POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 130, 4 June 1938, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

Thinking caps don't fit well on swelled heads. • « •

Barnum was only partly right When he said one "sucker" was born every minute. Today they come in litters. • • •

They had better hurry up with the next war or there won't be too much wealth in this country to conscribe.

Though there is a divinity that shapes our ends, we are still without the economic machinery to make those ends meet.

"Sincerity."—Mr. Armstrong said at - Northland the other, night: "I knew he (the interrupter) was a land agent by the shape of his head." Could you get Mr. Armstrong to give us a tip how to tell these chaps; it might be useful sometimes. • • • LEG SHOW. Bobby calves Don't interest me Like nobby calves On Lambton Quay. CAMOUFLAGE • • * BRAIN-TEASER. j"Now that winter is near," writes : J.W., "how about taking us to the other hemisphere in order that we may help the immortal Don to bring back the 'Ashes'? A bob to a spent match he does it. Change SOUTH to NORTH in seven 17) or less moves." Well, that sounds to us like a reasonable proposition, apart altogether from J.W.'s reckless wager. Our more experienced laddergrammers should not have any nerve-shaking difficulty - with this one, but you never can telL We acknowledge, with thanks, receipt of an interesting financial problem from "Public Worker." We shall be glad to use it one of these weekends. / * * • FOR POSTMEN ONLY. . , When we see Wellington "parties" fighting their way up the city heights against the winter gales our sympathies naturally go out to them. The ground they must cover in their time! But there's a Sydney postman, Ernest Jones, just retired, whose record will take a lot of beating. Jones was 46 years on the same round. In that time he has travelled 275,097 miles delivered a daily average of 1000 letters and papers, worn away one layer of sole leather every day, and worked under six postmasters. For his flat 36 years he walked 25 miles a day, and for the remaining ten 15 miles • day. _ If there's «any weather-beaten P. and T. warrior who can get within cooey of Jones's milage, and can prove it, we shall present him with a couple ox the nicest cigars he has ever seen or smelt, and smoke one with him over the largest "handle" he can call for. Any takers?

SCHOOL'S IN. Do you know that .. (1) Love is expected to cost the British Government an extra £10,000 tW> year because gratuities to women civil servants retiring on marriage are estimated at £61,000, against £51,000 last * e {2) r '.iCnless the present dMJne'" In..' population' is checked there will be 1 ;' 12,000,000 fewer French people in llfty years' time? ~ (3) In order to read intelligently • Chinese must learn at least 8000 char* acters, but a wise man must, know 40,000% ' . . . (4) Kubber was so named by Joseph Priestly, the English scientist, who, in 1770, discovered its usefulness for erasing pencil marks? '■ S '-J (5) An Oxbridge pubUcan who ha» retired after forty years holding , m licence, claims to have drunk, over . 146,000 pints of beer in that time—an average of ten a day? . (8) When pursuing their trade Chinese beggars wore oyer their rags a uniform of green cloth splashed with huge white dots encircling rw patches? (7) The ships in Columbus's expedl* tlon stopped at the Camiry IslWdV where they took aboard some swine, which became the ancestors of . P>gs in America? • - (8) After Mrs. Anna V*n SUtike,_of Los Angeles, had celebrated her 77th birthday by swimming Ave miles in •» N indoor pool she apologised for not going her annual ten miles because of beine muscle bound? • (9) Bone, the most solid bodily substance, is 20 per cent, water? .. (10) A one-ton rowing boat could pass through the Panama Canal for 75 cents, but it would take just as water for the boat as for a batutship?

SHIPS THAT PASS. „ ' This poem, one. of the best the! ttrct Dick Harris ever wrote, wm WW,** by Mrs. J.M. (Palmerston North):— From Fantasy's bright isl«t Careening galleys stream; Hope waits through weary •while*— But no long-oared trireme Filled full with precious freight Anchors where, desolate^ She waits her ships of dreaaw Though she may call iund cry They will not pause or stay— . Wind-fresh; they thunder by. Grow dim, and drive away >' To quiet seas that law With faint and restless wav® A twilight land of grey. She sees with wistful eyes Great barques blow gallantly ! From where the fading sloes Bend down to kiss the seaSurging they come, and pass, But none draw ,in, alas! < Towards her weedy quay. To lands of legendry. I The brave ships make their way; In grave futility Hope watches night and day For ships that come not in . . . With face and pulse grown thin i She only waits to pray.

MORE AMERICAN "BONERS." These (as were the others) were coV lected by an educationist who went through some teachers' examination papers:— "After the errors were corrected, the story was ready for edification." "The perfunctory organs are a great help to man." "His tongue was his charlatan." "The island appeared charlatan ia form." "He was known as an indigenous or hard worker." "The river reflected the blue of tha indigenous sky." Just to show that these were not rare, isolated examples or possible slipt of the tongue and pen, Mr. Levy singled out several words which had feieen misused in a variety of ways. One of these was redolent, which was used as follows:—

"Fat men and Southerners are considered redolent."

"Don't be so redolent, say it." "At the age of 60 many people b®« come redolent." - "He stretched out in the sand, dolent and at ease,"

"The way to cure a redolent younM boy is to compel him to play football"'