POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 90, 12 October 1940, Page 10

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

The blue Danube—or the Danube "blues"? * » *** Nippon has been called /ill sorts of names, but Uncle Sani has called her [bluff. : • * * • #. Strangely enough, Melisande, there are non-committal officers, but the Army still prefers the nbn-commis-sibned type. . " ■ #* , » Formula for success: Stand up to be seen, speak up to be heard, and shut up to be appreciated. CAMOU. ♦ # * Dropping snakes, scorpions, wild animals,- and hungry rats over Germany as a war-winner would only play into the Nazis' mouths —if there was a winter food shortage.

tfEAKD THIS ONE?

Tliera is a good story told abou* Charles Lamb. On a wet, miserable, foggy London day, Lamb was accosted by a beggarwoman with: "Pray, sir. bestow a little charity upon a destitute widow* who is perishing for lack of food. Believe me, sir, I have seen better days." ■■■'■■•'

"So have I," said Lamb, nanding th«» poor creature a "shilling; "so have I. It's a miserable day. Good-bye. Goodbye." ■ •■' . : .••.'■■

CHEERING THEM UP!

In the catalogue of books. recommended for soldiers. at the front are these titles: "Les> Miserables," "Green Hell," "Under Fire," ."Doomsday," "Death Of a Hero," "Cold Comfort Farm," "Chaos Is Come Again," "Before • the Bombardment," "Hell Let Loose," < "Poor Gentleman," "Soldiers of Misfortune," "Thou Shell of Death," "Valiant Dust," "Gun Cotton," "Bullets Bite Deep," "Death in Ecstasy," "The Avenger," "The Way of All Flesh," "The End of the Chapter," and "R.1.P." *■ * * BRAIN-TEASERS. This one is from Wm. iMarkle CJohnsonville): ... Two unemployed men signed a contract with a farmer to dig a drain (the depth, and width of which do not matter in this problem), but the length of the drain was to be 100 yards, and the contract price £20, which equals four shillings a yard. The two men started digging, one man at each end of the. drain, and one man soon found more or less rock Chard.digging), while the other man had loam and sand to dig. The two men consulted" together and agreed between themselves that the man who dug in the rocky end of trie drain was to get 5s a yard, and the man who dug in the sandy end of the drain was^ to receive 3s a yard, thus averaging 8s for each two yards dug, or otherwise, 4s a yard, contract price. How many yards would each man have to dig to earn = £10 each? . No. 2: Find an appropriate four- . letter word for each of .'. the, blank spaces in the following jingle, all four of the words to be composed of the same four letters:. \ . ■ When,: they -had: eaten, :':and.- ---: rested,. "■• . - ....•■ :: . ; They took their ——7, all cleaned and tested, ■ '.•; • ■ .' ' And drove away in Jack's - . ' .-' car To look for not very far. Gay weekend, everybody. ' . , : . .♦"■■.* ■;♦'''. SCHOOL'S IN," Do you know that— ■ (1) In China the merchant opens the sardine can and sells the fish one at a time, since many people cannot buy a whole can? (2) The maidens take the initiative. ; in courting in the Ukraine, or Little. , Russia, where they call upon their boy , friends for love-making? (3) A. .D. Church, . an Englishman,, writes shorthand backward with hia left hand and forward with his right hand—at the same time? (4) Asbestos umbrellas are carried by London fire-fighters as protection when battling with the flames at close quarters? (5) Metal furniture is not a modern innovation, as families of the Middle Ages had collapsible metal chairs and tables which they carried from home to home? ; (6) The building of railways in England was at first forbidden by Parliament, the reason being it would interfere with fox-hunting? (7) Some users of artificial eyes buy them in sets of three: one for day wear, one for use in artificial light, andji bloodshot one for "the morning after ? (8) Lucullus, Roman consul and general, spent £3000 for a single meaJ for Caesar, Pompey, and himself? (9) Many thousand years ago th« climate within the Arctic Circle was so warm that palms and magnolia? grew there, and the shores of Greenland were similar to. Palm Beach? (10) There are 5000 authors in.th* U.S.A., of which only a handful make a living out of books alone?. '♦ - '. * * THE SEA CHILD. - ■ : Into the world' you sent' .her, mother, Fashioned her body of coral ana foam, ■ ' ■■■■■•. -■ Combed a wave in her hair's warm smother, - ■ And drove her away from home. In the dark of the night she crept ta the town ■ ■-. And under a doorway she laid net down,' ; • • ■ . .. The little blue child in the foamfringed gown. : . And never a sister, and never a brothei To hear her call, to answer her cry. Her face, shone out from her hair'l warm smother • Like a moonkin up in the sky. She sold her corals, she sold her foam; Her rainbow heart like a singing shell Broke in her body; she crept back home. Peace, go back to the world, my daughter, Daughter, go back to the darklinj land; . There is nothing, here but sad sea water, And a handful of sifting .sand.. : , —Katherine Mansfield. '♦'■-".■* , .*' . FACE-SAVING. During a diplomatic dinner in Paris, Mr. Wellington Koo, the brilliant Chinese diplomat, illustrated by means of an anecdote the expression "saving one's face" which is used, so much in reference to the Far East. "One day," he began, "a man was hanged. Nothing remarkable in that. But when his son was questioned, ne,«aye the followis; version of the old "man's death: 'Just imagine—my honourable father was standing on an elevated platform' just by chance one day, when suddenly a trap door opened at his feet; He fell so clumsily that his neck was caught in a dangling rope and he died of strangulation.'" And Mr. Koo concluded with a smile: "You see, the father may have lost his head, but the son certainlj 'saved his face/ "