FUN AND FANCY

Taranaki Daily News, 12 May 1934, Page 22 (Supplement)

FUN AND FANCY

HINT. “Is your watch going?” she asked, stifling a yawn. “Yes,” he replied. “How soon?” e * ® ® HIS GOOD DEED. Inspector: What right have you to take fish without a permit? Angler (sorrowfully): I’m not taking the fish; I’m feeding them. # « * •, First Castaway: Good heavens! Cannibals! , Second Castaway: Now, now, dont get in a stew. * » • • Wife: The dressmaker says she. won’t make me any more dresses until you have paid her bill. Husband: That’s splendid; I’ll send her a note of thanks. ® ® ® Office Boy: Please, sir, I think somebody wants you on the telephone. Chief: Now, what’s the use of saying you think I am wanted? Am I wanted or not? . “Well, sir, somebody rang up and said ‘ls that you, you old idiot?”’ ##* , # “What did George’s rich aunt leave him in her will, after he had spent so many years pretending he was fond of her beastly cats?” “’The cats.” ® • ADVANCE NOTICE. Insurance Man: And if you have any kind of a fire notify us immediately. Shopkeeper (feeling business depression): Next Thursday. # * * • FINE IDEA. “If you wash your face I’U give you some chocolate,” said grandmother. “And if you wash behind the ears 11l give you some more." “Grandma,” replied little Johnny, “perhaps I’d better have a bath.” • # • NEVER LOST. The schoolmistress was giving her class a test on a recent natural history lesson. “Now, Bobby Jones,” she said, “tell me where the elephant is found.” The boy hesitated for a moment, then his face lit up. “The elephant, teacher,” he said, is such a large animal it is scarcely ever lost.” « # « COLLECTING. A visitor to a carnival stopped by a merry-go-round. He noticed a miserable looking man seated on one of the wooden horses. But what struck him as strange was that every time the machine stopped the man made no attempt to get off it . • • At length curiosity overcame the visitor, and when next the man on the horse. stopped opposite him he said: “Pardon me, sir, but do you enjoy going round and round like this?” The unhappy one grimaced. “Not a bit,” he replied. “Then why do you do it?” asked the visitor. “The man who owns this affair owes me a pound, and this is the only way I can get it out of him,” came the reply. . WELL TRAINED. “Just why do you want a married man to work for you, rather than a bachelor?” asked the curious chap. “Well,” replied the boss, “the married men don’t get so upset if .1 yell at them. a • ■» ® EXAMINATION TROUBLE. Q.: What is raised chiefly in damp, climates? A.: Umbrellas. a • « ■ DEFINITION. Teacher: Tommy, can you tell me what a neighbour is? Tommy: It’s a woman that borrows. GARDEN. NOTE. Quizzer: Will you raise your own vegetables? ' . Shrewdman: No. Just praise what the neighbours grow, and they’ll give me the best they raise as a brag. » ® # • COMPLIMENTARY. . Girl Motorist (after the accident): Really,’it wasn’t my fault. I put out my hand. ... » The Other (suffering, but still gallant): Your hand’s so small, it’s no wonder I didn’t see it. '■’# # ’ . • ® HER CHOICE. “You are busy.” “Yes, I have just, chosen the material for my wedding dress; I m to be married in a fortnight.” “Really! I hope you have made a good choice.” . “Yes—the most beautiful material I could find.” » ♦ ® FAVOURITE BOOK. “What is your favourite book?” “It has always ’ been my bank book, but even that is lacking in interest now. «*♦ . • DEFINITION. “I feel so excited,” said little Margie, who was going to a party. “What’s ‘excited’?” asked a younger child. •• „ “Why, it’s being in a hurry all over. « # * * DRAMATIC EFFECT.

Coalman (to young assistant): “Don’t march in with the sack—totter!” • ' - * • *

Young' Husband (breathless): I got your telephone message and came at* once. Whatever has happened? Young Wife: Oh, darling, you’re too late. Baby had his toes in his mouth and he looked so pretty. HIS ADVICE. Johnnie had been disobedient, and finally his teacher asked him to stay after school. “Johnnie,” she began, “I have to mark the report cards this evening. Now, what do you think I should do about yours?” , “Well,” said the youngster, I trunk you really ought to go home and have, a good dinner and rest before you mark mine.” # « « * Husband (newly married): Don’t you think, love, if I were to smoke it would spoil the curtains? Wife. Ah, you are really the most unselfish and thoughtful husband to be found anywhere. Certainly it - would. . Husband: Well, then, take the curtains down. ' « # * • Customer: Will you take back the ring bought here yesterday? Jeweller: Wky, didn’t it suit. , . » Customer: It suited, all right; but I didn’t. » * * •

Wife (at dance): This is the twelfth time you’ve been to the refreshment buffet. . ~ . tx n Husband: Oh, that’s all right. I tell everybody I’m getting something for J ou. * * * * “Someone has invented a substance which he claims is considerably tougher and more resistant than rubber. “Huh!” snorted Mr. Benedict. My wife has that recipe in a cookery book and I often get it for dinner.”

WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK. WHY THE VISITOR SMILED. The other day a visitor entered one of the British film studios who seemed to take special interest in some trick camera work that was going on. The expert in charge gave a detailed and complicated explanation which left the visitor looking puzzled. “I could tell you a lot more, but what is familiar to me would be Greek to you,” concluded the expert “Is that so?” replied the visitor, and went away with a somewhat amused l°°k. ... x-ii The expert did not see the joke till someone told him the man he had been talking to was George, once King of Greece. SAWING HORSE IN HALVES. THE SECRET GIVEN AWAY. The following is a recipe for sawing a horse in half without harming the animal: “Take one large horsebox, especially prepared and raised on four short legs from the floor. Lead the horse into the box' and close the door, the animal’s head and tail remaining visible through the two large apertures at each end of the box.. Then cut through the container with a .large double-handed saw and lead the horse out—-unharmed.” The working of this illusion, says the Morning Post, is simplicity itself, according to Mr- Will Goldston, the founder of the Magicians’ Club and, under his professional name of Carl Devo, one of the most famous conjurers of modern times. In his book, “A Magician’s Swan Song,” he explains how the trick is done. “Obviously the first thing to be done is to get the horse out of the way of the saw, and this is managed by a ‘horse container’ in the box. When entering the box, the horse steps at once into the container, which is then lowered into the false bottom of the box by means of two cables. A dummy head and a dummy tail are hinged to two rods concealed in the front of the box, and in order that they may have a live appearance two wires are connected with them and carried up to the flies.’’ That is all, yet, according to Mr. Goldston, the working “is far more simple than one would expect it to be.” The secret of Maskelyne’s famous “magic kettle,” which was capable of pouring out practically any drink asked for, how to raise'“ghosts,” and, last but not least, how to drain a two-gallon cask of water (or beer) at one draught, are but a few of the many “simple” illusions explained. But even magicians have their lighter moments.' There was, for example, the case of the huge African who called on Mr. Goldston and asked to have demonstrated to him the latest novelties in magic. The conjurer’says:— v “I showed him a trick in which the conjurer apparently swallowed one of two wooden balls. He was delighted with this and ■ said he would buy the trick. Under my tuition he began to practise it, but,, although he started well, he . actually swallowed, or nearly swal- • lowed, one of the balls during the second rehearsal. “I was genuinely alarmed and punched him on the back of the neck. We succeeded in.dislodging the ball, but tiie huge African was in no mood to continue further experiments. In fact, he went—l was almost going to say red in the face-rand hurried out.”

And finally a few words of advice to would-be professional conjurers: “The cultivation of a good , manner is almost as important as the ability to do tricks neatly and well. You may be the cleverest magician that.ever lived, but if you have the unhappy knack of rubbing people the wrong way you must not expect to earn a magnificent living from magic.”: BIG BEN AND BIG TOM. CHANGE IN ST. PAUL’S TOWER. Big Ben has been order a two months* rest-cure from April 30, says the Daily Telegraph. . ' . The deep booming note, familiar to Londoners, and, since the advent of radio, to millions’of listeners throughout the Empire, is to be silenced while the clock to which the great bell is attached is undergoing repairs and an overhaul. - During Big Ben’s enforced silence the wireless time signals will be given by the chimes of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Big Tom providing the strokes of the hour. The announcement that Big Ben would be temporarily silenced was made in the House of Commons by Mr. Ormsby Gore, First Commissioner of Works, who informed Mr. James Duncan that it had been found necessary to overhaul and clean the great clock and to. rehang some of the chiming bells of Big Ben. AU the beUs would be silenced, he said, for a period of approximately two months from April 30. The repairs to the clock would be carried out by the manufacturers of the clock under their Current contract, but the beU mechanism would be overhauled by the same firm at a cost of £260 under a separate and special contract. . The work of overhaul, an official of Messrs. E. Dent and Co., the makers of the giant clock, informed a representative of the Daily Telegraph, wduld involve the dismantling of both the hour and minute hands. The mechanism of the clock will also be cleaned 1 and overhauled, as well as the bell wires and connections. Nothing will be done to the bell except cleaning. The fame of Big Ben, which takes its name from the great bell in the Clock Tower, is world-wide. Its notes have been heard by wireless lisfeners as far afield as the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, and by explorers in the heart of Africa.

When the atmosphere has been very clear Big Ben has been heard striking over six miles away, and now, by means of loudspeakers on the top of Broadcasting House, it can always be heard in the West End as well as at Westminster.

In spite of its size—it takes two men five hours three times a week to wind up the clock —Big Ben is one of the most accurate clocks in existence, and rarely is it at fault even by a fraction of a. second. The early history of the clock—it has been in continuous use since 1861— was one of muddle and dissatisfaction. Before it was finished there had been four Parliamentary papers on the subject, several petitions and resignations, and numerous intrigues. When the dock was ready the big bell was found, on test, to be so badly cracked that it had to be broken up and replaced by the present belt Again, when the. bell was ready and the clock had been brought in sections to the foot of the tower, it was found that the clock shaft was too dark to work • in, and there was further delay while windows were installed. Constructed under the direction of Sir G. R. Airy, the then Astronomer Royal, the clock has four dials, each 22 J feet in diameter. Most of its wheels are .of cast iron.. The hands and their appendages weigh about a ton and a half and the pendulum 6cwt. The bell which strikes the. notes of the hour weighs 14 tons. Like its unfortunate predecessor, it is cracked, but as the defect was not discovered before it was placed in the tower, and was . found to have little effect bn the tone, it was allowed to remain.

The. clock is cleaned about every ten years.