POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 111, 13 May 1939, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE Murder for profit must be -a killing businea*. # * v Natural immunity (says "Gen#s^ .is being e-ble to catch, ja.. .disease out the aid of a. pL-^trrr=r^ * « « If Irish gangsters bumped off a few Englishers we should immediately dub them Assassinachs. . * » ♦ There are nests of all kinds and hues, but a mare's nest is a horse of another colour, comments Mclsaac. • * * Mr. Hamilton says he may give evidence before the Eoyal Commission oa farming. Is that a threat or a promise? ♦ # ♦ Wouldn't it be a blow to civilisation* if the earth went totalitarian and decided to revolve on the Rome-Berlin axis! •. * • IT HAPPENS IN ENGLAND. (Passed along by "Bee Blither.") The stranger was asking a lot of questions concerning the village, and «_ the oldest inhabitant was doing his best to answer them. "And how about the water supply? What precautions do you take against infection?" "Well, first o' all we boils it, zur." "Good." "An then we filters it." "Fine." "An' then, zur, we drinks beer!" ♦ « * INTIMATION. Those boys up Carterton way who wanted to know the sex names of the swan have had their curiosity quickly satisfied. The male swan is a cob, and the lady a pen. (Their young offspring is called a cygnet.) G.H., a member of our Brain-Teaser Society (Ink.), telephoned the information last evening, as did Anna Mas, one of our foundation Postscripters, of whom we have heard nothing for a year or more. Anna reminded us of a joust he had with ourselves, when he was unhorsed. Our luck must have been in that time. * »■ ■ » "POLES—THE ENDS OF THE . AXIS." . —Dictionary. The war machine again is Goering, All Europe knows where it is steering! And so it's not the least surprising To hear the Poles are • "terrorising" The Germans in the Corridor. The same old fable as before To veil Hitler's clear intention By means of armed intervention To stop all Polish disaffection 'By granting Poland his "protection," For on this sphere the ends of th* . Axis . i Are Poles (for land and loot and taxes), i POLE-AXE. ' -■'•' ♦ • i BRAIN-TEASERS. i This one (sent us by Phil o' Math); appeared in Col. 8 ever so iQng ago,. but it is worth reproducing. A man has a 10-gallon keg of wine; He draws off a jugful and fills the keg up with water. After the wine and water are thoroughly mixed he draws off another jugful and again fills up the keg wiffi-water* keg then contains equal parts of water and wine. What is the capacity of the jug? Yorkey (Palmerston North) supplied this missing word rhyme. Each word (there are three) is eight letters long, and is in regular use. Yorkey describes it as "one for the golfers." Off to the links is now their way, For golf is a man's ...-.,.. ; Be not or slow, ........ hit, the ball will go. By the way, S.W. (Khandallah) was < of those who telephoned correct solutions of last week's problems. ' * * * SCHOOL'S IN. Do you know that , (1) Scientists declare that if there is t any rain on the planet Jupiter it is a j rain of* ammonia, and not water? j (2) The most northern railway in th« • world runs from coalmines to the har- j bour at King's Bay, Spitzbergen, only 750 miles from the North Pole? (3) The balsa tree, whose seed is little bigger than a pinhead, frequently sprouts to a height of 75 feet and a ( diameter of 25 inches within five years?, (4) Alaska has approximately five ' miles of airway, for every mile of railroad or highway? (5) in Coolangatta, South Queensland, a spit on the footpath might land I you into paying a fine of £20 for the doubtful privilege? . ' (6) Of the four million citizens in Switzerland, Europe's oldest democracy, 73 per cent, speak German, 20 per cent. French, 6 per cent. Italian, and 1 per cent. Romansch? (7) As many as 250,000 hungry sightseers can be accommodated in comfort for one or more repasts during the day or night at the New York World Fairin the 80 restaurants which dot the grounds? (8) Old age pensions are paid to all Russian workers at the age of 60—55 for women, the rates ranging from 50 to 60 per cent, of the workers' former wage? .. (9) Hair-waving was deemed a vanity about the middle of the 14th century and was frowned on by church dignitaries? (10) The Samoan kiss is a sniff? * * * / THE FIDDLER OF DOONEY. When I play on my fiddle in Doone^ Folk dance like a wave of the sea; My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet, My brother in Maharabuiee. I passed my brother and cousin: They read in their books of prayer; I read in my book of songs I bought at the Sligo Fair, When we come to the end of time To Peter sitting in state, He will smile on the three old spirits. But call me first through the gate; For the good are always the merry, Save by an evil chance, ' And the merry love the fiddle. And the merry love to dance: And when the folk there spy me," , They will all come up to me, With "Here is the fiddler of SDooney!** And dance like a wave of the sea. W. B. YEATS. * » * HEAR, HEAR! Dear Percy Flage,—Possibly you would care to run this extract from. Grey Owl's "Tales of an Empty Cabin." It evolved from me a fervent "Amen!" GOBO. "... the pulings over the radio of pale emasculates with 'soulful' voices whining their lugubrious dirges, of which unfulfilled desire and . self-pity seem to be the main themes in which they bewail, in a helpless way that would turn any healthy, modern girl sick to the marrow, their lost and unattainable loves (thank God, for the betterment of the race, these efnminates seem to be uniformly unsuccessful in their amours), dishonouring with their cheap and trashy sentimentality and trashier music, the noble sentiment they bleat about."