WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE SAYING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23773, 28 September 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Question in the House

MJt. J. DAVIDSpN (Soc., Maryhill): Js it true that British ships at sea call out "Waiter!" and Italian submarines come to the top? (Laughter.)

—The Evening Standard, London Now, Now, Professor

AX elderly man approached a Southgate scrap metal dump, carrying in one hand an umbrella and in the other a bundle of brass stair rods. Ho threw the umbrella on the heap and strolled away. Within a minute he hurried back and quietly "swopped" umbrella for stair rods. —Tho Evening News, London. Spirits f)ll. WILLTAM BOYCE, of St. Angeles, who cites a ghost as corespondent in his divorce case (the result, apparently, of his wife's addiction to seances), is not the first to have suffered from that strange competition. A few years ago a Georgia husband got a decree on the ground that the ghost of his wife's first husband made life intolerable for him. The analogous case of Dr. Mansfield "Robinsou (in 1926) was planetary rather than spiritual. He claimed to have discovered an affinity in Mars, and even sent her a wireless message, which the Post Office solemnly accepted. —Observator, in Tho Observer, London.

Caution A MOTORIST in Yorkshire was "*■ anxious to get to Lords, but the signposts being down, lie did not know which of three ronds to take. A farm labourer came in sight, and the motorist asked, "Which way do I take for Leeds?" The labourer reflected a moment, and then said: "If they'd wanted thee to know t' road to Leeds they wouldn't have taken t' signposts down." —Children's Newspaper, London.

Menace of the Wisecrack

r PJ-lE trouble with the movies is that they are being drowned in wisecracks. No character any longer is permitted by the Hollywood script writers to give vent to a simple, natural, sincere cliche. No matter what situation he confronts, he must meet it with a wisecrack, if a couple's marriage or courtship is about to go on the rocks, it' bosom friends are surrounded by desperadoes about to destroy them, if the detectives find the body of a man who has just been murdered, their response to the crisis is a series of rapidfire gags. —Tho New York Times.

They Also Serve NATURALISED Italian restaurantkeeper says he will stand by Old England through thick and clear. —Punch, London.

Lad's Letter Home "D E Alt DAD, —Wish you had come to the school concert. We did 'Hamlet.' A lot of fathers and mothers came. Some of them had seen it before, but they laughed just the same." —Tho Evening News, Lorfdon. Embarras de Richesses J HAVE just heard from a friend what he assures me is a perfectly true storj* of the earlier operations in France, when a British division. was holding part of the line on the Saar front. A colonel, anxious to secure information from the other side, promised his men £1 for each German prisoner they captured. Two men on duty that night in no man's land spotted some Germans in the distance. One of them whispered to the oilier: "Keep your head down. Alf; there's about a thousand quids' worth coming over on the loft!"

—Peterborough, in The Dally Telegraph. London

Error -} "BUT my husband's not dead," protested a puzzled mother at Austin, Texas, as Social Security officials called recently to inform her she was entitled to benefit payments. -The officials held out a death certificate—signed, sealed and very, very official. The woman's face brightened. "Maybe it's supposed to be a birth certificate for my new baby," she suggested. She was right. The justice of the peace had filled out the wrong form. —Tho Now York Times. Those Tough Maiden Aunts A N , evaluated preparatory school boy has two maiden aunts who live at X.Y. In a letter home, after evincing anxiety about the safety of his father and mother, he asks: "Have any bombs dropped on X.Y. yet? If so, don't let them worry you, as it does not worry me in the slightest." —The Daily Tolegraph, London.

Neck and Neck "]VTY wife and daughters simply race to give me presents on my birthday," says a reader. We prcsumo tho result is a tie. —London Opinion. Bunny, Not "Birdie" Dock Curry to give him a chance to win a medal round when he reached the 18th tee of tho Sapulpa (Oklahoma) Country Club's golf course. As ho swung his club, a rabbit sped across the course. The ball struck and killed tho rabbit. —Tho Evening News, London.

