POSTSCRIPTS "

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 91, 18 April 1945, Page 4

POSTSCRIPTS "

Chronicle and Comment ■ ■ .■■ '-"■' "■■'-♦ .'■"■ ■■-

BY PERCY FLACE

" The Russians shoot the Kraut .if he stands and Himmler shoots him if he retreats. Whatever the German is for "pincers," this is if ♦' ' ■*. . ; •♦■ '■• \" "' Workers-at an office in the city were startled when this notice appeared: "Bread is the staff of life, but that is ' no reason why the life of the staff should be one long loaf." * * * Gold discovered in the -Witwatersrand resulted in the foundation of Johannesburg in 1886. In 1942 South Africa produced 14,121,000 fine ounces of gold. Southern Rhodesia 763.000. and the Gold Coast 785,000. * .* ■ » PRISONERS CAPTURED. | Lord Croft, Under-Secretary for War, in a speech in the House of Lords said that prisoners captured by British Commonwealth forces during the war exceeded 1,000,000. Up to November 30, 1944, our casualties in ! killed, wounded, missing, and taken prisoner totalled 1,043,000. Enemy casualties in Europe, North Africa, and Asia, Lord Croft added, exceeded the total casualties inflicted on the British forces. This result was due to the great leadership, valour, training, and discipline of a very high order. * •» » HISTORIC OFFICE. Mr. Frederick Barden, 85 years old, whose funeral took place at Winchelsea, near Hastings, was the last holder of the 500-years-old office of Keeper of the Lookout at Winchelsea. The office, which he held for 55 years, dates back to the Hundred Years' War, when French raiders used to ravage the coast of Sussex. Part of his equipment was an ancient horn for sounding an alarm.. His emolument was £1 2s 6d a year. As representative of the Cinque Ports, the old name given to the five ports of Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover, and Sandwich, to which Winchelsea and Rye,were later added, Mr. Barden won the' title of "Shove-half-penny champion of All England" in a match played at Hastings. * * * NATIONAL SONG. Dear Percy Flage,—Looking through an old music book just now I cam© across "New Zealand's National Song." Ive never seen it before. The music has no composer and is an unknown, melody to me. The words are as follows, and I wonder whether any of your readers can identify either words or music, and state how it came to be called the National Song, when "God Defend New Zealand" has that honour:— God girt her about with the surges/ And winds of the masterless deep, Whose tumult uprouses and urges Quick billows to sparkle and leap: He fill'd from the life of their motion Her nostrils with breath of the sea, And gave her afar in the ocean, A citadel free! G.H. * * ■::■ LOVE OF CHILDREN. Miss . Georgina Cotton-Browne, 3 spinster, of the Manor of Walkern, Hertfordshire, was so fond of children that she remembered nearly 300 of them in her £153,000 will. To every child, including evacuees, living within the parishes of Walkern andßenington at the time of her death last July, she left £1. The distribution ceremony was carried out recently, and the Rev., W. D. W. Greenham, Walkern's rector, reports: "It was a great day of excitement for the children and their mothers." The 14-year-old daughter of Miss Cotton-Browne's cousin inherits the residue of the fortune, which, after payment of a number of legacies, amounts to about £60,000. * * * I SHOCK FOR ENGINEERS. | While building a road recently through the New Guinea jungles, U.S. military engineers unwittingly used one million dollars' wgrth of gold ore as surfacing material, so that the highway now glitters. This story is told in the United States navy "News Letter" published in the Admiralties. Construction gangs tising whatever rock they could lay their hands on were unaware they had taken rich gold deposits to make a smooth lane for automobiles and trucks. To the uninitiated eye the gold-bearing rock looked like any other kind of stone, and workers racing against time tossed everything into rock crushers and cement mixers. "It was only when the highway dried out and took on a bright sparkle in the sun that engineers gave a closer look at the rock going into the roadi bed." says the "News Letter." "Amazed foremen then discovered that their workers had used one million dollars' worth of gold in building a, two-mile long thoroughfare through the bush."