WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE SAYING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23809, 9 November 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE SAYING

They Keep Their Distance '•'TVHE bombardment of Bnrdia and 1 Fort Capuzzo by British warships, came as a complete shock to the Italians," writes a correspondent. It is said the reverberation of the guns could be heard as far away as the Italian navy. _ punch _ Panic-Formula WHAT the panic-formula, if any, for ' ' a British crowd may be we ve never heard. The cry "Pan is dead! stampeded the Greeks en masse some time ago, as Slogger Rabelais reports. Possibly the crv "Bradman is dead! would do the same for the Island Race. D. B. Wyndham Lewis. London. Concession to P.C. Grundy THE rector of a Lancashire parish tells an A.R.P. story of his district. When an old ladv heard the siren the other night she hurried to the shelter wearing only her nightdress. ' A policeman saw her and said. (»ood lord, missus, vou can't come 111 here dressed like that. Go back and put something on." . Presently she returned, wearing her —The Daily Telegraph, London.

" Quick —where is he? I've got a job for him." —Answers, London Brittle Notes T)0 not handle the new English bank notes too roughly or you may break them in two. Sounds a bit silly, but that is the experience of those who have had dealings with the recent issue. Apparently the cause of the trouble is the thin thread which has been woven through the paper to make forgery more difficult. Folding along this line, even inadvertently, weakens the notes, and they are finding their way back to the banks as "casualties" much more quickly than the old ones. —Leicester Evening Mail. "After Me" "ATODKST young lieutenant (reporting to C.O. after raid into No .Man's Land): "Captain, L wish to report Private Hicks' conduct in the highest terms of praise. He is the bravest man in the world. He followed me everywhere I went.'' —Judge. From the Personal Column riTHIS advertisement appeared in the personal column of a Chicago newspaper: "Gladys: Conscription passes—you lose me for a year. Protest to your Senator now. —Fred. 1 ' Next day the following advertisement appeared: "Fred: Are you a man or a mouse? A country worth living in i.4 worth fighting for. — Gladys." —Tho Observer. London.

And What Did the Driver Say? 1 A BUS driver in a Greater London district occupied his time during an air raid warning making adjustments to his engine. When the "all clear" was sounded, he was under the bus and a passer-by called out to him. "It's all clear now, chum, you can come out." —Daily Express, London Sock in the Gallery A DELEGATE to the State Federation of Labour Convention at St. Paul rose to demand ejection of "the person waving the red flag in the visitors' galleries." The sergeant-of-arms had started toward the galleries when an indignant woman spectator stood up and protested: "Ibis ain t a flag—it's a sock I'm knitting for my husband." —The New York Times Donation * , TY r HEN a German raider aimlessly * dropped a bomb near his residence at Trim ley Park, Surrey, the other day, A. R. Rolli was so indignant that then and there he wrote out a cheque for £SOOO and sent it to Lord Beayerbroolt, Minister of Aircraft Production, with the request that he buy a Spitfire with it. —Tho Xew York Sun High Adventure AT ARRIAGE will always be the greatest of life's adventures and, speaking for myself, I would rather be unhappily married than remain lor ever what is unworthily called an old maid. —Lady Oxford, in Daily Sketch, London Flop "YfYSTERIOUS voices broadcasting recently from Deutschlandsendor to imaginary parachute troops in Great Britain. "Mere is Holtinann . . . Watch 31 .... Sunrise 5.18. .'. Use code 7," rattled nobody in particular, this being a very threadbare old trick indeed. It lias been used ad nauseam to dissolve important Cabinet or directors' meetings, under the form ol anonymous telegrams saying "All is discovered, get out at once. For many years this trick succeeded with ridiculous ease, the fattest of Big Business men getting; off the mark to the Argentine with the agility of a wounded springbok. To-day, a chap in the City tells us, the receipt of such a message merely causes a passing panic and, possibly, a fatal seizure or two —D. B. Wyiulhani Lewis. London.

