Shaun's Patch

Southland Times, Issue 22010, 9 May 1933, Page 8

Shaun's Patch

A little nonsense now and then Ii relished by the wisest men. —Hudibras.

When you’ve struggled for the Ashes, When you’ve fought like anything, When you’ve finished killing cricket with your pen, Will you kirrdly, if you’re willing Change the melody you sing And remember it’s a game for gentlemen. We’re absent-minded beggars When we hear the yokels bawl, And sometimes local' prejudice will blind us, But as we know that cricket Is a game and that is all We’ll hope that common sense again will find us. * * * * It might be better to play the next series for the Ashes by cable. * * * * So many people are able to tell us the things that are not cricket, that it is as well to look for those who know what cricket is. * * * * Sometimes I begin to fear it’s material for newspaper sensationalism or the foundation of a profitable book. * * * * A social column in one of the London journals spoke of “our. hostess a direct descendant of the Queen of Sheba. This is very interesting, though apart from the Biblical story, the oldest literature about her goes no further back than the 6th Century A.D. Her family record is juvenile compared with that of the modest Scot who said that the early history of his family was written in five volumes, the reference to the Creation occurring in the third. * * * * Yes, a lawyer may be a man of deeds, but most others are men of mortgages. * * * * THE INNOCENTS. She thought the dead languages were used' 1 by spirit mediums. ♦ * * * Before the last pedestrian Has gone to join his brothers, dead, We think ’twill be accepted that. All dreaming should be done in bed. * * * * One of the modern ideas is that if it is hal'd for the rich man. to get into heaven, most poor men think it can’t be such a wonderful place after all. * * * * If you’re knocking too often you may not hear Opportunity at the door. * * * * Well, we can be thankful that all that stands between us and a hot time is the winter. # ♦ * * Some wise spectator has observed that while there are two classes of humanity—the intelligentsia and the morons —the classifying is done by the intelligentsia. * * * * EDUCATIONAL AIDS. Give a sentence containing the word “intelligentsia”: “If she’s intelligentsia to see her.” ♦ * * ♦ “What will the modern girl be twenty years hence?” someone has asked. I should say about five years older. * » * * The recent death in England of a man weighing 40st has moved the recorders to remark that he was no rival to that prince of fat men, Daniel Lambert, who weighed 52?st at his death in 1809. His waistcoat, now piously preserved at King’s Lynn, measures 102 inches round the waist. If there have been fatter men it is not easy to trace them. There was the obese peer whom the tellers counted as ten to secure the passing of the Habeas Corpus Bill; there was the wife ‘of Robert Lowe (“Descend, ye nine!” was his ungallant address to her as she got out of her carriage); there was Gibbon, who got on his knees to propose, and could not get up again.