POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 132, 7 June 1939, Page 10

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY. FLAGE

• If the Prime Minister should throw a house-warming you can bet that the B.M.A. will be left out in the cold. * * » Add to super-optimists: The motorist who these days "prettys" up his car before setting out for the city via the Hutt Road. • • • . Henry.—The obvious reason why no King's Birthday honours were an- . nounced on Monday is because such luxuries are forbidden under the import regulations, «' # * Demosthenes wrote:—sThere is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust. • ♦ ♦ BOW WOW. News Item. —The Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage thanks contributors to the internal loan for helping New Zealand. Our P.M. is not without his sense of humour. He throws the poor dog a bone and then thanks him for gnawing it. BUNG-HOLE BILL. ♦ • • SOME BABY. A recent visitor to the city was entrusted by his wife with the purchase of a framed text for her Sunday school room. After her husband had boarded the steamer, she remembered she had not told him the wording of the I*xt ' she wanted, nor the size, so she wired him the information as follows: "Unto Us a Child is Born; 3 feet long and 4 feet wide." * * * THE QUEEN. She placed a flow'r within the soldier** hand. No word she spoke. Her eloquence profound Showed that a gracious queen could understand. Her "voice" reverberates the world around! And we who prize our British heritage Feel honoured in this touching, silent scene, Co-heirs with- her of Shakespeare* storied page— , And Liberty! God bless our gracious Queen! CROWBAR. ♦ ♦ ♦ INFORMATION DEPARTMENT. "What is the position of . married women teachers in (1) England and (2) the United States," asks "Pedagogic" (Northland). In America no restriction operates in the employment of married women teachers. Married women with professional capacity are eagerly sought. The criterion of employment is the teacher's contribution to education; not her social state. It is said that America has hosts of unemployed teachers. Some years ago England discontinued the employment of married women teachers. However, after a short trial, the authorities recognised that the ban operated against the interests of the children, and the ban was removed because it was found educationally unsound to dismiss the married women teachers. ML.L. (Island Bay).—The term "laconic" means very concise and pithy. It pertains to Laconia or Sparta; the Spartans were noted for their brusque and sententious speech. Examples of laconisms are Caesars dispatch, "Veni, vidi, vici," and bur Charles Napier's apocryphal Peccavi." * * ♦ "THIS FREEDOM." Cover the old typewriter (But note down its number first, ■ With, the date, and the name of the maker). While I quench this worrying thirst. Prescription seventy-seven Does something to ease the pajn. Please don't let me die on Sunday— For I'm dying, Nancy Jane! Don't feed me on aught imported, Don't give me a Cuban* smoke . . . It was filling in Form Two Thousand That brought on this final stroke. Ah me! I've been three times married, And I've travelled the world around; Ah, little I thought of the records That would one day . have to be found! And I'm leaving nineteen dependants, Young, middle-aged, great, and small— And I don't know where some have got to, Nor how to describe them all ... Send my dog to the lethal chamber, For I've registered him all wrong, And if they find out about it, They'll make such an awful song! I thought he was half bull-spaniel— (For he had a face like a frog), With a quarter Alsatian-Borzoi — Would you call that a sporting dog? . . . Don't try to assort my papers, Just burn them all in a heap; And now I'm forgetting the trouble, And I feel, coming over me—sleep. I am thankful it is only Tuesday, And so, kind old Nancy, good-bye! No tears (they might have to be scheduled)! Oh, I am so delighted to die! A* * * ♦ Intimations. One Reader (who regards Arthur H. Adams as the "finest of New Zealand poets.")— Hope to use one of those sonnets presently. "Jumbo."—How come? "J.M." (Lower Hutt).—We already have a copy of that Adam and Eve apple-crunching problem. Yours has more detail. We shall slip this one in due course. "X.Y.Z." (who dedicates one of his two missing word jingles to "Margaret of Kelburn").—Have put these away for a rainy day. "Sol."—That "float alone" quirk somewhat passe now. "R.F." (Lower Hutt). —Promise in your nudist rhyme. Try again. "Boloney."—Don't worry. We have an idea that that gentleman is not averse to spots of publicity. "Jamboree" (Napier).—That note suggests you have a pronounced whoopee complex. T.B.P. —Last two of your ten stanzas: And then I woke the other night, And I was covered in sweat. I thought about my income tax And payments to be met. I thought I heard a serpent speak, • And this is what it said: Just wait until you're sixty, Then wait until you're dead. Horningin.—Our pen name is derived from the term ''persiflage," which, interpreted, means banter, light irony, and so forth. The Flage part is pronounced "flarzh'"in our home. Elderberry.—That Paris .porasitei pun goes back to the elastic-sided boots period. White Owl ("not from Calgary").— Hoots, mon! M. (Highland Park).—Your Mus« marches unsteadily. Mayb*e we could do something about it if you looked us up.