POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 72, 22 September 1930, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

BY PERCY PLAGE

Chronicle and Comment

Eastbourne's chiefest citizen (as reported) "hoped that the recent acquisi*' tion of an engine for the borough by the Fire Trust would stop the series of fires."—Both before and after they begin, we presume. However, the hopa will be enthusiastically echoed by th« insurance companies. • » ■, '• At a meeting of the Reform Party th© chairman described Mr. J. G. Coate% as "one in a million." Mr. Coates , • Is one in a million, But we can afford to laugh. Por we aro one— As the census goes— In a million ana a half. # * * Member for Tiinaru: '/Many of ths railway consignment notes need * lawyer to fill them in."—And in cas« of misadventure a Judge and jury ts sort them out. « « * The other day a southern M.P. described a Minister as a "political dud."—We have a curious taste, but we prefer our metaphorical shells dud rather than "fizzers." At least tha dud does not go ■on spluttering indefinitely. #■ # * ' Mechanical devices were a substantial factor in America's retention ol the famous cup. The toast is, brither Scotsmen (Let every mon stand np!) Sir Thomas Liptpn, yachtsman, Who failed to lift the Cup. 'Twas ■ nailed down fast as sportsmen feored. The Yankees see no sin In using gadgets wild and weird To help them play—to win. ; * ' *. * Triumphantly a distinguished Auckland daily announces that a lady who spent 6d in advertising for sale her Pomeranian puppy, found" a buyer the same evening, and "for three hours afterwards" had other would-be clients calling on her.—Just imagine the melee if she had advertised her baby bippa in the same popular journal!

A Swedish philologist claims to have made English the best universal language by removing tho troublesome points in matters like irregular spelling, the complexities of irregular verbs, the shades of meaning of "shall" and "will," and others of a similar character. —He is a trifle behind the times. Good 100 per cent. Americans have been talking that English ever since the late Georgo Washington did notcut down that ch.erry tree.

Adverting to a beautifying incident in Dunedin as an aesthetic protest against demoralising hoardings'.—lt is not the first example within comparatively recent times of the axe being invoked in the fight for progress. . In the interests (as she deemed it) of social and moral advancement, Carrio Nation was wont in the heyday of her zeal to invado saloons without notice and lay about her lustily among the resplendent bottles with the faithful hatchet to the great despoiling of the liquor Philistines and the blasphemous frenzy of tho "barkeeps. SJ

News item: Princess de Broglie, 74, married the cousin o£ King Alfonso, aged 41. The cousin is not highly; respected by tho French Government, any more than W. B. Hearst is.. Pageboy—the dulcimer. She is a prince's widow, , . More serious than sporty. She wed a man, she did 0, No more than one and forty. A cousin of Alfonso, And all their critics bray. Why do they carry on so, , Since Love will have its way* It's really very stupid To holler thus and bellow} The one to blame is Cupid— That wonder-working fellow. The groom, when he was 20 And she but 51, Made youthful love a-plenty— That's how the stories run. He isn't quite a saint —he Has had full many_ a gay day* And she is not so dainty .. As in her girlhood heyday;' But gentles, please remember, It's not a hanging crime For May to wed December — It's happened many a time. Sing Hey! For such bold wootnjf, Fidelity surprisingl Think of them, billing, cooing, With Eros supervising. This is—to cut it shorter— ,A pretty love affair, Though she's tho senile daughter Of a sugar millionaire. ' ■■ » ' # • London's builders are considering among other things structural expedients for coping with the noise nuisanca, Experimentalists in the great and glorious United States are going on* better: an architect has designed * windowlcsa edifice in which air anf light would be regulated by scientific means, and outdoor noises as well an indoor dust excluded. Those of our enterprising flatfc experts, who imagine* they had said the last word on this subject with beds, tables, and settees folding into the walls, may have their selfcomplacency shattered one of these fin* days. However, as even the Americans have not claimed to have mastered indoor sounds of revelry or tragedy, this field is not quite closed to the research student. ■ We live in hopes.

Stranger even than the story "of the' finding of the Andree relics is one recorded many years ago in the "WestI minster Beview." In 1775 the master of a Greenland whaler, after being be- [ calmed 'among an immense number of icebergs in about 77deg. north latitude, found a canal of open sea before him as tho result of a tempest which had sepa:ated and disengaged the icebergs. Two miles beyond a strange ship was sighted. It proved to bo a sinister looking snow-wrapt derelict, its hull miserably weatherbeatcn. -In the cabin was. found a man leaniug back in a chair, with writing materials in front of him. _ and a ship's log ... a doa^- «•*» with a green damp mould covering hi». cheeks and forehead. In the main cabin they discovered the dead body of a woman, whose countenance retained all the freshness of life. Seated ou the floor was the corpse of a young man, holding a steel in one hand and a flint, in the other, as if in the act of striking fire upon some tinder which lay beside him. In '■he fore part of the vessel several sailors wore found lying dead' in their berths, and the body of a boy. was crouched at the bottom of the gangway. On his return, the whaler's captain, using the mystery ship's log as a baeie, ascertained tho nntne and history of her, plus tho fact that she had been' imprisoned in fhe ice for ■ thirteen years.