POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 96, 23 April 1940, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

Goebbels's great asset is his li«C ability. * * * War Dog: A "Turkey red" is the boy to settle a "parlour pink." * ■■*.■■ # A war correspondent job would be a real thrill if it weren't for the censors. * * # Abraham Lincoln said: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." * * * St. Louis.—lt isn't hard to live on a small salary if you don't spend too much trying to keep it a secret.. * « * When Louis XVIII published his "Voyage a Coblentz" a Paris journal reviewed it in one sentence: "If this little volume, was written by the King, it is above criticism; if it was not written by the King it is beneath criticism." * ■ ' * ■ :-■ ■■' » CONFLICT OF TWO WORLDS. With the Hon. Anthony . Eden's statement that the present war "is a conflict of worlds. The whole story of civilisation waits upon its issue," and "it is therefore fundamentals that are at stake," the following passage should be read: ' ' ' "And /there was war 'in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the - earth, and his angels were' cast out . with him." (Rev. 12:7-9.) PAX VOBISCUM. SPORT. I have lately seen an actual "Bo» of Birds." The phrase I have alwayi heard applied xo" a feeling of well« being, pep, or happiness; but now I know that is wrong.' The box—or rather boxes-^-of birds I saw wera some dozen or/more shallow wooden trays, with small-meshed wire-netting tops, packed with poor miserable bedraggled sparrows, some. dead, torn* on their backs with legs in the air dying, and others huddled together for warmth. They had been trapped for subsequent release as live targets for a gun shoot. Now when ' answering my inquiry "How are you?" I get "A box of birds" I see red. S.J. *** ' . CLEAR AS MUD, This—from 'Grace. . Government War Regulations are ■ sometimes most elucidating. .Witness the following extract from a recent British enactment, with comment thereon: ( : . The chemists win every time when they really get down to the "game. For example, in a recent amendment to the rules and orders relating to; the Pharmacy and Poisons Act, 1933, it is set forth. that ,"in the item Paraamiriobenzenesulphonamide for the "words derivatives of para*aminobenzeriesul" phonamide having one 6p both of the hydrogen atoms of .. .the ;'.. para'amino group substituted by;" oth^r,. -radicals there • shall. be .substituted;." the words derivatives of para-aminobe.nzenesul-phonamide having any of the: hydrogen , atoms of the para-aminp "group or of the sulphonamide group "substituted by another radical." There is more than a spice of irony in the fact that this change comes into effect on AH Fools' - Day next ensuing! D^o not tell me later —if you survive—that you were not warned. Now I am sure if you can understand it, it will be quite clear to everybody. * ■*.-*, THE SOURCE OF INFORMATION (or "The Raider Ruined"). Since Raeder won his Iron Cross It must have turned his head , And made old Goering's medals seem A heap of junk instead. He seemed to think that life was grand And Germany was good, And there and then, he formed a plan That none but Raeder could.' He proved that Norway was, in fact* An' enemy who might Descend in force on Germany And take it overnight. He told his. Fuhrer.that if he Would capture Norway now, The navy would cooperate. And show those neutrals how. Our Adolf slowly thought it out, But when the month had passed He sent his Raider out to sea; * The fleet went- out at last, * N 'Twas only fifty miles or so To neutral Norway's shore, • And Raeder heard the British Fleet Had sunk the week before. At least Herr Goebbels told him that, And Goebbels- couldn't err, So Raeder proudly steered a course To where his victims were. I needn't mention how he failed, Nor tell you what transpired; But have you heard the gospel truth Why Raeder's plan misfired? He told a man who knew a.man Whose barber wrote one day And told his uncle's cousin's aunA Who lived in U.S.A. ' , The-rest you know; how papers taHs«« At least in U.S.A., And thus our Navy read the new* And tore into the fray. The moral is not hard to seeWhen in the barber's chair Just tell the blighter nothing but The way to.trim your hair. JAYBER Northland. * * • # ASTONISHING PEOPLE. ; On January 27, 1657, died an infant prodigy. He was a son of John Evelyn of diary fame, and we leave the sorrowing father to tell us 'something of the t wonder child lent'to him for such a little time. He says: Today . died my dear son, Richard, to our inexpressible grief and afflio tion, five years and three, days old only, but at that tender age a prodigy for wit and understanding; for beauty of body, a very angel; for endowment of mind, of incredible and rare hopes, At two years he could perfectly read any of >the English^ Latin, French, or.Gothic letters, pronouncing the three first languages exactly. He had, before the fifth year, not only skill to read most written hands, but to. decline all the nouns, conjugate the very regular, and niost of the irregular; learned out "Puerilis;" got by heart almost the entire vocabulary of Latin and .French primitives and words, could make congruous syntax,., turn English'into Latin, and vice versa, construe and prove what he read,. and did ■ the government and use of relatives, verbs, substantives, ellipses, and many -figures and tropes, and made a considerable progress in Comenius's Janua, and had a strong passion for Greek. The number of verses lie could recite was prodigious. He had a wonderful disposition to mathematics, having by heart drivers propositions of. Euclid that were read to him in play,- and he would make lines and' demonstrate1 them.