POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 67, 20 March 1943, Page 4

POSTSCRIPTS

- BY PERCY FLACE

Chronicle and Comment

You can't do business with Hitler— but that's Hitler's business. ..■'.. > •:.■■■•■.•.■■ ■: . There are gas masks, and those -who lie like a gas meter. # * ■ ♦■■ . ■■~■■■ - We pass on this old Icelandic proverb to our portentous ■■politician: "Long the men live who are slam with words." "■ '■ # Admiral Kichisaburo Nomura: "Of all the alternatives open to the Allies for an attack on Japan, that of air attack from China, on a large scale, is a very real possibility.' "SHAMBASSADORS." All French workers going to Ger. many receive a propaganda leafiel signed "Pierre Laval." It admonishes them to behave well in the Reich, and not to forget that they are the 'Ambassadors" of France in Germany, , "Shambassadors" is. the more appropriate word. HEARD THIS ONE? The chaplain preached a forceful sermon on the Ten Commandments, . sending one private away in a serioui mood. , , ~. He -eventually brightened up. "Any. way," he said, "I have never yet made a graven image." , * * * IN BERMUDA. An American, living in England j-e----ceived a letter "from a friend. The letter said he was enclosing about a dozen clippings, which he hoped the censor at Bermuda would allow to .. pass. But the letter contained only one clipping. It was from a recently dated Bermuda paper, and it read: "More than 800 freshly-arrived censors have taken up residence in the hotels in Bermuda." * * * ■ KAREHANA BAY. (A Toast—an acrostic.) Kissed by the waters, first blue and then silver, As breaks the wide sea at her furthermost reach, Remember I shall, in the days passing over, Each wonderful moment I spent on your beach. . Here I found beauty, with peace in attendance, , And lazily dreamed in the sun's slanting rays, . . . Now I would pledge you my stoutest allegiance, • And drink a fond toast to the Queen of the Bays. _ <<KAREHANA ,, *♦ . * DRAMATIC. You may remember how the Bishop of Munster, Count Clemens August yon Galen, stirred the world by the courage and frankness of three sermons attacking the Gestapo last year. Here is a dramatic incident in the Cathedral of Munster, which was recorded shortly after the war began. Bishop Galen, from the pulpit, was condemning the Gestapo for interfering with family life. He was interrupted by a young Nazi, who asked in a loud voice: "What right has a celibate to talk about the problems of youth and marriage?" Commanding silence with an emphatic thump on the pulpit, the bishop replied: "Never will I tolerate in my cathedral any reflection upon our Fuhrer!" . „.••»_.* Hitler has never forgiven this biting remark. * * * LIGHTS AND LOVERS. We don't know whether this note was used in Column 8 several years ago—it refers to the glowworm—but an Auckland friend recently asked for the explanation of the curiosity.. Here it is: The .female glowworm, wishing to attract her mate, turns on a mysterious light. It is a mistake to call her a worm; she is really a beetle, and a very useful one, too, for she and her mate live chiefly on snails. On summer and early-autumn evenings you will see her and her sisters in the Botanic Gardens in or about the small creek with their wee lamps glowing. They are guiding beacons, and their winged mates soon discover them. ♦ . ♦ * DUCE'S SPIRITS. Mussolini, worn out by the war and haunted by fear of defeat, has taken to Spiritualism, Three or four evenings a week his car stops outside the big villa belonging to the man who made a fortune out of his friendship with the Duce. Name, Arturo Rossoni; he has bought a new house * hundred yards from the Pope's Palace. In a darkened room the famous Italian "medium," Signora Gruzzi, holds her seances, calling on the spirit of Mussolini's favourite son, Bruno, who was killed in an air crash. Rome cynics hope that the Gruzzi will one evening mistakenly summon the spirit of Marshal Balbo, who was murdered on Mussolini's order. The dark-eyed, , white-haired, fragile, and extremely clever Gruzzi won the Duce's confidence during the first seance, when the "spirit' 'of Bruno revealed details which Mussolini believed to have been a secret between himself and his son. • # * HEARD THIS ONE? A farmer and a professor were sharing a seat on a train. It was getting lonesome, so the farmer started a conversation, and they soon became a friendly pair. "Let's have a game of riddles to pass the time," said the professor. "If I have a riddle you can't guess, you give me one dollar, or vice versa." "All right," replied the farmer, "but as you are better educated than I am, do you mind if I only give you fifty cents?" " , „__ "0.X.," replied the professor. "You go first." "Well, what animal has three legs walking and two legs flying?" "I don't know. Here's a dollar. What's the answer?" ' , "I don't know either. Here's your fifty cents," answered the farmer. # # ♦ THE MOTHER'S PORTION. (Companion piece for "The Soldier'f Mother.") So small you are, and yet your tiny hand Can pluck my heart-strings, and your infant cries, Speaking of but the body's urgencies, Move me to pity few can understand.: A little while I have you to command, And keep you safe, lest accident surprise Your frail and tender being; till your eyes Open on Life and all its magic strand. Its beckoning gleam will lure you from my side, . , . . Your questing vision seek horizons far; And I, who still would be your stay and guide, Must watch you go alone; it needs must be; Your destiny is yours, not mine; your star Must light you, lonely, ■on the unCh?rted SM--EDITH L. KERB. ♦»♦ ■ ■ . "ELEANOR EVERYWHERE," The Americans call Mrs. Roosevelt thus because she not only goes everywhere, but as far as is humanly possible she sees everything. Her energy is amazing. She has been described as "a woman dynamo with a smile. 1; Reporters assigned to cover her activities are usually worn out by nightfall. But she never seems to tire. She has been to England five times. "I spent some of the happiest days of my life in England," she once said: she was thinking particularly of her three years at Allenswood, a private school for girls at Wimbledon Park, which also numbers Miss Megan Lloyd George among its former pupils. The young Eleanor was brought up by her grandmother, a formidable old lady who frowned on frivolity and pinned her . faith to red flannel. She made Eleanor wear red flannel every year,-from November 1 to April 1. The hated garments started at her neck and finished at her ankles and made her awkward and self-conscious.