POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 107, 1 November 1940, Page 6

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

Now, Melisande: Who told you that a stomacher is a blow in the "breadbasket"? * * ♦ News item: "Man driven to drink by his wife." He's lucky—most of us have to walk. K. (Australia). (Passed on by Postscripter X.) * * * Fun in the news (N.Z. paper): "The defendant is a married man with a young family; otherwise he is well behaved," said the police representative. * * ♦ Short-wave news from Rome radio the other day: ". . . The first troops and Italian warships crossed the Greek frontier this morning," The navy trying its luck on th« land? 8.8. Island Bay. » * * A SHORT STORY. 1935 Cash. 1936 Nash. 1937 Hash. 1938 Gnash! 1939 Crash!! 1940 Lash!!! 1941 BASH!!!! F.Y. * * • BRAIN-TEASERS. Answers to last Saturday's teasers. No. 1: The camp must be at the North Pole—as you will realise by examining a globe of the world. No. 2: Embrace, brace, race, ace. Late hour solutions from K.G. and Leo (Nos. 1 and 2), Newcomer, J., Trier, L. and M., Bee, and German I Measles (!)-—each No. 2. | # ♦ # INQUIRY BUREAU. To settle a friendly argument—can you or any of your readers tell me the height a man must be to enter the Grenadier Guards, and whether this height has even been lowered owing to the scarcity of suitable men? I turn to you, having failed to obtain the information,, in the ordinary way from books, etc. old-timer-Can any Bth Columnist supply the information asked? We have failed. * * * RUN LIKE HELL. Prime Minister Winston Churchill recently issued a curt order to all Government Departments. He told them to out out all official- "double talk" and draft their memoranda in brisk, direct English. The "New York Times" correspondent visited one Department which evidently had not read the Prime Minister's order. On the wall of the office hung a newlypainted sign. It read: "In event of an air-raid warning being sounded, all members, of the staff should proceed to shelter with ail the celerity compatible with safety." * . • ■» FINED FOR BRAVERY. An airman who saved the life of a Chinese girl five years ago is now wondering whether bravery pays. He rescued her from drowning^ when she fell into the Yangtse River. The hero, Captain C. S. Vaughn, a Fan* American Airways pilot, was about to take oft his machine when he saw the accident. Nobody raised a finger to help her, so he jumped in and brought her out. Then, to his amazement, the Chinese authorities presented him with a bill, "3 dollars 18 cents for board and lodging of one rescued soul, responsibility Pilot Vaughn." They explained that the moment she submerged in the water she was, for the purposes of Chinese law, dead; she owes her new life to him, and therefore he gave her life, and she is his responsibility. So he's been paying for her keep ever 'since! « * * A TOMMY'S HYMN OF HATE. We are obliged to "Bee-Inn" for this jolly old strafe: — Greasy 'Arry, the cook of "B," made a custard puddin' for me, From an egg he'd pinched at a farm nearby and a tin of milk Id bought at V——; Me bein' sick, and lim a pal not wantin' to see me take my chance Or borne away in an ambulance to some Base General Orspital. Well 'c mixed it up and 'c poured it clean into the lid of an old canteen. And when it was done—like a bloomin* fool—he set it up on the parapet To give the custard a chance to. set, for the edge of a trench is pretty cool. , ■ .* And then that night as I lay «**«#» dreamin' of custards, foo should Under the wire entanglement, but German sniper with foul intent; Our bat-eyed sentry, never saw tho sneakin' swine in 'is stockm leet, Pinchin' the custard I meant to eat against all International Law. One hate I have, one hate I ownOne dreadful hate in flesh and bone--A hate that's greater than hate of wrong, . , A hate I've turned to a mormn song, I hate all Germans, who lie and boast. And pass our so-called "^tening. ] post. To steal the comforts that reed th» A horrible, dirty, low-down trick! I hate as one and I hate as four, I hate with the hate of an Army Corps; One hate I shout and one hate I .hiss. And I calls that penshin 1 blighter thIS~PUDDIN' PINCHER! AUTHOR UNKNOWN. * . • '* OLD ADAGES. Dear Flage,~"The Seven Ages of Man," as verbally portrayed by I Shakespeare, is universally accepted But can the same be said of the three "stages" of man set out in the words —not by Shakespeare—"The old believe everything. The middle-aged suspect everything. The young know everything"? H one stage bears out the old adage: "There is no fool like an old fool," it seems at variance with, another old. adage: "Experience teaches." Yet it agrees with, and probably accounts for, the stage reached .by the young at middle age. But why does "Experience teaches" falter after reaching the middle-aged stage, leaving man anybody's pigeon? Especially Hitler's Is there a matrimonial or a political bias operating here? Or does taking the line of least resistance come to the aid of the old? Again: "If ignorance is bliss,' tis folly to be wise,'* why do the young elect to grow out of the blissful stage? Are old adages contradictory? If it be-true that "It's, a long lane that has no. turning," why are certain politicians anxious to take a "cross"-country cut to the Treasury benches and make up "lee-way" while a war is on? If voters comprise the three stages aforementioned, who could count upon the middle-aged voter at election time? Does the old adage, "Let well alone," come to his rescue? Has "Experience teaches" taught that it is humanly possible to do this? Don't ask mej G.F.