"Truth"Talks

NZ Truth, Issue 1029, 15 August 1925, Page 19

"Truth"Talks

with the man at the Comer on Topics of the week

A SHOCKING AFFAIR. "I see a lot of people have been getting- shocks from these electrified wires lately," said the Man, folding up a borrowed newspaper. We agreed that it was becoming a shocking habit that ought to be checked. "I saw a friend, of mine get one through the telephone wire the other day," remarked the Man; "and he hasn't recovered from the shock yet." We had no idea a man was m any danger on the telephone, and suggested the Man should communicate with the postal authorities at once. "He's not complaining," replied the. Man. "It was like this. He asks me to wait a while till he rings up someone on the penny-in-the-slot contrap-

tion. I was supporting- the bank alongside and admiring: the shortage of skirt .this.. Avinter when my, friend staggers out, and I thought he was going to collapse." "'What's happened to you, Hec? Got a shock?' I asks. "He looks at me, dazed-like, and then has a pop-eye-full of three coppers m his palm. "'Shock!' he gasps, blinking at me and /then at his hand. 'I nearly dropped dead.' , "Then he tells me that he got Central instanter, and was through to the chap he wanted as soon as the penny .was m. He made a date with his party m two ticks of a lamb's tail, .and as he hung up he heard a rattle like a Lizzie changing gear. He looks m the pan, and finds the kind girl at Central has wired him threepence m coppers! All inside a minute. Wouldn't it shock you, 'Truth,' if you got on to a live wire like that?" "What did the sufferer do about it, Mr. Man?" we asked. "Oh I insisted on taking him along and cutting it out — he needed it." THE FADING FASHION OF THE FEZ. "It seems that Turkey' has gone a bit beyond our cartoonists," said the Man. '. ' "Turkey," we said, astonished. "It always was." "You don't get me. I mean the country of Turkey," explained the Man. "Do you know that the new Republican of Johnny Turk is a very different person from the old one. I'm interested m old Johnny, you know, for I spent a few months of my life dodging his bullets." "We don't know much about his private life," we averred, "though we did see a few of them once. If you mean that he doesn't smell as abominably as those who were captured- on Gallipoli, we're very glad to hear it, Man." "I don't think he does," said the Man, "but it is his dress I was referring to. You'll remember how the Sick Man of Europe used to be depicted by our cartoonists, always as a stout and sedentary old party, wearing a fez, and smoking a hookah. Well, the old fez is a wash-out these days, they tell me. Johnny Turk is getting a real live wire, with Western ideas, and chewing gum would almost suit him better than a hookah." "Surely, Man, you're exaggerating." "Not a bit of it. Lately the army, the navy, and the police m Constantinople have been issued with peaked caps, and, more revolutionary still, school children have petitioned to be allowed to attend class bareheaded. Whereas m the past only foreigners wore hats (native Christians as a mark of subjection had to wear the fez), some Turks axe now to be .seen actually m straw , hats. How these Moslems are going to touch the floors of their Mosques while wearing peaked jcaps_(and they must be hatted and shoeless m Mosques) is what I'm wondering. Oh, yes, this business with the hats spells a big change m Turkey." a PET ILLUSIONS. " 'Truth,' " said the Man rather dolefully, "the world is full of Npsey Parkers, is it- not?" "Ovex-crowded with 'em, yes," we murmured. "What's th? matter now?" "Well, they've destroyed one of my pet illusions that I've had since I was a schoolboy." "That may be a very good thing, j Man. It's no use going through life] always under an illusion." "Perhaps not, 'Truth,' but this was merely a poetic illusion. Matter of fact people may think it is wrong to! do so, but I can see no hai*m m believing that Longfellow's yarn about the schooner Hesperus was founded m fact." "And was It not?" "Not a bit of it. Why, Longfellow seriously libelled the skipper. That is, if we are to accept the results of I modern research. When the skipper j blew a scornful whiff from his pipe and reckoned he could weather the roughest sea that ever wind did blow, he wasn't boasting at all. All tha damage done to the Hesperus on tho reef of Norman's Woe was the fracture of a bowsprit, and the breakers which roared 'Ho, ho, 1 were simply making much ado about nothing. So, too, apparently, was Longfellow." "Is that a fact?" we said. "Well,, they've destroyed our illusion too. Still, it is good to know that the little daughter wasn't drowned, eh?" "Yes," said the Man, with a grin, "as humanitarians we should all be delighted, no doubt, but still I think there is little good service m destroying the poet's license. After all,; you know, it pointed a very good moral to the childish mind, of the vaunting skipper of the scornful laugli who came the crash of- most, boasters. Now it seems that Nemesis didn't punish insolence, and reckless pride went unchastened. The lesson is lost." ■■■■.-..