Nerves Jarred JpPED ANDERSON, road-crew foreman, of Wynot, Nebraska, stored fifty pounds of dynamite under his shack bed for safekeeping. Recently lightning struck a near by tree and tore the door off the shack. The dynamite did not explode, but Anderson does not store it under his bed any more. —Tho New York Times. War Slang TDERHAPS it is because our airmen have been so active in the present conflict that most of, the new slang terms have come from them. To the R.A.F. a searchlight is a Paul Pry, unless it diffuses its beams, in which case- it's a bearded lady. Balloon barrages are rat-traps, life jackets are Mae Wests, while the commander of the air field from which they take off is the stationmaster —though not to his face. —Answers, London.

Fall of Man TT is officially denied that any parachutists have yet landed in this country. In anticipation of landings niul of the need to distinguish parachutists who have landed in the dew from those 'who aro descending or those still stowed away and awaiting the fall. I suggest (writes a correspondent) adding to the new para currency the word "paradrop" —which might, a little later, be withdrawn in favour of "paraflop." —Manchester Guardian. Staggered John Barry more, allotted a new dressing-room at the Fox Studios, Hollywood, was staggered when he saw pink elephants; wondered what he'd been drinking; then realised they -were part of the decoration, the room having recently been vacated by Shirley Temple. He moved out!

—Puck, In Tit-Bits, London In the Mail Box

MO mere receivers of bills and billetsdoux are the mail boxes of Milwaukee, according to that city's postmaster. Lizards, diamond drills, lunches, jewellery, gloves and compacts, recently found in the boxes, have lifted the postman's load from the cammonplace. In NeW York City mail boxes are favourite repositories for criminal evidence. Pickpockets often drop wallets —minus contents —into the boxes, while less petty criminals have been known to rid themselves of inconvenient revolvers in similar fashion. —The New York Times Magazine. "Pep" Needed

"VOXJ sold me a car two weeks ago." "Yes, sir." "Tell mo again all you said about it then. I'm getting discouraged." —London (Ont.) Advertiser.

Streamlined PER A TIC film star Grace Moore, recovering from throat trouble, takes as much care of her figure as of her voice. One impresario, meeting her for the first time, exclaimed: "At last 1 have found a Carmen who weighs less than the bull.'' —Puck, in Tit-Bits, London. Rubber TVTAPOLEON never gave rubber a thought. It was only a curiosity to him. Shoes were his great problem, because his armies marched. But Hitler? Rubber is a military necessity to-day. His armies did little marching. They rolled along at twenty, even forty, miles an hour, on rubber-tyred motorcycles, in rubber-tyred motor-trucks or flew as parachutists in 'planes with rubber-tyred undercarriages. A blitzkrieg without rubber is simply inconceivable. —Waldcrnar Kaempffert. in The New York Times.

A.R.P. at the Door CORRESPONDENT tells us that onlookers could not help roaring with laughter at an A.R.P. practice in Scotland the other day. A certain building was "blazing." and up dashed the Auxiliary Fire Service in fine fettle. The first man to reach the door rang the bell! —Children's Newspaper, London. Slogans TNVENTOR of snappv salvage slogans L is Mr. J. H. Codling, M.8.E., general manager, Birmingham Corporation Salvage Department. "It's a waste to waste waste," was invented by Mr. Codling; his other slogans include*: "We can't scrap without scrap," "Householders: Watch your waste line." —Puck, in Tit-Bits, London. "Take One Hedgehog"

r JPHE Gorman gipsy reported to have been fined for 'eating a hedgehog without an appropriate ration coupon showed the epicurean knowledge as well as the resourcefulness of his race, for, properly cooked, the hedgehog makes excellent eating. According to one authority, it can he stewed, toasted, or roasted, but the best of all methods of treatment (and the one usually adopted by gipsies in this country) is to bake it in clay in a wood fire. When removed, the clnv takes with it the spines and skin, leaving white tender flesh with an appetising flavour which resembles that of sucking-pig or spring (ihicken —I/ucio, In tho Manchester Guardian!]

The Little Singer T/\7"iE rend of a little girl of six who was nursing her doll and singing during an air-raid. And what did you do when you heard the bang? she was asked. "I just went on singing," she said. —(Arthur Moo, London.