POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 92, 19 April 1941, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

BY PERCY FLAGE

Chronicle and Comment

You can bet your life that Italy, will fight to the last Nazi. # * * Wars do settle things, but mostly they settle things wrongly. . =.- '■*:..* * " Add.definitions.—Self: What you are when you think nobody is looking. # * * Fun in' the news: Notice in Piccadilly: MEN WORKING OVERHEAD. Firm of Dornier? # ■* * Anyhow, Mussolini has helped to make Africa safe for civilisation —or, at least, untenable for tyranny. .*;•■■..-.* * According to "Poslednaya Novosti," a Russian newspaper, "beautiful sunny weather can also be' observed in capitalistic countries." That's broadminded. . * * * NATURAL'HAZARD. Hitler is beginning to have his doubts about beating those British. He has been told that a golf commission sat for two days trying to decide whether an unexploded Nazi bomb in the fairway was a natural hazard or not. , -.;'■: # *\ * ' MUCH TOO GOOD. I think this is far too good for Hitler, don't you? :-■"'''''. When Hitler goes to his doom, He will ride on a-fiery chariot, Sitting in State on a red-hot plate Between Satan and Judas, Iscariot! From a regular reader of your very interesting column, with best wishes, ■ * ' * .*. ■ ■ EDITOR LOOKS AHEAD. "When I die, I want you to place my body in the office of the 'Mercury* (Paris, Mo.). Start the press and keep it running. Show the mourners the linotype. And have a negro chorus sing 'Rock of Ages.'" These instructions of Thomas Vaughan Bodine, editor of the "Mercury," says "Time," were carried out to 'the letter; his body lay in state from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. alongsiHe the desk where he had worked for half a century; and 350 mourners were handed his obituary, fresh off the clanking press. # * * PHYSICIANS' CANES. yf'"[ Dear Percy Flage,—With regard t» the attached cutting from your column of yesterday—(4) Because gold-headed canes supposedly guarded against infection, .they were formerly carried by all physicians? I think you have been caught napping for once. The physicians' canes were usually Malacca canes with either gold, silver, or ivory heads, the tops of which "were perforated, like a sugar castor and could be unscrewed. Inside them was a sizeable hollow space to hold sweetsmelling herbs, which were held to' be prophylactics against disease, cf." the herbs still strewn at the Judge's seat at the Old Bailey and Assize Courts.. The gold head, in this instance, merely denoted the prosperity of the physician. We used to have two of these canes at home, and they are rather hard to come by. these days. .; ; . ~ . - Best wishes. - Yours sincerely—. ..TT; MICHAEL FbSTER/^ SCHOOL'S IN. Do you know that— (1) In the British Museum Newspaper Library on the outskirts of London there are fourteen miles of shelves on which are 25,000 tons of • newspaper, dating back in some cases to the seventeenth century? > (2) During the middle ages dolls were referred to as "children's babies"? (3) The gravitational influence of the moon, according to some astronomers, is distorting the shape of the earth? (4) The literary, language of the Croatians is identical with that of the Serbs, but the Croats use the Latin alphabet, while the. Serbs prefer a modified form of the Cyrillic? (5) At Milford Haven, in South Wales, c part of the French battleship L'Orient, which blew;up at the Battle of the Nile, is kept as a relic of Lord Nelson? (6) Few North Americans realise that there are over 88,000,000 inhabitants in South America? (7) The forward pass was originated ' in American football when team mates picked up the ball carrier and threw him bodily over the line? (8) The training of carrier pigeons to transport news photographs requires at least a year? (9) Prosperous princes of Nepal, an independent kingdom between India and Tibet, always wear at least two neckties? (10) Fakirs play a prominent -part in native football games in India, working spells believed to confound thetopposing side?" * * ♦ TO BETTY. One of the many, but less known, great poems of the last war was written by Captain Thomas Kettle just before he went into action to his death. It was addressed to his daughter, Betty— with the gift of love. In wiser days, my darling rosebud*, blown . . ."■ To beauty proud, as was your mother's prime. In that desired, delayed, incredible time, You'll ask why I abandoned you, my own, And the dear breast that was your baby's throne; To dice with death. And, oh they'll give you rhyme And reason. One will, call the thing sublime And decry it in a knowing tone. So hear, while the mad guns curse overhead, And tired men sigh with mud for couch, for floor; Know tha,t we fools, now with the' foolish dead, ; Died not for king, nor flag, *nor emperor, . ■ \ ' But for a dream born in a herdsman's shed And for the secret scripture of the poor. * * * SMART DOG. ' . Dear Mr. Flage,—Anent that affected pronunciation of our N.B.S. announcers, have you heard this one? The Scottish youth returned to his native glen aftera couple of years' quest, in London of the fortune, sartorially resplendent, and with an accent that out-Oxforded Ox-. ford. Meeting an -old shepherd on the road he addressed him thusly in his most affected style: "Oh, good morning, Alexander. How are you? I trust you are enjoying excellent health." ' "No sa'e bad; laddie, no sac bad, but • for Guid's sake hae ye forgotten yer mither tongue?" queried Sandy. "Well, not exactly, but you see, Alexander,- though -I cannot- -speak it now * I can still understand it/ "Ou ay, ma dug can dae that," quotb the ancient. Yours, etc., ,■-.. . .-.- . J.H.D.- .