H.M.S. T LIKE the yarn of the British sailor who, taken prisoner and questioned by a German officer, was asked why his cap bore only the letters H.M.S. "To remind us of the three blighters. Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin," he said. —Puck, in Tit-Bits. London "They Can't Take It" TV" HERE AS for a century educated * people in Great Britain have spent their holidays in France, only a small minority 'of Frenchmen can face the horrors of our climate, our language, and our food. —Mr. Harold Nicholson, M.P. Panama Hats p A NAM A HATS may as logically be be called New York Bay hats. They were named Panama because they cross Panama on their way north from Ecuador, where they are made. Francisco Delgatlo, a native of Monte Cristi. made the first one in tho Province of .Manavi, Ecuador, 300 years ago, and now the whole population, from the (i-vear-okls up, are hard at work in the trade which brings the nation about. ROD,OOO dollars a year—in good years as much as 1.234,000 dollars. —The New York Times Magazine. Book-Lover's Request ATANY will sympathise with the late Sir George Macdonald, who has recorded in his will the wish "that books with my own or my father's name shall not be exposed on the sixpenny trays of second-hand bookstalls." These nomad and derelict volumes always remind one of children handed oyer to an indifferent and possibly unkind stepmother. And not only that, but an indefinite sequence of them. —Observator. in (lie Observer, London. Yachtsman's Grace T'HK late Tom Ratscy, the famous Sailinakcr of the Royal cutter Britannia, Lipton's Shamrock. Sopwith's Endeavours, and defenders of as well as challengers for the America's Cup, always said this grace: "ThankGod and tiie British Forces.'• I heard it for the first time dining with him in his home at Cowes at the end of the last war, in which lie had lost three of his five sons. "It is short, and my own," be observed in his quiet, dreamy way when I remarked upon it. "and we have cause or we should not be here." I recall this because it would not be easy to improve upon Tom Ratsoy's grace in sucji times as these. Peterborough, in the Daily. Telegraph, London.

Just an Error i CLERK in the "Tote" at Saratoga Springs (Xew York) racecourse punched four place tickets in error tor a horse Bav Curst?, and as he could not sel I the tickets he was "stuck" with them. Yes, the horse ran into a place all right, and the operator won £72 by his error. „ —British United Tress "Ring Out, Wild Bells!" Bell-ringers are touchy chaps We once quite innocently surmised in print that they probablv didn't perspire much at their pleasing toil. Hordes of infuriated bell-ringers attacked us instantly, roaring that 110 other men since the world's dawn ever sweated so profusely as thgv do in the act of ringing out old shapes of foul disease, the narrowing lust of gold, and the thousand wars of old, and ringing in the thousand - years of peace for which we have to thank them once a year. Had Tennyson belonged to a more realist school lie might have added a checrv little verse about bell-ringers wringing out their shirts as well. However? the Queen might not have been amused. _ , —D. B. Wyndham Lewis, London Service " i CAR just went over ;m embanknient. Would you like a picture?'' a reader telephoned The Seattle Times the other day. The paper pays amateurs for news pictures, so the city editor replied "Yes, thanks, just bring it in." The man brought, not a picture, but the crumpled car itself on a wrecker. —The New York Times Fame OOJIE years ago the late Professor Alexander told a story about Sir Joseph Thomson, the brilliant scientist whose death was announced recently. Alexander met an old schoolfellow of Thomson's who deplored the way in which children often failed to fulfil promise in youth. "1 was at school," he said, "with a boy whose brilliance was generally recognised, but who over hears of Joey Thomson now?" —The Manchester Guardian

No Lady r THIiHE'S a cannibal walking through the jungle with a very pretty black girl. They meet a missionary who stops to pass the time of day. "Won't you introduce me to the lndv?" asks the missionary. '"'That's no lady," replies the cannibal, "that's my lunch!" —Lord Donegal in Sunday Dispatch. Lon. don.