Shaun’s Patch

Southland Times, Issue 22297, 12 April 1934, Page 8

Shaun’s Patch

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

The race for arms sometimes leads to a race for alms.

♦ * ♦ * Jardine has gone big game hunting in India. He seems to have had enough of another kind of big game in the meantime.

In party politics Mr Shaw evidently favours a party of one, a party by the name of Shaw. Well, that is the impression one has always had of him.

* ♦ * * Modem romance: Courting, caught, and then court. * *

MORE EDUCATIONAL AIDS. This has been sent by a correspondIf a male goose we call a gander, A male moose must be a mander. If one who fails is a failure, Then one who quails is a quailure.

If a female duke is a duchess, A female spook must be a spuchess. If drinking too hard makes a drunkard, Then thinking too hard makes a thunkard. * * * * PICTURE INQUIRY. From a reader: Dear Shaun, I notice that your valuable. paper is running a popular vote movie star competition. I hope, for your sake, that the great Garbo will miss the edition of the Southland Times in which the results are published, unless she is successful. I read the other day that she was shown the voting results in a competition run by the Tribune, in which Mae West headed the list. Breaking her favourite silence, Garbo replied: “And what ees the Tribune?”

A New York paper recently published this letter from a modern father to his modern daughter, and . there is probably room for an appreciation of it here:

My dear daughter: You ask me if your husband should stay on in his present position at an “adjusted” salary, but you forgot to tell me what he would do if he didn’t. You and he couldn’t very well come here just now. Your brother Sheridan’s salary has just been “reconsidered” so he moved into his old room at home and brought his wife. Your sister Eloise telegraphed the next day that Wilfred has just been offered a new contract that was an insult, so your mother is airing out her room. Wilfred never could endure insults. Your sister Frances, who, you will recall, has been a private secretary, wrote last week that if anybody thinks she is going to drop to the level of a common typist they are mistaken, so we expect her any day. What with these and the young children, I imagine that as long as Rupert’s salary is merely being “adjusted” he had better stay. An adjustment is nothing like a reduction. It’s hard for me to keep up with the language of big business but as I understand it, an "adjustment” is the equivalent to a rise. Of course, Rupert wouldn’t know that; he has been working only since 1928. My own business is coming along fine. It was sold on the courthouse steps last Friday, but there were no bidders, so that the sheriff let me keep it. That makes the best month since the upturn. Affectionately, Father.