SPINDRIFT.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17039, 12 May 1923, Page 8

SPINDRIFT.

Reader? are invited to send in original topical paragraphs of verso* for the column, whioh is a daily feature of the , Star. - ’ Accepted contributions should be «iut out by the writers and forwarded to the Editor, who will remit tho amounts Payable. A bewildered correspondent writes to me as follows : Dear Sinbad, —I am a business man of the old school, and for thirty years 1 have conducted my' business by” rule ol thumb. That is to say when there was any money in the bank I bought stock with it or appropriated it to my own use; when there wasn’t any I sat tight. Of course I kept account of my receipts and expenditure, but very little more. In my young days we ha-d a contempt for accountants as mere pen-pushers, and personally I can add up a column of figures fortyseven times and get a different answer every time. But I realise that times have changed. The accountant is now monarch of all he surveys; the eaith is his and the fulness thereof. Being minded to ascertain how my business really stood I engaged on© of these gentry to unravel my books, and a pretty task he must have had. However, he did so eventually and presented his balance-sheet. It was all Greek to me, but to my horror I found a debit balance of a verv large amount. I thought I was rumed but the accountant assures me that this implie a that the business owes me that amount; 60 the debit balance is really a credit balance. He says that when a man P a y s a bill of £5 the amount should go down as a debit, because it is £o more that business has to account for, while if £5 is paid out that goes down as a credit. It seems a very topsy-turvy system and I am half afraid that the man has been pulling m .Y teg- Can you advise me? I don t know why I have been honoured with this question, but I advise my correspondent to accept the accountant’s assurance. The accountant’s standing is much the 6ame as the doctor’s. He has operated and apparently the operation has been success rul. It is not for the patient to question his method*.

A correspondent in a morning paper declares that motorists are being harassed by the police, while pedestrians and cyclists break the traffic laws with impunity. The office poet has chewed over this announcement and produceu the following lay ; ho says that motorists are rash: - chat they just love to feel some poor pedestrian go crash beneath a rubuered wheel? That breaking laws is iheir delight and speeding up their joy? Such accusations are not right and made just to annoy. So says the man who comes at last to plead the motorists’ cause, to prove they never drive so fast nor break the traffic laws. tie wields a mighty nimble pen ana shows with every line that they’re the mildest mannered men that ever paid a fine. lo say they drive at breakneck speed or cut the corners close is just a libel on the race, a falsehood ilat and gross. He further goes ou to explain that on the other hand pedestrians daily cause them pain and are a reckless band. They wander blindiy o’er the road, with measured steps and slow; they wear an air 01 iou be blowed ! ” and look not where go; while cyclists are a darned sight worse, they just put down their heads and go like fun, they are a. curse more trying than the peels. AH this I might believe, perhaps, if I’d no eyes t-o see, but what I’ve seen of motor chaps with this does not agree; and as I seek no martyr’s crown I’ll use my little power to have the motor spee*u kept down to fifteen miles per hour. The little band of motorists who with the laws conform should help to smash the anarchists whose conduct, raised ihis storm; for those who never heat their cogs much sympathy I feel, but to the racing motor hogs I’ll hand the roughest deal. At a wedding in Invercargill fh© other day the contracting parties were named Nicholl and Silver. This marriage should wear well. “Good gracious, Johnny!” said a Christchurch lady to her little boy, who was doing his ‘ practice,” “how many times are you going to play that piece through?” “ Well, mother,” said the young hopeful, “ time T come to the end it says ’ and T have to start again.” “ PUSSYFOOT’S ” fcABLE. The following cablegram has not been received in Kaiapoi from the wellknown Yankee orator. Broadway, New York. Dear Kaiapoi people,—l gave you the opportunity last December of making your country dry Now you’ll re gret it. JOHNSON. the Vest. It isn’t Smith’s fault—l know all that; but he is one of the most depressing men 1 ever met. He carries about with him the atmosphere of a chemist’s shop, and he is seasonable to a degree. Just now, eucalyptus, camphor and creosote are his fancies, aud he looks as if he had taken a dose of tbe wrong medicine. He’s the kind of chap who never has a straightforward illness. He’s always seedy, and in possession of some trifling ailment which. afflicts his friends far more than it afflicts him. He makes it a rule to tell you his family history after he has known you about two minutes. His grandfather was a martyr to asthma, and his grandmother suffered from nerves. Smith has inherited the complaints. Inherited—pah ! I met him yesterday and told him he was looking well. He denied it. “I thought you would say something of tho kind,” he remarked with a gloomy smile. “ That’s the peculiarity of th<?so tropical complaints. Ague, you know, brought on by this rotten weather.” He shivered—and I caught a passing tram. Smith’s all right, but what he really wants is to be bitten by the cheer germ, especially these dull days.

TO CREATE A MODERN HAT. Tf lady readers will closely follow these directions, the success of the venture will astound them:— Take any shape of straw that poses as being the foundation of a hat. Give the thing to the babv to play with for ten minutes on a well washed, •dry floor free from prevailing draught*. Choose a large collection of odds and ends. Day them on the middle of the table. Bandage your eyes and draw ends and odds alternatively with either hand. With the eyes still bandaged sew or gum all the odds on one side and the ends on the other. Remove the bandage from your eyes, throw the creation in the air, and catch it on your head as it falls. Pin it- there instantly. This decides which is the front and also on what part of the head the hat is to be worn. If. on your first appearance in the street on the next fine day, your friends say, “That’s something like a hat,” you may know you have not worked in vain. wire* “