POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 30, 4 August 1943, Page 4

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGI Be it ever so humbug there's no place in Hamburg. * *. * Judging by his name, General Frederico Amoroso is bound to catch the eyes of Italia's fair ladies. Brazil is to raise an army of 1,200,000 to fight on the side of the Allies. Brazilian Air Chief General Eduardo Gomes is recruiting an expeditionary force for North Africa. * « ♦ POOR OLD BAD. Dear Percy Flage,—Perhaps you could use this: If I was old Badoglio I would hand in my portfoglio. Good luck to Col. 8. Yours, J. STEPHENS. . .* . «■ * MARK-TWAIN. The 2,000,000 th copy of Mark Twain's works printed in the Soviet Union since the revolution has been issued. Mark Twain is second to Jack London in popularity in Moscow as an interpreter of life in the North American continent. Of the 15,000,000 copies of books by American' authors printed in Russia since 1917, 6,500,000 have been works of Jack London. Theodore Dreiser, John Steinbeck, Upton Sinclair, Pearl Buck, and Paul de Kruif are widely read. * • . * HEARD THIS ONE? Two mentally deficients!, Alf and Herb, are concerned. •■ At about midnight Alf picked up his telephone and dialled one, one, one, one. Four ones, see! Herb answered his telephone. "Yerss!" "Is that double one. double one?" "Nah! This is one, double one, oner "Sorry to get you out of bed!" "Doesn't matter! Had to get up to answer ■ the ' telephone any rate!" # Sammy the Sheik, now in Christchurch, sends this one, remembering the old Col. 8. ■ * * * B-24. . . You have heard, of course, of the lickings of the U-bqats, which are getting somewhat on Mhe nerves of. the Fuhrer and his naval satellites. But did you know that it was the Liberator bombers, with a range of 2000 miles, which were the aeroplanes used in the "V.L.R." (very long range), operations against Nazi submarines, referred to by Churchill last month? The Liberators are equipped with especially large fuel tanks in order to carry depth charges such great distances. The "V.L.R." aircraft operates from bases in the U.S.A. in co-opera-tion with other Liberators from bases of the British Coastal. Command in Iceland and Ireland. •• ' • GAS. Yes, things have changed since grandma's day, And womankind is proud to say She holds a job in all the ranks, And works like battleships and tanks. In khaki, navy, air force blue. There's nothing now she cannot do To pull her country through the war, And show man what he's fighting for. From Pole to Pole her name's renowned Sky-high, sea-deep, and on the ground; Her manly aid, the front line needs, She shares the glory of its deeds. Who guards the home front, undismayed? The good old Frying-pan Brigade. Here's victory to ev'ry lass In the housewife's battle with coal gas! E. SMYTH. •» * « ■ • • THOSE WOMEN. It is absolutely correct to state" that Hitler could never have gained power against the opposition of the German women. In itheir devotion to him they were more practical than the men. When the first German tribes emerged from their dark forests into the beauty of the southern world, the Roman soldiers were more frightened by the women than by the men, writes Ernest Klein. Standing on their chariots, holding children in their arms, they drove their men with fanatical cries into battle and death. When the men were defeated or killed, the mothers slew the children and afterwards themselves lest they fell into the hands of the victors. Motor-car, wireless, aeroplane, and lipstick have not altered this original character very much.