui" that the Chinese paint eyes on their ships? If so, wha,t is the, big idea?" The Chinese paint eyes on their ships, and'if you ask them why they will very politely and patiently point out that if the ship is not given eyes, how can \t possibly see where to go? It may interest "R.R." to know also that, ' when rowing a.boat, the Chinese, unlike the Westerner, faces the'" bow. i The needle of the' Chinese compass, instead of pointing to the magnetic North, is made to point South. Again, v the ■ Chinese have a firm belief in spirits. Convinced that evil spirits can easily be fooled, he builds crooked bridges that will, of course, puzzle the •' spirits, and cause them to retire baffled! G.D. —Hope to-have details of those Sick and Sorry Clubs later on. "Quest" (Napier) wants to know where Fort Gordon was situated in Wellington. Arlybody know? • • • ' OF ALL. THINGS . . .! When Police Chief John J. A'Hearn took over his duties recently at Saratoga Springs, New York, he checked up on the petty cash used by the Department for minor expenditures. "Say," he called to Desk-Sergeant Edward J. Kelly, "this fund is 1 dollar 30 cents over, - any, way I-can, check "That's right," said Kelly. "It was exactly 1 dollar 30 cents over when I went in here as- desk-sergeant, nearly seventeen years ago, and, it has been that way ever since." A home-made barbed-wire telegraph system is supplementing the telephone between a dozen home farms • near Strasbourg, fifty miles north of Regina (Saskatchewan). Messages are conveyed over about thirty miles of, barbed-wire fence. Cpnnections across roads are •made through culverts, and , wires are buried under gates. Drycell' batteries are used for power, old radio loud-speakers for amplifying, and home-made keys for transmitting. Amateur operators are becoming quite expert with the Mone code. . * • * , KEEPING OUR HEADS. Why all this talk about the one way traffic, Anent the export .of New Zealand! , brains? Our P.M. in his homily most graphic, Forgot to tell us what New Zealand gains! Are not the mighty men who rule our nation, • 8 But imports from far countries over- , seas,. Who, in the process of their adaptation, Have caused New Zealand's sons to feel the squeeze? It pUzzles me to know why Mr. Savage Should sing his.melancholious refrain, ' , c ■ Does he not' know, when mother cooks the cabbage; The best of it goes down the kitchen drain? But, press once' more the legislative button— (A simple "Act" which all the "best" retains) Do as we do when we export our mutton— Keep back the parts that we think hold the brains! CROW BAR. •' • * ' PENSIONS AND POLITICS. America has,an old age security system. After the Act was .passed in 1935 35 States had pension laws for their needy aged. Of these, 27 paid average pensions of 18.21 dollars . monthly to 402,762 persons at the i. end of 1935; There is a Federal subsidy for these pensions equal to one-half of I the State allowance, up to 15 dollars a month for each individual. At the end of 1936, 40 States, with laws ap- . proved by the Social Security Board, placed1 1,107,579 persons on the pension rolls at average payments of 18.75 dollars monthly. By December, 1936, pensions ranged from 3.92 dollars a month in Mississippi to, 31.36 a month, in California. The number of pensioners in different States also varied strikingly. The Texas (pensioners, for example, outnumbered by 48,000 those of California, which has about the same population. Even more striking, is the disparity in the ratio of pensioners to the total aged population, ranging from 5 in every hundred aged in the District of Columbia to 43 in Colorado and Texas, and 45.5 in Oklahoma. And the reason? Pension sys? terns are being used for the ■ political good they do. A case in point: In August, 1936, with.the elections three months away, Governor Davey ordered an increase of 10 dollars to all Ohio pensioners receiving 20, dollars a month or less. He sent to each of the 97,000 beneficiaries a copy of' his official order. This was followed up > by a letter asking them if they would be willing to persuade 10 or 15 of their relatives ,and friends to vote for him. . , . Result: Davey polled exactly 16 times the 97;00Q then on the rolls. Pensions were similarly manipulated in other States. An American authority • on this question predicts that unless this scheme is made as free from politics as those of other countries, "everything we have gained for the aged in a generation may be destroyed."