POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 42, 18 August 1941, Page 6

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

Whoozit: Is it not time we had a meeting of the Friends of Britain?

"There are the Free. French whom we like and the very free French whom we don't like at all." * * ■ *

When heads like Churchill's and Roosevelt's come together it is the Fuhrer who gets the headache.

F.J.F.: Epitaph for P. G. Wodehouse (from' Sophocles): "He who enters at a tyrant's door Becomes a slave though he were free before."

HERE'S NEWS. Three ways of spreading the news:— Telephone. ! Telegraph. Telafifthcolumnist! v KIM. * * # ON THE SQUARE OR ENCIRCLED. Japan complains of encirclement. Mr. Cordell Hull attributes it to her own actions. He might have put it mathematically thus: "If your conduct to your neighbours is on the square, you will not be encircled, but if you are part of an Axis, that must necessarily be in contact at both ends, West and East, with an encircling body." 1 SALAMANCA.

RUSSIAN COLLIE. , With reference to Russian collies, "Truthful Timothy" writes: My memory is not as good as it was, but as far as I recollect my great uncle had one of these dogs. Its name was Ivanitch (out of Borobitch). At the end opposite to the bark (which was worse than the bite) was a contraption like a pump handle. The animal, which wore a fur coat, had a leg at each corner, and was able to stand on them without assistance when attacked by any Nazi terrior. j* * * BURIED TREASURE. Even up till now there is a mass movement among the people of France to bury what treasure they have. Family silver, jewellery, P"010" 5 stones, bars and coins of gold, stocks and bonds of foreign countries are all ! being hurriedly tumbled into holes ia the ground, among the roots of trees, in the corners of cellars, at the end ol the seventh row of grape vines. The Nazis are getting wise to the burying of treasure, thus. They look where the surface of the ground has been stirred and pour water. Where the soil makes a depression they dig. Men are having the padding removed from the shoulders of their coats and replaced by thousand-franc bills Wrapped in oiled silk. .

ANTI-SPIES. Axis propagandists have begun an anti-spy drive. Synchronised in Berlin, Rome, and Tokio newspapers, it is mainly directed against the British. In Italy, where the British Intelligence Service is doing, and has done, good work, there is a big scare. "British Intelligence officers," declares "Messagero," "have access to infinite resources which are not always known to us, and spies crop up where they are least expected. The enemy- has a powerful secret organisation, ana they I are, therefore, in a position to reconstruct important facts out of insignificant references." In Germany the Gestapo has started a new combing out of foreigners. Lodging-house-keepers have been ordered to make all sorts of weekly reports on their guests. ■ * ■« » ■ ■

WAR BETS, Further instances of bets (in Britain) on the end of the war: A flrm of London bookmakers has offered to bet £10,000 that the war will end this year, and a level £100 that Hitler will be assassinated before the crash. There were similar wagers during the last war. In December, 1914, a London stockbroker bet a level £500 that the war would be over by Christmas, 1915. Unfortunately he, was three years out. Yet this man got his money back, for in March, 1918, when things looked so bad for the Allies, he took a bet of five to one in "hundreds against the Allies winning within a year. One of the oddest of war bets is. recorded in the betting book at White's. It was made on April 24, 1815. and runs thus: "Mr. Butler bets Sir George Talbot twenty guineas to one that he is not in the room at White's with Napoleon in the course of the next two years."

N.B.—Early this year we bet a colleague five pounds to nothing that the war would not end this year. He's on a safe bet: so are we.

THE DEAR SOUL. I read the stirring news aloud, The hero-tale of Greece and Crete, Brave words to make the dullest proud—

She said: "I cannot warm my feet." "Westminster Abbey has been hitj Four churches, flawless works of Wren; The pity and the shame of it!" She murmured: "Tea is up again." "Grim famine stalks the land in France, The hungry people are not fed, The Plague will tread his Devildance!" "They don't feel things the same," she said. "The people of the conquered lands, What must they know of pain and fear, Crushed down by cruel Nazi hands—" Said she: "It couldn't happen here." While those who did not want to go Went out and fought and strove and bled. "It's very dreadful; yes, I know, But need we dwell on it?" she said. MARY BECKETT.

THE "FORTY-SPREAD."

Dear Flage,—Old Father Time is an 'admirable and persistent timekeeper. Anniversaries inevitably arrive on <$ue date. There is no side-stepping them during life. Therefore, it is wise to be philosophical and meet the personal ones joyously. That is the "spirit" in which a well-known local manager met his fortieth anniversary, recently. "Greet your first 'forty* with a fine spread," was his slogan. He invited the lady members of his staff, and their favourite boy friends, to a late birtnday party, to celebrate. Oh, boy! Were they glad? Even "forty" felt "twenty" for the time being. Gift presentation time duly arrived. The staff had plotted a surprise for the manager. Among the gifts was a mystery package which, when unwrapped, disclosed itself as liver salts. Broad smiles circled the table. The manager accepted of their good intentions gracefully—but kept his own counsel. Next morning he lined up the lady members of his staff and gave each a strong dose of their "own medicine" —and the laugh rebounded.

To "twenty" forty seems an ago away. To "forty," eighty savours of the impossible. Yet each is the naifway stage. Which is.the "better half"? Matrimony, like circumstances, may "altar" these age cases. But let's be merry, nevertheless! G.F.