POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 44, 20 August 1938, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

TSie hit-or-miscreant driver.

Unfortunately there is no ■ lack of political apprentices. * ■& *- A "privilege" is something' you wave about inside the House, but which Mr. Speaker will not allow you to waive outside the 'Ouse. -* «• * From Palestine: "A Jewish police inspector, his wife, his mother-in-law, and his three children, were kid-' napped." We are sorry for the polict inspector. «• # * R.J.T.: I have it from a very unreliable source that if the B.M.A. declines to carry out his health scheme, Mr. Savage intends calling on the water* - side workers to doctor the people. «■ # * THE FITNESS OF THINGS. On the front window of an unden* taker's establishment in a certain rural township, not beyond New Zealand, there appears (or rather, did appear) this announcement. Above: "GLORIA IN EXCELSIS." . Below, in larger letters: FUNERALS FROM £4 10s. R.J J. -* * * BOUTS RIMES. This is not quite so easy as last week's, but that ought not to di»» hearten any jongleur with an inveative imagination. All aboard—- •• girl liner swirl . ...... finer ....... blew ....... thinner grew . . . . ... dinner. Maybe a tragedy is here concealed. -* *.. * . ■ . THE PERFECT BARBER. \ I don't know whether he quoted i% but the reply of my friend recently , seemed to me to be good humour. I called at the accustomed saloon, and after being trimmed and scented and powdered, expressed my pleasure, i and said I looked a great improvement. Mr. Barber replied playfully: "Ah, sir, the perfect gentleman; and i there are not many of us left." KENYA. Ngaio. * * * BRAIN TEASER. Here, as threatened a week or tw» ego, is something different. It is the , reverse of letters-into-digits, as will • be seen. You begin with a word of nine let- : ters —a South Island town. From that you clue out the following:— 275, Sailors love it. 8653, A weighty book, i 9728, injury. " , 562173, cold, dismal little building. ; 6123, fabled monster. ; 1678, worse than lumbago. Now lq£ us see how the grey matter works this weekend. ' -:.- ' •;:- * SCHOOL'S IN. Do you know that— ■ 1. Many cities have been destroyed r. through''the ages, but none'fiasr been ; brought to ruin...,, so many times as ■ Herat, in Afghanistan, which was ■ razed 56 times? 2. A twelve-months' peak ' smoking bill for Australia —cigarettes, cigars, and pipe tobacco—reached a total output value of £8,529,491? ' ' 3. Ten million persons are playing basketball today in the U.S.A. and elsewhere, a large number of the players being young women? . 4. The world's smallest man is Obala ■ Row, Madras native, who, at 30. is only 2ft 6in tall, weighs 191b, and has grown . but one inch in the last ten years? 5. The little-known Snake River . ■ Canyon, along Idaho's western border, not the Grand Canyon, is the deepest canyon in the United States? 6. Large religious groups in India aud the Orient which eat with their fingers, use their right hands for "clean" work, and their left hands for "unclean" work? ■ _ , 7. A Norwegian scientist claims to have discovered that the juices of lemons, blackcurrants, and other fruits contain substance which prevents infection from pneumonia? , 8. When Paganini was asked whom he considered the greatest violinist, ha answered: "The second greatest is certainly Lipinski"? • . _ 9. Maids of honour at the court oi Henry VIII received daily an allowance of eight gallons of beer, which supposedly made them more pleasingly plump? , _u n 10. Among uncivilised peoples, cnn dren were* named after some incident occurring at the time of their birtji, and in this way history was recorded. * » • SONG OF THE OLD BOUNDARY RIDER. The author of this poem, Vance Pal* mer, is one of Australia's most versatile and popular writers. Fat and full of health are the valleys of the Condanune, ■ . ■ There the yellow maize ana tne • green tobacco grow, Through the little gardens runs the trailing passion-vine, And softly to the North the white^ downs blow. Here nothing changes, seed-time or harvest-time, - Mulga on the skyline, mulga round the place, . Riding round the fences I hear tne bells of bullocks chime, But homely sounds , come rarer than a woman's face. Lovely is the day and lovely is the firelight. Lonely is the heart when the trees come creeping near, , When the boobook calls the very dogs . are dumb with fright, ' ' And when a voice starts singing it's my own voice that I hear. Back let me ride to tlie valley of the Condamine, There the little homesteads nestle in their green, Opal where the mists rise, amber where the paddocks shine, My own things around me ana none to come between. » # • HEARD THIS ONE? (Sent in by "Blither.") People in the Blue Ridge mountains live in spots almost inaccessible, where there are no roads and travel of any kind is extremely difficult, but thii disturbs them little, as th -ty have no occasion to leave. A granger, 5-nding himself alone in one of these spots, asked a native, "My friend, how should Igo from here to Knoxville?" The native was puzzled and scratched his head for inspiration, saying, "Well, stranger, if I was going to Knoxville I thing I would go up this here holler until I came to an old wood road; no, if I was going to Knoxville, I'd go down the valley and then go up the first right-hand branch. No, you couldn't get through there. To tell the truth, stranger, if I was going to Knoxville I wouldn't start from here."