POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 93, 21 April 1942, Page 4

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

Watch th^t dollar front! • *' • # There are no black-outs with Pundit Nehru's dark forces. * * * A dark spot or two developing on the Rising Sun? « «■ * No wild furore for the! Fuhrer, Nor a mirthday on his birthday. * * * - Ad. in "The Times": What's in a jriame? If you asked me to reply to this question as a horticulturist I should do so with a monosyllable— "Everything." * *■ ' ♦ ! UNSEEN. 1 By the way, have you heard how \ 11. G. Wells's 'Invisible Man" mar- ; ried an invisible, woman, and they [ had an invisible son? For a long time : they did not know what to do with ; him. Then the problem was solved: ■ They put him in the Italian navy. * * * REQUIEM. : The morning star shall mark their '- place of resting. • A world at peace will be their Hall of Fame. And lovely night, secure from all past ■ dangers, I Shall ]ight a thousand candles to their name. ■ I E.R.A. :i • . . .- -1 FINISHED. 5 Shopping at her grocer's in The - Hague, a Dutch housewife asked for » flour. She was told it was finished. > Then she asked for butter. It too ■ was finished. The same reply came I to four other requests. • "Ah!" she exclaimed in the crowded - shop, \ "the Fuhrer was quite right I when he told us last year that every- ; thing would be finished by next aut- [ umn.'1 i,* * » ; SIFTINGS. : Over 80,000 German soldiers from I the Eastern Front, suffering from seri- : ous frostbite, are in Bulgarian hos- [ pitals. Goebbels reported that their - return to the Reich would have had a i bad effect on public morale. [ The Vichy Minister of -Education is i revising all school history books. ; Britain will no longer be represented : as France's greatest friend and ally. I Goebbels is about to "plug" a new i "European Hymn" to celebrate "the l perfect unity of the whole of Europe." ■ The refrain will run: "Europe! Vie- - tory! We thank the Fuhrer for all L this!" An American engineer has patented : an effective device that sprays gas or ; chemicals on enemy troops. * * * MARTINIQUE. Reports that the United States may occupy French islands in the Caribb- » bean if Darlan gives the Germans all L their way turns the spotlight on Mar--5 Unique, a 385-square-mile volcanic island. Most important thing in Martinique today is gold to the value of , £736,000,000 held for the Vichy Gov- '. ernment at Fort de Saix. Then there is the French aircraft carrier, Beam (an old converted 25,0p0-ton battleship), a cruiser, Emile Bertin, and 100 '. Curtiss planes purchased by France and Belgium but never delivered because of the French collapse. The \ High Commissioner of the island. Ad- | miral Georges Robert, has instructions , from Vichy to oppose any invasion by the United States. He is expected to ' blow up the gold in this event. * * •» : ZENTRAL VERLAG. i Hitler, as one of the world's greatest capitalists, is the picture given by ; the diplomatic correspondent of "The Times," who describes the vast ramifi- , cations of the German publishing com- . bine, Zentral Verlag. It has a turni over of £70,000,000 a year, and a net profit varying from £7,000.000 to £10,000,000 a year. The balancesheet has never been published, and there are no auditors. Hitler has absolute control over income, and no one . knows what Hitler does with the ■ money. He does not appear to have deposited sums abroad, like his lieutenants. His control began in 1921, when the Zentral Verlag was registered as a company in the sole name of Adolf Hitler. Its greatest business, apart from owning all the advertising agencies in Germany, is the publication of newspapers. Zentral Verlag owns outright two-thirds of all .German newspapers, and their circulation totals 16,000,000 a day. .It also draws advertising revenue from all the others. The combined revenue from newspapers alone stands at £24.000,000 a year. * « * . POET'S LICENCE. In regard to the pronunciation of the word "Trafalgar," the following quotation from Byron's poem "The Ocean" may be of interest:— "The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals; The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make • Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war; These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yea^t of waves, which mar Alike the Ai-mada's pride, and spoils of Trafalgar." S. M. M. P.S.—The master under whom we. studied this poem at school always explained to the pupils that the above pronunciation of Trafalgar was simply poet's licence. it * * , A. G. STEPHENS, RED PAGAN. . Tom L. Mills: A biography long overdue is Vance Palmer's "A. G. Stephens." I was on "The Post" staff when Editor Lukin imported Australia's foremost critic in order to liven up the paper with a professional "literary touch." But the. heavy weight (physically and mentally) was out of his element away from. Sydney. *He was a lonely, self-absorbed soul, and • the office was too noisy for his concentration system. A sound-proof room in the top storey of a city warehouse had to be provided. He did not stay long at that. Mention of his solitariness reminds me of a legend of the "Bulletin" office in George Street, Sydney. The rooms used by the weekly's staff on the first floor were being renovated, and. the nearly-obliterated names of their occupants repainted. Came the signwriter to Editor Edmonds with the query: "Whose name goes on that door?" (pointing to the room occupied by the. writer of the Red Page). Taking the querist by the arm mysteriously and walking across the floor tiptoe, Edmonds whispered: "Paint on that door, 'GOD'"! For two years Stephens and Edmonds had passed each other on the stairs without recognition. Of special interest is the fact that a journalistic product of the "Evening Post," Arthur fi. Adams, succeeded A. G. Stephens in charge of the famous Red Page of the "Bulletin."^