LIFE’S LITTLE WANTS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 21 October 1930, Page 4

LIFE’S LITTLE WANTS.

Heroic! She: Do ’ee know that Oi call ’ee my hero, .large 1 He: Why shouldn’t ’ee? Bain’t Oi goin’.to marry ’ee? * * * * She Needed Help. ‘‘Pardon me, sir," Mrs Portly addressed a fellow train passenger, “but would you mind assisting me off at the next stop? You see, I am very large, and when I get off I have to go backward, so the conductor thinks I am ing to get aboard and helps me on again. He has done this the last three times I have tried to get off." • « * * Mother’s Consolation Prize. A woman with 25 children was awarded a consolation prize in a competition organised, by the Hungarian Government for the finest family. Frau Skilia won the first prize of £350 with 14 children, which were adjudged the healthiest and best brought up. * * • • More Flat Life. Sir Jphn Sulman, the well-known town-planner, predicts more flat life for Sydney. He says that the depression will force people to try to live more cheaply. “ Sydney does not yet know what fiat life means, compared with European conditions,” he added. “After a study of Danish, Swedish and English garden cities and suburbs, I am compelled to regard Australia as being.far behind in town-planning methods." -* * * * British Talkies. The favourable outlook for British talkies is commented on by the directors of British International Pictures, iL-td., in their annual report last month. The profit for the year was £177,948, and the directors recommend a dividend on the ordinary shares of 8 per cent per annum less tax. “The directors are pleased to report," it was state(l, “that during the year the company’s productions of talking pictures have met with much ■success. The technical difficulties of the transition from silent to talking pictures have been successfully overcome. Production costs have been substantially reduced, and the company’s income from the hire of films, which generally is now based upon a percentage of drawings, has increased as compared with the income previously derived from (flat rates of film hire.

“Owing largely to the familiarity of British voices and forms of expression, British pictures are now meeting with a measure of public favour unknown in the days of silent pictures. The directors theerfore, look forward with confidence to a steady increase in the prosperity of the company.”

The directors of the Associated British 'Cinemas, Ltd., a subsidiary company, also recommend a dividend of 8 per cent per annum on the ordinary shares, less tax. > ' 1 * * * * Understood. There are many people who know “Not Understood,” and yet have the vaguest ideas of its author and his country. A striking instance, of the appeal of the well-known lines is reported by Mr J. C. Kay, manager of the Western Springs Speedway, who has just come back from a trip to Canada and the United States. At Vancouver he found a motor dealer named Mr Fred Deelev, who thought so highly of Bracken’s lines that lie had thousands of copies printed and distributed them each month when he sent in his account. On one occasion, when two of his clients were at loggerheads, and looked like heading for the bankruptcy court, he used the poem -with good effect. Taking one of the pair aside, he slipped a copy of “Not Understood” into his hand, with a “Look here, old man; just take this home.and have a look at it.” Then he waylaid the other member of the firm and repeated his advice, neither, of course, knowing that the other had been given the same counsel. Next morning two very cheerful clients walked into Deeley’s office, shook hands effusively, smiled “a yard wide,” and from then on they made an excellent thing of their business, and, in the words of the fairy tale, “lived happily ever after.”And the metamorphosis was all due to the little seven-verse poem written by Tom Bracken in “little old New Zea--land.”