POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 90, 18 April 1939, Page 10

POSTSCRIPTS

BY PERCY FLAGE «

Chronicle and Comment

Has Gracie Fields gone Hollywood? * * * The only spot the totalitarian leaders favour is the spotlight. * •» * You lose, Melisande. The title of Poe's poem was "Anabel Lee"—not "Hannibal Lee." & # # We wonder if people in Tutankhamen's day blew their trumpets as loudly and often as do our headline politicians. * * * A Hawke's Bay water diviner clams to have discovered a freshwater river under the Tasman. The droughtstricken farmers on the East Coast will get a thrill out of that. ■ * * •» \t Secret of Long Life.—A venerable newspaperman in the West gives his recipe for longevity. At the age "of 40 he swore off feeling responsible for the human race. « «■ * CAPITAL ... WAR. Dear Percy Flage,—Since, with the possible exception of Aucfo—er, I mean Wellington—New Zealand is apparently without capital, why is it not possible for those financial wizards, Messrs. Savage and Nash, in collaboration with Mr. Lee, to work out a scheme to make use of the political capital which Mr. Hamilton is so frequently accused of making when ha criticises the Labour Government? Wouldn't this be costless credit? Or would it? Another thought. Definite knowledge I have none, but my aunt's charwoman's sister's son Heard a policeman on his beat, telling a girl in Trafalgar Street, That he had a brother, who had a tart Who knew when the war' was going to start. E.E.L. Nelson. « # * SHOWMAN. ■ When Hitler replies to Roosevelt at the end of the month, it can be taken for granted that he will live up to his reputation as a great showman. When he speaks from a pulpit he incorporates many of the technical devices which Nazi-banned Max Reinhardt gave to the German'stage. la front of the Fuhrer, concealed from the audience, are rows of buttons. By means of these Hitler manipulates the searchlights, now directing attention, to the Nazi flag, now to the tremendous, audience, frequently to himself, which is the signal for his Black Shirts to begin shouting, -stamping, and clapping. One of the more important of the buttons is that which gives the order to photographers to shoot; the cameraman who shoots film at the wrong moment may be instantly sent to a concentration camp. At Karlsruhe, when Hitler delivered a speech, two miles of wire had to be laid down for the complicated device which is such a vital adjunct to the German Chancellor's flamboyant manner qt presenting himself. * * # BRAIN-TEASER. More solutions in the mail. Those who complete" the double are Phil jp* Math, "Scruffy," Diana, "Nyne,* "O'L.," Baltazar, M., and Interested. Phil o* Math confesses that "sutler 1" was mdre than he expected. Will be glad of those teasers, P. 6' M. "Scruffy" comments: Keep them going, but don't make them too difficult—the wife got a bit peevish with No. 2, and returned to her knitting. . . . Diana rang on Sunday, but we were still on the way home from golf after an interesting day on the Paremata downs. Armed with, the clue, Diana had "sutler" in no time, and the rest was easy. "Nyne" says that he jibbed at No. 1, but a brain-wave arriving, he returned to the problem, with immediate success. (We wish some of our brain-storms would translate themselves into brain-waves!) "O'L.," with the cooperation of her sister, overcame No. 1 after a dour struggle—or so we understand. She had no trouble with the oranges business. Alice (Oriental Bay), Just Me, and Wadestown managed to clue out No. 1, which, we admil^ ri ht now. was not particularly simple. •» « • ■ THE SEARCH. Writes M.X.L. (Palmerston North),— Please give us Geoffrey Pollett's "The Search," in memory of a fine English, lad who, after a sojourn in this country, returned to Home, and, tragically, died by his own hand. I have his book "Song for Sixpence": would you like to have it? Thanks, M.X.L,, but we have an autographed copy of the book. And here's the poem: Listen! Who is it goes stealthily through the house Now the lights are dimmed, and a silence limned > Like a shadowy Rembrandt, from cellar to attic? What? It is but a furtive scratch of a mouse On the blackened wainscot? Or the tick of dry rot, The grumble of age from a frame grown rheumatic? But hark— ' How it creeps onward from room to room, .*• Like a blind man seeking something lost. No creaking fc Of stairboards, or death-watch, or sucn will explain it. Then ... ... Perhaps 'tis some poor thing crept back from the tomb Who has left an old thought lying careless about, And can now find no rest there* untu he regain it. * *• ♦ MORE STRANGE WAGERS.' 'A.L.G." follows up a note in Cau 8 with these further examples of curious bets:— ' There was a modern counterpart to this expensive wager in a case decided by Tattersall's Committee half a dozen years ago. A bookmaker stated in the ring at Pontefract that he would bet £5 a week for life to half a crown that Gold Meter would not win the next race. A bystander promptly handed over half a crown and to everybody's astonishment the horse won. The bookmaker claimed that he had not meant what he said, or alternatively, hai not said what he meant. Tattersall's decided that he must pay over an amount equal to £5 a week for a year. Some bets involve a great deal of hard work to some unfortunate party to the wager, such as the American who undertook to push a peanut from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific coast —wiuliL his nose. A hardly-won stake of £20 was the reason for Tom Parkinson, a forty-eight-year-old garage proprietor of Beechwood, Australia, undertaking to push - .ourteen stone Tony Evens in a wheelbarrow to the summit of Mount Buffalo, a distance of fifty miles, in eight days. Accompanied by wild cheers and amidst scenes of delirious excitement, Parkinson reached the top (3570 ft high) with forty minutes to spare.