POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 22, 27 January 1942, Page 4

POSTSCRIPTS

BY PERCY FLAGE

Chronicle and Comment

Tojo (in his bath): Oh, Thailand is my land.

So far as the oil company drillers are concerned, it is still a .matter of search and re-search. «• * #

A Deutschlandsender' announcer: "Although we have to grope in the dark we remain enlighted."

No, Melisande: People who collect stamps are not philanderers, but philatelists.

SEPOY'S "BEAR."

The time for war stories from Africa is not yet, but a correspondent sends one of the last war about a Sepoy new to East Africa who had never seen a lion before, even in a zoo. He reported to his Indian officer that a "khakicoloured bear" had been prowling round the outposts, and asked for instructions. The Jamadar scratched his head over the problem, but finally ruled that as the animal wore the official colour it was probably in the pay of the Government and should be left alone. * # * VERSATILE JONES. I Britain's loneliest hamlet, near the i Welsh border, claims the handiest j handyman. He is Mr. Fred Jones, and he has eleven jobs. They are insurance agent, carrier, barber, house de-. corator, carpenter, cattle adviser, thatcher, plumber, chapel organist, airraid warden, and Home Guard. "My duties^ as a Home Guard are not very exacting," said Mr, Jones. "I have to keep an eye on lights in five cottages, and occasionally I climb the peak at the back of the house to see if there are any strange lights over the plains below." * * ♦ HUGHESOVKA. You have heard of the town of Stalin, in Russia. But few, if any, will know that Stalin wa« founded by a Welshman named Hughe*. John Hughes was a native of Merthyr Tydfll, and went to Russia in. 1870 at the request of the Russian Government to' start an ironworks. The town, now I Stalin, which grew up round this was for many years called Hughesovka. About a month ago the corporation of Merthyr Tydfil, where .Hughes'* descendants still live, sent a message of encouragement to the Soviet ©£ the town. It is said that the people In Stalin who speak English do so with a strong Welsh accent. i * # * OLD AS THE HILLS, Citizens who are banding together to deal with air-raid fires (we presume that to be the case) are reverting to the local communal methods of their British ancestors. In medieval times city authorities legislated for the prevention and suppression of fires, but expected the citizens to take their own precautions and act together when necessity arose—as, in those days of wooden buildings, it so often did. Thus every citizen was ordered to keep a barrel of water before his door, and groups of people had to provide axes, hooks, and chains for demolishing burning houses, and other primitive apparatus, to be lodged with a chosen leader who was to be provided also with means of "loud sounding" an alarm.

* * * ♦ WEATHER-MAKING. If the Luftwaffe has not crashed it, there is a building which was started some months ago in Moscow of an experimental laboratory which is to have chambers equipped with complex machinery and apparatus for the creation of artificial sunlight and extreme cold and drought. This will enable scientists (when the war is over) to study the growth of plants under all kinds of meteorological conditions. It will have a refrigerating apparatus capable of producing frost of 60 degrees Centigrade below zero. It will .also have a chamber where powerful projectors will reproduce sunlight and where electrical heaters, regulating the humidity of the air, will make it possible to obtain any kind of temperature. There will also be a chamber for the creation of drought conditions similar to those prevailing in the south-eastern regions of the Soviet Union. In this chamber scientists will study the effect of drought on vegetation, and will elaborate methods for combating its ill effects.

THORNDON AND LAMBTON QUAYS. Three centuries have passed or. more Since footprints on the sandy shore Were wont to tell of tribe and chief Who passed that way in the belief There was no need to spend their days Defying Nature's rugged ways.

Centuries lapse and still there lacks Aught but foot-worn paths and tracks, Twixt wooded hills and fringe of shore Where little wavelets splash and bore, And rocks and roots and slippery clay Tear and torment and delay.

Another century gone, and now The pakeha with axe and plough Has builded roads and tilled the soil, With blood and sweat and weary toil, But did not seek to change the way The Maori walked round rock and bay. The years roll on, and still we view The tortuous route the Maori knew; The rocks are gone and civic pride Has furnished trams that all may ride, A cambered road like warship's deck, And, best of all, a bottle-neck! And of the future, who can tell? But let us hope a special hell Awaits the men who lacked the brain To see wha w t human grief and pain And other losses must be paid, Because they followed in the tracks the Maori made. A.M. * * * TRAINS PULLED BY ROPES. It is 100 years since Fenchurch Street Station,, the oldest London terminal of the London Midland and Scottish Railway, was opened, writes A.0.M., a regular reader of this column. On August 2, 1841, the London and Blackwall Railway .(originally known as the Commercial Railway and opened on July 6, 1840) began to run between Blackwall and Fenchurch Street. The. method of operating the trains would . seem strange to present-day travellers, for no locomotives were used, the power being supplied by rope haulage. At each end of the double track there were stationary winding engines with huge drums, two to each track, on which three and a half miles of rope was wound and unwound. The carriages were attached to this rope. One complete train was at Fenchurch Street ■»

and another at Blackwall. At a given signal on the electric telegraph the engine, say, at the Blackwall end began to wind the rope, drawing the train towards it. At the rear of the train the rope from the dther engine was attached, and was unwound as the train proceeded. On arrival at the first station the guard or brakeman slipped the rear coach free of the rope, and braked the vehicle to a stop1 at the platform; this procedure was repeated at each succeeding station. What; about New Zealand's first trains? asks A.O.M. ,