POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 16, 20 January 1943, Page 4

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

"Have you any " "No!" " manners? ' * * * Vichy, suggests a wit, has rewritten "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." The new version is * "Senility, Docility* Paternity." * * * The British call the Japanese "Japs," and the German Transocean News Agency calls the British "Brits.' Probably somebody has already called I the agency "Germs." | # * * "SALUTE." I Between periods of "saluting by 1 numbers" we instilled into dubious, and often disinterested, trainees the axiom that "his Majesty's commission," and not Bill Bloggs (former schoolmate, now a gent., temporary) was the reason for, and recipient of, the muchpractised snappy salute. Lacking the majestic symbolism our Allies attribute virtue to the military genuflexion. History, or journalism, has recorded that after the Finnish war Marshal Timoshenko reorganised and strengthened the Red Army, improved morale being evidenced by the frequency and snappiness of the salute. Well, well! MAORI MAC. * * * FISHY. Bluenose, cruising off the Solomons,, flicked the raft lazily with his tail and spoke to his cobber Tiger. "I'm getting sick of these waters. Too much tucker and no excitement. Sick of yellow bellies! Off the Barrier where I used to winter I'd knock off a couple of the slit-eyed cows when groper was scarce. Once, after a blow, I accommodated 'arf a dozen and now I can't stomach 'em." Tiger, who had fished in American waters, gazed at Bluey's protuberant puku, and replied: "You've got something there, kid! One over the eight gives me a pain in the neck. However, it won't be long now. We'll clean up here and I'll introduce yer jto the dames off the Florida coast. ! Good pickins, pal, good pickins." And I they sang as they sank in the deep: ' "Another Little Jap Wouldn't Do V. Any Harm." BINDY. * * # IVAN IVANOVICH. Now are seen the sickles gleaming For the harvesting that comes, In the dreams of tyrants dreaming Now are heard the Tartar drums, Murmurings of the massed battali<y And the bugles making boast With the neighing of the stallions In the vanguard of the host. Long I slept, my slumber broken By a message from afar, By the lips of Ivan spoken: "Son of Ivan, rise for Warf So I cast aside the Ages, I. the Spirit of the Land, As a swordsman's hand engages With the hilt, I took command; Voiceless, yet a voice abiding From the past and times long gone; Viewless, yet a spirit riding With the Cossacks of the Don. H. de VERE STACPOOLE. * * » MALTA'S GREAT GUNS. The giant guns of modern battleships have a bore of 15 inches. Imagine a gun with a bore of 72 inches—that is six feet! Do you know that that was the actual size of the now almost forgotten rock cannon of Malta? In the days when the Knights Templar had Malta they cut embrasures in the cliffs, leaving in each a huge block of rock. This block was hollowed out into the shape of a gun. It was loaded with a whole barrel of powder, plugged with a wad of wood, while the projectiles were iron cannon-balls or stones, weighing in all a couple of tons. There were about fifty of these infernal machines, and though their range was not great, the falling projectiles covered an area of some 300 square yards.