POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 102, 1 May 1943, Page 4

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

Up in the Aleutians they have reached no solutions. * * * A long life may not be good enough, but a good life is long enough. * * * Add proverbs (this, a German): Fire in the heart sends smoke into the head. * * • • It was just too bad that Rommel should leave headquarters to find trouble in the hind-quarters. *' * # That naval scrap off the coast of Brittany was a matter of Ushant or you shall. , * * • MAY 1. Said Old Man Duck: "My children, dear, Live up to your ambition, But there be risks these days, I fear, Blown from that dammunition." —OURSELVES. * # * DECIMAL POINT. Dear Flage,—A correspondent in "The Post" states that "anyone can go into a hotel lounge and ask for a glass of brandy." That is quite true. But the same statement would apply to lollie shops or milk bars, and the chances of getting it in either case are within a decimal point of each other. J.S. * # « NO FAVOURITISM. This is one of Walter Winchell's: In Berlin the Axis chiefs gathered to sign another infamous agreement. They wanted to make quite a propaganda stunt of it. so they arranged a big table in Hitler's headquarters, with the document, pens, and inks. But just as Adolf, Benito, and the Jap Ambassador lined up for the photographers a big cockroach scrambled across the historic document. Hitler was furious. "Hey," he yelled, "you get in line with the others!" *- x * THESE DICTATORS. When a dictator grips a. country by force, abolishes freedoom of speech, and hammers its people into obedient robots, he does not strengthen that nation, writes H. N. Casson. He weakens it. He destroys thought and self-respect and self-development. How can it strengthen any nation to turn all its people into frightened dwarfs? A nation of free superior people is always stronger than a nation of yesmen. Is it not written in history that 300 free, large-size Spartans defeated a host of small, obedient Persians at the Pass of Thermopylae? * # ♦ HEARD THIS ONE? Dear Percy Flage,—This is a small thing my father has just told me, and I thought it might interest you. A lunatic had just been discharged from the asylum and he went into a telegraph office and wrote this message: "Dimble dimble dingle dimble dingle. Dingle dimble dimble dingle dingle dimble." When he handed this in the girl told him, *You can have another word yet, sir, for a shilling minimum." "But," replied the lunatic, "that would spoil the sense of the sentence." With best regards to Column 8, Your interested reader, OWEN R. ROBERTS. * * * MONUMENTAL TOE. The greatest monument in Britain —a memorial to a peer's lost toe— stands in Cobham Park, near Gravesend. It was built 107 years ago by the ancestors of the Earl of Darnley, whose seat is Cobham Hall. Actually the monument takes the form of a family mausoleum, but it was never consecrated. At this spot the then Earl of Darnley was dissatisfied with the way a woodcutter was wielding his axe. The Earl took it from him and lunged at the tree. The axe glanced off the tree trunk and severed a toe. Blood poisoning set in and the Earl died a few days later. The mausoleum was erected to his memory. INFORMATION. Dear Sir, —Would you kindly supply through your Percy Flage column some information regarding mercury, where it is mined, in what form it comes from the ground, and how the metal is refined. The question arose in class while we were doing an experiment on the barometer. Thanking you, BRUCE COOK. This is all we can do at the momentImportant mercury mines are worked in Spain and Italy, and in California and Texas. Deposits are found in Russia, Hungary, Mexico. Peru, and some other countries. Mercury occurs chiefly in the form of red sulphide . . . pure mercury is a coherent of mobile liquid. THE BIG ANE. Dear Percy Flage,—On reading the little anecdote in your column on Saturday night about Dr. Norman Macleod, the famous Scottish preacher. I was reminded of another little story that was told about him. On one occasion he and a brother minister were out boating on a Highland loch. Dr. Norman a man of splendid physique, but his friend was small of stature. After a time, a squall blew up and their little craft was violently tossed about. "I think we had better pray. Norman," said his friend, whereupon the old Highland boatman, overheai'ing them, exclaimed: "Ah, weel, gentlemen, the wee one may pray, but the big one wull hae tae tak an oar." Yours truly, SCOTIA. * * • STALIN—MARSHAL. Maybe you have heard of the promotion of Stalin to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet; he went up from the standing as commander-in-chief of the Red Army. Military magnates are certain that he will be a great force in the shaping of the strategy of Soviet drives against the Nazis. Unlike Hitler, Stalin prefers, the seclusion of the Kremlin to the Press-agented front headquarters affected by his enemy. An analysis of the battle of Stalin versus Hitler reveals that the Nazi leader is a militaryconservative, the Russian an exponent of new tactics and new uses of old tactics, such as conducting as many as six major offensives simultaneously, and moving vast armies without rail transport. * » * SLEEP. So sleep has closed your tired eyes. And peace has smoothed your brow; The joys and sorrows of the day Lie lightly on you now, Red roses dreaming in the sun. And all the ways of morn and noon Are veiled in silence of the night. Circled and silvered by the moon, While you lie lonely as a star That dwells in places far apart Dreaming in lovely solitude. Sleep quiets your aching heart. Drift down the path of shadowy dreams Where Memory holds no sway; Within those mute and dim-lit walls Regret has lost her way. Only Content shall take your hand And cares of the day shall cease. Down silvered, silent, star-lit ways Sleep shall lend you peace. —JOAN SHANAHAN. * # * NAVY AIRCRAFT. Have you plane fans heard of the U.S. navy's Vought F4U-1 Corsair, one of the best and latest? It was. only a month ago that "the wraps came off," as the Japanese in the Solomons found a bigger, faster, single-engined fighter overhead. In the U.S. smug navy men at last gave out specifications; here are some of them: "Something like" a 2000 h.p. engine, the first navx fighter .to approach that figure. . . . Ability to outfly and outfight any land-based aircraft in the same classification. Speed well over 400, best all-altitude performance. 4 . . A small, streamlined, all-metal fuselage with a retractable landing, and a big, three-bladed standard propeller, the largest" possible. . . . An all-United Aircraft Corporation product, it is a big fighter, more than 33 feet long, with a wing-span of under 41 feet. . ;. The armament—secreCbut jjuite- sufficient,