POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 30, 4 August 1939, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGB

Indignant civil servants (comments Camou Flage) are1 going to Market * * • Latest "howler": A king who. does everything he says he will do is an absolute monkey. # * ♦ Mr. Nash (at Birmingham): What we are doing is to lay the foundations of a Socialist State. So that is the sort of nation th't Government is building. # * * It is said, -officially, that the Japanese Navy 'is convinced it is strong enough not to be defeated by any other in the world." In other words, it would be content with a draw. Wind up? FUN IN THE ADS. . "Petone Painter" sends this "for use in tfte most popular column in 'tha paper": Ballet, Girls.—Wanted, " 6 Ballet Girls. Amateur Revue experience necessary, but not essential. Apply rehearsal at room, opp Aulsebrooks, St. Asaph Street, Thursday night. Nice work—if you can get it that way, what! INTIMATION. ' . H.H. (Rongotai): Thanks for teaser. Sorry to hear all your rat doubles have gone over the Great Divide with PowerChief. There's a horse called Majority, so Melisande tells us. G.E.P.: So—if Meiisande will meet you by the swans' pool in the Gardens, you'll "endeavour to push her in"? She can swim, anyhow. Here's wishing the cherry tree poem all the.luck. Gemini: Maori proverbs received— with thanks. We think your small Son's "frizzened"—meaning that winter feeling—is delightfully appropriate. Sympathy: Not quite up. Amber-Tinted: Your "ode" to beer has the right colour but it tastes as though someone had watered it. For Tolerance: A trifle too smug for our liking. And your line of philosopy is not particularly original. W ' * ■ * ■ : ■ ."■ STRANGE WISH. Whatever the immediate future may hold for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he cannot complain that he was , not warned. When he was five years old, his. father took him to Washington, where his hand was solemnly shaken by the ever-*beset Grover Cleveland, President of the United States. Mr. Cleveland was having a nasty time of it, what with his low tariff ideals, his Civil Service theories, and Congress's disregard for his decision to interpret honesty as he saw it. He was pacing his office as the squire and child entered. Placing his hand upon the lad's .nicely-poised head, he rumbled: "I'm making a strange wish for you, little man—a wish I suppose no 'one else would make. I wish for, you that you may never be President of the United States." "COLLIERS." * * •'. BRAIN-TEASERS. Official answers to this week's problems. < (1) 23 rungs. (2) Milton, Porter, Cavell, Wagner (or German—several postscripters submitted that name), Melba, Meighaa (lots crashed at this fence), Nuffield, Caesar. • •■■■i- ■' ■ ■■■: ■■'■''. Further solutions: Mrs. A.M., Hataitai ("Thanks for the pleasant moments Col. 8 gives a tired housewife"), Howzat, Scotty Morris, T.T., Student, Wadestown, Mrs. G.C., Johnsonville ("Wish your column was two columns")—all scored full marks in each section. Y.Y., G.H., Alice (Oriental Bay), Calliope, and Southend clued out No. 1. , We are all set for the morrow—hail, rain, or snow. There will be a change in No. 2. In place of the jumbled names you will find—well, just wait and see. Happy weekend, everybody. # * * EPILOGUE. Here is the Robert Browning poem asked for by Polly Flinders:— At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, When you set your fancies free, Will they pass to where—by death, fools think, imprisoned— . Low he lies who once so loved you. whom you loved so, —Pity me? Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! What had I on earth to do With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, . did I drivel —Being—who? One who never turned his back but marched breast forward, Never doubted clouds would break, Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake. No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time Greet the unseen with a cheer! Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, ;'Strive and thrive!" Cry "Speed—Fight on, fare ever There as here!" —Robert Browning. ♦ * . * ■■ BLOCKADED BRITONS "CARRY ON." Here's a note from Tientsin which tells how, despite limitations imposed by the Japanese blockade, the Britishers are carrying on" in the best old-school-tie and Empire traditions. They still are eating regularly, although sometimes ' fresh vegetables are lacking, and they still dress doggedly for dinner (writes the commentator). Occasionally a stiff shirt is worn for two evenings because of laundry difficulties. The determination of the British not to allow the blockade to shake them from their customary calm .is indicated by a sign at the front door of the Tientsin Club: "Polo today. Five o'clock." Cricket is played regularly also. Probably the most startling change occurred within the ranks of so-called "coffee takers," or "early birds," who for years have met daily at 6 a.m. at the British Country Club, outside the concession. The early birds are missing keenly the regular meeting there for a morning walk exercising the dogs, swimming in the club pool, and breakfast of toast witb> a soot of coffee. Many others who walked through the Country Club each morning in shorts and jerseys now are striding along the racecourse road with their dogs. At the barrier, where they are almost within sight of the Country Club, they halt, bite pipes a bit harder, and with a "Humph!" turn homeward. Another alteration in t\ Ne scheme of life is a recent decision IV admit women to the sacred premises of the Tientsin Club, inside the concession. The decision" was reached after a sharp battle with bachelor "diehards." The "horsy" element is.lamenting its inability to reach stables on the outside, personally to supervis* the care of prize mounts.

What a people!