POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 89, 12 October 1938, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

R.J.T.—Bedtime stories for th» masses: " 'Scrim's' Fairy Tales." * * * Omadhaun. —It would seem that the complaint is that the Labour Party, byits smash-and-grab methods, is making too much use of raidio technique. •. * ■ • Morgan.—According to the inferences of the Sunday night "oracle" th» mantle of Moses also has now fallen on the shoulders of the Prime Minister. * * * Harihaha: When we see cancer referred to in print as the National scourge^ it seems to be carrying political bias just a little too far. * * # "Passer.-on." —if red herrings are to be the order of the day, and night, till the elections, such a thirst will be en- . gendered throughout New Zealand as will, I fear, completely destroy all hopes for Prohibition. « . * • WAIT FOR SUNDAY! The Nationalists claim that there is every prospect of the party winning from 45 to 50, seats. Which reminds us of those lines of that enheartening little hymn:— ' ' Where every prospect pleases-^-Just for a little while. F. '* * ' :' * WISECRACKS. The difference between. Hitler and the farmer: The latter prays for rain to save his crops, and the formef preyg for iron to serve his Krupps! Czechoslovakia, coming out of the anaesthetic: "But, Dr. Daladier, you have cut off my arms!" Dr. D.: "Peace, my son. Dr. Bull has given you golden tourniquets!" BINDY. * . » ...... DILEMMA. I was passing Baptist Church in Church Street, Palmerston North, this p.m., and on the big blackboard where there is usually a Bible text this is what I saw: — , ELECTION TIME. FOR WHOM WILL YOU VOTE? GOD OR THE DEVIL. Now I ask you how are we to know which is which. I'm fair mazed.' F.W.G. * » «- "NOTHING IN IT." Heckler: Mr. Chairman, may I, through you, ask the candidate a: question relating to what I can only describe as the "half-pie" answer he has given to the vocal enunciation of the middle plank of his opponent's platform? Chairman: Er, yes!" Candidate: Very easily, Mr. Chairman, can I answer the gentleman elector's question almost before he. asks it. I say to him, just listen carefully while I simply answer in the negative by shaking my head at what I in turn " , ■ .-.'..'.-' . Heckler: Mr. Chairman, I am answer r ed, because I heard the candidate shake his head! winsh. ** . * KIDDY YARNS. It was Sunday. Daddy, busyall the week in the city, was-doing;a few odd jobs about the house. He request* ed his small son to- assist in carrying; small blocks of recently-delivered-fire? wood into the shed. The small son showed reluctance, and when Daddy insisted, he remarked: "I wonder what God would have thought of this in His day!" A story is told of the wee son of the late Sir Charles Kingsford Smith. On, being asked what he would like for,!, his breakfast, he replied: "A perched egg!" On it being suggested to'him that he meant a poached egg, he-insists ed: "No—l want an egg perched on toaSt!" FACTS. . # - ♦ ■■-, * ANACHRONISM. .{• •• Strange is the case of the young lady who discovered that:she was dead, before she had actually lived. It was when she applied for a copy of her birth certificate, required by the authorities of a secondary school she wished to attend, that she learnt that legally she did not exist. It sounds rather complicated but the explanation is simple. The young lady was-born during the hectic days of the after-war influenza epidemic, and .'it is supposed that a flurried official registered the event as a death instead of a birth. Proof was obtained from the records of the maternity home where she first saw light, that she really had been born, so she was allowed to enter the school. One supposed that to even things' up, her demise will be registered as a birth. W.B.H. ** • # LIMERICKS. C.B. writes: What about a bunch of ' limericks to take the taste of dirty politics out of our mouth? Here you are, brother —with acknowledgment to A. Magniac:— A lively young lady of Lympne Indulged a peculiar whympne; She danced, without stopping. From Ealing to Wopping— No wonder her figure was slympnel There was an old Master of Caius Who never ate butter or chaius; His diet of worms And similar georms Maintained his digestion at aius. A funny young fellow called ffoulksi Just revelled in practical jjoulkes; Good people he'd vex t By sending them chex Fictitiously signed as a hhoulkes. A highwayman lived in the Curragb, Quite famous he was in the burragh; His thefts were so neat, So swift and compleat, His murders so thurraghly thurragh." * * - * ■ ELECTION HUMOUR. One or two examples of humour at public meetings in another land and an earlier day: In the early days of 1914 a wellknown speaker was Conducting an open-air meeting in a village near Exeter. "Men," he declared, "what we want, and what we are going to get, is free land. We want the land for the people. Free land, men, we want, and we are going to have free land." Just then a large piece of earth landed in the speaker's eye, and while he; was removing it a voice yelled out: "There's a bit of Devonshire to begin with." When the late Mr. Lowther was Secretary for Ireland a solemn-visaged farmer rose to heckle him at one of his meetings. In sepulchral tones he exclaimed: "What yeu've been saying is all very well, but what I want to know is whether you hold with the Athanasian Creed?" Mr. Lowther's brow puckered for a moment. He had not the least idea what to say. Then his face lit up with a beautiful smile as an inspiration dawned upon hiip. "On the whole, yes," he answered with, immense gravity. "Yes, for all of us who have to do with land must appreciate the force of the noble precept; 'Cursed be he who removes his neigl*» bom's landmark!'*_ j -J-