POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 85, 7 October 1931, Page 8

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

But it does take a successful carpet manufacturer to make a good pile, doesn't it? * « * "Hiram P." writes in to say that, having read the Supplementary Budget proposals, it strikes him that our fanners have been put on a glorified dole. Well, they are the backbone of the country; the rest of us arc only the vital organs. ' * * * If this Supplementary Budget is merely a beginning of a series, don't b» surprised if your mortgagee totters up and, pleading his past magnanimity, asks if he may rent a bed-sitting-room from you, breakfast tray optional. ■» * # " , SEE SAW. It occurs to us that in order to help balance a national account that may tilt the- wrong way any day, a lot of personal budgets will ' become unbalanced. And if worse becomes worst— where's the Optimist Club?—we shall be in the air again, clawing frantically at the atmosphere. Anyhow, summer time is on the way, and the bears in Wall Street are champing their chops, the armament makers are sacking no hands, and tons of gold are on the air. You can't deny we are living in a wonderful period. * * # HERE'S ANISEED. At so much an inch, Marlborough, fearful for her destiny, imploreß Parliament, "without fear or favour, for a square deal." The reference is to the proposed—and, probably, inevitable —dropping of the South Island Main Trunk project for the time being; The appeal is eouehed in those terms (type to match) for which our ad. copy writers are now famous, and an illustration in line adds "weight to the drive" / . . as our high executives would say it. For us, however, the "blurb's" spot marked X is the revelation that there is such a place as Aniseed. Aniseed, mind you. At last that no doubt noble and aspiring hamlet is on the map, if only temporarily. Fame comes to people, places, and things in a curiously fortuitous fashion occasionally. '.!■ >i * THE UNITED KINGDOM IN A BANK! Dear Flage,—Are you living -where you're living now, or have you moved away? I shall be grateful for an answer by return "Post."' . ' Touching those curious name combinations and other things. A firm in business in Invercai'gill is that of Broad and Small, Ltd. Forty years ago, four members of the staff of the Bank of New Zealand, Wellington, were Messrs. England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales. Surely a strange coincidence that all four should be employees of the same bank, and all stationed at the same i '-a.nch at the same time? Passing along Lambton quay yesterday, this nftne on a window caught my eye: "C. You." Tho two following quotations, which appeared in "Punch" sixty or more years ago, beneath appropriate sketches, may bo of interest to your many readers:— "It ain't the 'unting as 'urts the 'osses' 'oofs, but its the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'igh road." " "If a haitch '11' a ho 'n' a ha 'n' a hess 'n' a lie don't spell 'oss my name ain't 'Every 'Olmes." MICKEY MOUSE. «■ •» » .... THE CHEMICAL KISS.' The skin on the face of a pretty girl is made up of thirteen ch'enWcalgl John H. Foulger, well-known chfcnistj Medical College, University of CLacinnati, says 100 grams of skin contiiwr Water, 61 grains; albumen and globulin, 0.7; mucoid, 0.16; elastin, 0.34; collagen, 33.2; phosphates, 0.032j fats, 0.761; common salt, 0.45; potassium, chloride, 0.04; lime, 0.01; also minute quantities of magnesium oxide, iron oxide, aluminium oxido, and sulphur. Charles Ludwlg, in the "Cincinnati Times-Star," is inspired to verso by this chemical analysis of sex appeal. The skin you love so much to touch, Now savants tell us, isn't much— Take thirteen chomicals and mix, And skin jumps from that bag of tricks! In epidermis of sweet lasß, Potassium and chloride gas Unite with common iron rust! —Our fairy is not even dust! And when you kiss and say "Yum, Yum," You osculate magnesium! Her cuticle has lime and saltNow will your fondling ardor hsltt Hell's phosphorus and sulphur, to<v Come into play when lovers woof Commingle in the velvet skin With mucoid and with globulin. Aluminium in pan and pot Doth never cost a man a lot: Much dearer Al2 03 In every maiden's cheek you see. There's XCI and H2O— How strange that men admire it sol The formula you love so well Has CaO, NaCl. And since the awful truth is out—*. Fair skin's no more than saver kraut— Will gallant lovers now all beat From cooing trysts a cold retreat? . NOT MUCH! Dame Nature put in ski* A chemical named COLLAGEN! It's still small voice doth, lure all men— Depend-on it, they'll CALL AGAIN! This is forwarded by "Pern Minon," who is concerned about three grams of ingredients unaccounted for. All we can say is that we haven't them. * *. ♦ PAX FOB THE PRECISIANS. Perse the Cutor, — Permit me to barge in on.tbc trail of tho precisians, who are striving with almost incredible earnestness to remove the mud-cloud from the well of English undefiled. I note that an American contemporary of yours, commenting on tho unstandardising of the language, recently suggested that, to make it universally intelligible, the President's statement on the debt accord should have been issued in two languages— English and Broadway's. The second version would then have read as follows: — Washington—After a good deal of boloney was sliced on both sides, Mellon anil Laval got together in Paris today and signed on the dotted line. For a year Germany will chip in as per specification, but as fast as the jack is shot into the Bank for International Settlements it will be looped back into Lager-land. This goes for a year. As Joe Humphries doesn't say at the Garden, or More. And that is a far cry, isn't it, from the oldest English epic, "Beowulf," which begins (not commences): "ltwaet! we Gar-Dena, in geardagum, thcod-cyningn thrym gefrunon." May'l add that it would be a groat joy to hear that fervid admirer of this country, Mr. Bacycrtz, declaiming this in his best Bignold manner. Dan Chaucer.