POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 100, 24 October 1942, Page 6

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

Italian proverb: If you are a mouse, don't follow frogs. * * * Acrobis: Accordin' to Curtin, austerity and 'orse racin' are antipathetic. * • * * United States Secretary of the Navy: 'The world cannot survive half mad and half sane." * * *. Lord .Tweedsmuir: Youth, living on a spiritual frontier, still needs all the audacity and fortitude of the pioneer. * * ♦ The R.A.F. is landing on many targets in Western Germany, but the ultimate bull's-eye must be Berlin. *' * * INFORMATION. Dear Mage,—Some years ago Ideal and Fulmen ran a dead heat in the New Zealand Cup. Did Fulmen ever win a New Zealand Cup? Fulmen dead-heated in 1900, but never won the Cup outright. * * * JAP RACING. Heard over Tokio radio last evening:—"Tokio race fans are to enjoy a race carnival on Saturday, October 24 when high-class horses captured in Malaya will be on parade. These horses are worth 100,000 yen each. And that is the end of the news." —M. * * # EPITAPH. "Here lies the man, Richard. And Mary, his wife; Their surname was Pritchard, • They lived without strife— And the. reason was plain, They abounded in riches; They had no care nor pain, For the wife-wore the britches." .# * ♦ NOT GUILTY. "What have you got to say, 'Nugget,'," Captain G. said to his.batman, as "Nugget" was just about to take a trip into Cairo, a&er a sojourn around Sollum, Egypt. -I found the ten-pound note that I lost'in your .kit bag." "Well, all that I can' say,, sir," dame the bland retort from "Nugget," "is that I am downright glad to know that you found you? tenner, sir. If you had not have found it, you might have suggested that there was a thief about who was after your money!" * * # "LOVE" PARADE? So Maurice Chevalier, fifty-two-year-old ex-hero of "The Love Parade," is Berlin's "most popular visitor," is he? The man who made a fortune out of Anglo-American cinema audiences has been fraternising with the Nazis, posing for newspaper pictures in their company and generally behaving like the despicable Vichy rulers. Maurice tells the world his real object in visiting Germany is to entertain French prisoners of war. But the bar of the Adlon. Hotel, in which he can chin-chin with P. G. Wodehouse, is a funny place in which to do it. * * .# ENGLAND. England has been destroyed every ten or twenty years—from the time of the Armada to the present day—in the prophecies of men. Every few years she has been about to be overthrown by sea; she has been about to be ploughed up by the land; she has been about to be stripped of her resources in India, and in other parts of the globe. Nations have formed alliances against her . . . her interests, political and pecuniary, have been repeatedly . . . assailed; and yet she stood, as she now stands, mistress of the seas, and the greatest Power on the earth. —H. W. Beecher. * * . * INTIMATION. Joan and Enid: A nice idea, but the rhyme is faulty. Gemini: Always your note interests us. We wish we had more time to read Thoreau, in particular. Sunisa: Would have been more effective in prose. . X.: But why heave a brick at journalists? They know how to play the game. 0.X.: Thank you for your note. The answer to that inquiry was supplied by an old friend of Hickey. "Prodigy Plus": Not at all marvellous verse, dear lad. T.W.R.: Neat, but the censor would not approve it. Mascot (Wanganui): The word kudos stands for praise and glory. It is used in English slang for credit. Joe: We are unable to discover the trick you put forward. It doesn't seem complete. X.: Stand off that kind of politics, brother. Oke: Come up and see us some time. Be glad to meet you. * * ♦ A-LA-BLONDIN. Dear Flage — Charles Blondin still has imitators, in a lesser degree, among our juvenile fraternity. The upright iron grating spanning the storm water inlet at the Botanical Gardens recently provided the venue and opportunity for a wee, bare-legged lassie to attempt a crossing of the miniature Niagara Falls to be seen there. Balancing herself precariously, she slowly and cautiously placed one small foot before another along the two-inch flat top bar. The wild song-birds were scandalised. But no matter! A triumphant, "You dared me!" rang out, as lassie made the far Dank safely without a ducking. Would her small companion "dare" to be carried across pick-a-back, or in a wheel barrow? Vain expectation. No such "dare," nor free show, were forthcoming. But, in fancy, I hear two fond mothers "daring* them to, What a nerve! G.F. * • * GO NO MORE A-SORROWING. Go no more a-sorrowing, nor falling into wizardry. Hold you to the way-word; stay you on the grace. I have read the rose-word, earnest of eternity, God's lovely secret, on a dead woman's face. Widow-wan, her vigil kept she In the shadow-world; Dawned the hills of Beulah. now in dazzlement. Sorrow not and doubt not; torch of immortality, God's all illuminer, she caught as she went. Beulah of the shepherds, Beulah of beatitudes! Who was he that came then, courier of grace? Who was he that guided eagerly and tenderly The first faint step past finity of space. Go no more a-sorrowing{ Beulah of beatitudes Liestupon the sky-line, severer of « Time Mirrored on a dead face, lo! the lovely certitude Hidden in the harbour that mothered earth's prime. -^-Jessie Mackay. Writes R.G.G., Christchurch: "Will you please find room in your always interesting feature for this beautiful poem. Jessie Mackay was my friend." * «■ * PAINT AND POWDER. We don't know how our bright girls are getting along with their Mac West face creams and so on, but British women workers in war industries are not short of beautifications. It was not so away back in 1700 when the Parliament of that year enacted the following legislation:—"That all women of whatever age, rank, profession, or degree, whether virgin, maid, or widow, that shall from and after such Act impose upon, seduce, ajjd betray into matrimony any of his Majesty's subjects by means of scent, paints, cosmetic washes, artificial teeth, false hair, Spanish wool, iron stays, hoops, highheeled shoes, or bolstered hips, shall incur the penalty of the law now in force against witchcraft and like misdemeanours, and that the marriage upon conviction shall stand nidi and &P&P """ "