POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 48, 25 August 1945, Page 6

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment »

BY PERCY FLAGE

If Admiral Halsey gets aboard Hirohito's white horse, the Japs will go riding the whirlwind—after him. * * * Escor Brown, of California, won a divorce after testifying that his wife kept 28 cats in his bed and forced him to sleep out on the porch. * * * MONETARY (IN) DIGEST, OR WOTS COOKIN'? We relish not financial hash— Served piping hot by Mr. Nash. ■ M.R. *■* . • * SWING 'EM! Swing music is alleged .to have infatuated some American folk to such an extent that they have been heard rendering a patriotic song thus: "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I swing." * * * INFORMATION. "Jo John" wants to know what "That beats Banagher" means, and who was he. Wonderfully inconsistent and absurd —exceedingly ridiculous. Banagher is a town, in Ireland, on the Shannon, in King's County. It formerly sent two members to Parliament, and was, of course, a famous pocket borough. When a member spoke of a family borough where every voter was a man employed by the lord, it was not unusual to reply, "Well, that beats Banagher." Grose, however, gives another explanation. According to him Banagher was an Irish minstrel famous for telling wonderful stories of the Munchausen kind. * * * WAR YEARS. I think Life holds some little space, Dear-rented of my stumbling feet From these marauding years. One place Where Time is sleeping and there meet. Those Days of my lost years, which hold Treasures I never came to see A garden spend-thrift of its gold, Largesse of summer, fantasy. Of lights that snare the changeling Dark In city streets; brocaded gleam Of Rain on windows, Patterns stark Of wintry trees. I may not dream. In wooded ways. And evening brings No surcease from the thud of guns, Yet when that wand'ring blackbird sings That sang beneath my unknown suns I hear it in my heart, I feel There is some subtle sunlit Close Where Time's asleep and I may kneel To count the rainbow and the rose From days that War's encroachments steal. MINA GRAY. Sydney. ' * * * BULB RECORD. . Fifty pounds has been paid for a pink daffodil bulb to go to Western Australia from Tasmania —easily an Australian record. The daffodil was bred by an amateur, Mr. C. E. Radcliff, of Hobart, a land surveyor. It' has a pedigree that makes Phar Lap look like an upstart plebian. Karanja is this pink daffodil's name, the best pink and grand champion of the Hobart 1944 show. One of its ancestors, a sort of uncle on the mother's side named Rosario, went to Northern Ireland, where it is acclaimed as "far and away the best pink yet seen in England or Ireland," and there are some grand pinks grown in both countries. It took Mr. Radcliff seven years to produce the famous "Pink o' Dawn," a lucky son of "Lord Kitchener" and "Mrs. Moodie," both uncoloured (that is, ordinary yellow daffodils). This great pink was crossed both ways with many prospects and finally, when its pollen was given to "Rosary," it produced "Dawn Glow," which, when crossed with "St. Aloysius," gave "Karanja." Although £50-is an Australian record, Mr. Guy Wilson, of Northern Ireland, . who bought "Rosario" from Tasmania, bred "Broughshane," which is catalogued in New Zealand at £65.