POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 92, 20 April 1938, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

Mr. Savage: There is a soul in this conference superior to anything, etc., etc. Have a heart, sir! * * * Why should Japan want an outside finger in the Chinese pie? It's her pie, anyway. * ♦ ■:> "Lyall Bay" says that China regards the Japanese air raids as an abomination. * •» • If a rigorous wee-ding-out of budding lawyers were made there would be fewer bloomers later on. * » • At least the conference of Empire primary producers will have justified itself if it has done no more than convince our farmers that they are not the only ones with worries. » * * ON A DULL PREACHER. Sent in by "Bushlands": ' By our preacher perplex'd How shall we determine? "Watch and pray," says the text; "Go to sleep," says the sermon, * # * INQUIRY DEPARTMENT. Alison would like to know what became of early film "stars" like Richard Barthelmess, Francis X. Bushman, Pauline Frederick, Theda Bara, Edna Purviance, and Gloria Swanson. "S.S." (Silverstream).—Will look into those matters. Thanks, for what you say of Column 8. F.M.—(l) Jawaharlal Nehru is Gandhi's logical successor. He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge,- and he aims to pool the wealth of the princes of India, lift up the masses, and "end the subjection of his country." (2) Unable to say. ' ■ * * * MIDGET CHIEFTAIN. Interested in a "School's In" par telling of the world's smallest Mayor, "Regular Reader" sends us a cutting which gives details of a South African chieftain, who is 87 years old, stands three feet high, and a great Imperialist. His name is Ramajan, and he has been, haranguing tribal -. meetings in Bechuanaland dressed in a small boy's suit and a cricket cap. The burden of his speeches—and every tribesman looks up to the little man, for he is a mighty chief—is "Stick to Britain and < resist transfer to the Union of South Africa." Ramajan's influence is enhanced by the fact that he has been across the "Great Water." He served —as mascot—with a labour battalion in France during the war. Old Ramajan is blind in< one eye. ** ' * JUDGE RUTHERFORD. W.G.F. (Palmerston North) writes:— What's wrong with this Judge Rutherford that some people in Sydney, including many returned soldiers, want him kept out of Australia? What did he say about the British Empire? Judge Rutherford is the head and "Chief Prophet" of an organisation known as "Jehovah's Witnesses." In the publication "Light," these statements are' attributed to him:—"One great section of Satan's organisation is constituted, by civil authorities. The false prophet is the combined, world powers of Britain and America —these beastly Governments of earth which, are Satan's organisation. Beast is a symbol of Satan's organisation, of which Great Britain' forms a part. The British Empire is the seat of his beastly organisation. The AngloAmerica Empire is the two-horned beast." According to a report in the New York "Times," on June 23, 1918, Rutherford and certain leaders of the International Bible Students' Association were sent'to gaol for "spreading doctrines calculated to spread unrest and disloyalty among the men of the Army and Navy." ■» ♦ i .* POETICAL MOSAIC. (Author Unknown.) The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, In every clime from Lapland to Japan; •' To fix one spark of beauty's heavenly ray, The proper study of mankind is man. Tell! for you can, what it is to be wise, Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of i the plain; "The man of Ross!" each, lisping babe replies, And drags at each remove a length'ning chain. Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb, Far as the solar walk or milky way? Procrastination is the thief of time, Let Hercules himself do what he may. 'Tis education forms the common mind, The feast of reason and the flow of soul; I must be cruel only to be kind, Arid waft a sigh from Indus to the Pole. Farewell! and whereso'er thy voice be tried, . , Why to yon mountain turns the gazing eye, With spectacles on nose and pouch on side, . That teach the rustic moralist to die? Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, Whose beard descending swept his aged breast; . Laugh where we must, be candid . where we can, Man never is, but always to be blest. * # • INTERPRETER WANTED. The following is a Copy of the indictment of Robert Weir before the Criminal Assize at Edinburgh in the year 1604 for the murder of his master, Lord Livingstone, four years earlier. Weir was found guilty and broken on the wheel—a form of capital punishment, just introduced by the King, "Dirty Jamie." For this same crime the beautiful Lady Livingstone was beheaded by the Scottish guillotine—. the Maiden —while two i'emale accomplices were burned at the stake. Weir, who actually committed the deed and evaded capture for over four years, was an old and too faithful servant of the Lady; he merely carried out her instructions *to slay her brutal husband. Perhaps some Scottish reader will interpret.

"And haifing enterit within the faid chalmer, perfaving the faid vmqle Johnne to be walknit out of his fleip, be thair dyn; and to preife over his bed ftock, the faid Robert cam than rynnand to him, and ma'ift crewallie, with falded neiffis gaif him ane deidlie and crewall straik on the vane—organ, ■qitairwith. he dang the faid vmqle Johnne to tlie grund, out over his bed; and thairefter, crewalliee ftrak him on bellie with his feit; quairvpon he gaif ane grit cry; and the faid Robert, feiring the cry fould haif bene hard, he thairefter, maift tyrannoujly and barbaroufly, with his hand, grippit him be the thrott or waifen, quhilk he held faft ane lang tyme, quhill he wirreit him; during the quhilk tyme, the faid Johnne Kincaid lay ftruggling and n fechting in the panes of daith vnder him. And fa, the faid vmqle Johnne was crewallie murdreit and flam b9 the faid Robert."