POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 86, 8 October 1931, Page 12

POSTSCRIPTS

BY PERCY FLAGE* *

Chronicle and Comment

Charlie Chaplin would cure ■unemployment by means of "increased wages and shorter working hours." But tow many pcor/lo liavo , the shorter (or; shortest) working hours as it is; it's, the- wages (increased or otherwise)] they're troubling about. ■*■*¥■ "Ham Fat" discourses: "Did )ou note that in commemor.V tion of a, veteran organist of ours th^ 'chair rendered :i selection from Men* d'olssolin's "St. Paul"?' And ,5» had thought musical chairs, as a pa* time at least, had gone- out of fashion, I hope the timbre of the 'chair' wai not too excruciating." .*. . .* . ♦ S.I.M.T.L. ' While its fate hangs in the balance—» And that is a fact indeed— Our sympathy flows in a stream to thos#j| Waiting in Aniseed. * . '■': . * ' #.' CONSOLATION. If the authorities do~send him dowa' for a period to Leavcnworth* Gaol, Al Capone, for the first time in. many] years, will bo able to sleep without a bullet-proof vest beneath his pyjamas. If he should be acquitted, it wouldn't surprise us to hear that this podgy; master-racketeer was suing the Gov* eminent for defamation of character^ Why not? ♦ • ♦ HARASSING JOB. "It's not an easy life,-" said lh^ handicappcr sadly. "What with keeping track of the owners who arc out of New Zealand but will be back in! time for Trcntham and Riccartbn, and the trainers who havo brothers-in-law; running horses in the same race, and tho jockeys who are giving the borsei a tun to see how good are the animal* they have been tried with, a" few; pounds ono way or the other doesn'^ make much difference. What I wanij to Bee is more trials on the race* course." »'♦ - ' * PUZZLE NUMBER. ' "Wandering Willie": Well, I'll bite< M. Plage. What sentence, uplifting or downcasting, can you make from 1,121,790? > Hold your breath, William, and lis* ten carefully: "One follows another one, to one's Heaven, I know." Now^ if that's not a grammatically com.* pleto message to humanity, we shall never smile again. •** > j ANOTHER PHENOMENON. j Dear Percy,— It was interesting to read in yout! column last night of tho schoolboy'aj version of tho fate of Napoleon. Strange to relate, after reading your! .column —I do not worry much about! the rest of tho paper—l took up a book I am reading at present, which represents the diary of a young lady ofl fashion in the year 1764/5. The SnU paragraph I read explained that ,th^ good lady had been to take tea. with « fair cousin, who told her ot a peculiaij reply she had received to on invitation! she had sent to an army officer who was evidently on guard duty in the Tower of Londou. The reply was: "Captain: Pole regrets ho cannot acceptf kind invitation, but is prematurely «onfined in the Tower." This proves that Napoleon was nofc tho only human phenomenon that lived! K.B. > *■ • *■,-•( ■■*■ MAME MONOLOGUES.' Our magnanimous action in publishing tho M> Clancy letter of insinuation and reproach last week—you recall thai circumstances?—has turned the , ador« able woman incorrigibly Pankhurstiani in the suffragist sense. Hearken unto) her:— Flage did the right thing, as I thought 'E wouldn't . . . not a bad ole sort. These men need handlin', else they get A trifle collar-proud, you bet. They're jest like cupboard lovers . . . yel Playin' on one's good-'eartednes.«,' But when you look to them to do i A teeny bit of work for you, | It makes one scream to 'ear the fus» . . 4 Honest, they 'avo a lend of u». 1 Once Bill was like th»t—nice at pi«, J Kiddin' a treat to me, but I Woke up to William's R.ime at last. An' it 'c didn't getter blast, Well, ask me virgin auut, for she Is truthfuller than 'im nor me. Any'ow, may it please your grace. Bill ever since 'as known hees place. We wimmeu '"js our right*. Why not! ' It's miglitly little else wo got! _ . There's Mrs. Lenin now ... a, trick, i Whose 'usband was chief Bolshevik 1 Until 'o died as all wo must (An' will stay dead for good, I trust)-* Well, Mrs. Lenin, as, I said. Carries some wi&c things in er> 'cad. ' Whnmcn, she 'olds, was never gave To1 mim to bo been drudge-fn'-slave* To bear 'im children in a string, Or toil too 'ard at anything. An' whatjer think? In China,, where ; The situation's honly fair, Mothers receive a word of praise tfor 'avin' triplets .' . . spate me days! . That in a country where they rear , | Millions 100 many hcvery year! , . * * ,*, NOBLE IDEA—AND SO SIMPLER Dear Percy,— "Getting at the truth," requests tho "Single Taxers" to give their depression remedy. This' remedy is "Single Tax"; or unimproved values taxation. In the past, unimproved values were created by raiding tnej people's "equities." This was donar by the optimistic knave,.; and- speculator, who took a glorious view o£ thai public utilities, that the public were, likely to create, and pay for, during the next hundred years, and being m the position of being abloto dispose of! a property, estimated its value »• h'un-. dred - year's hence, and clapped tiriij value on to tho-property, and eoldto; some fool, who had the same glorious; view, or to some pessimistic victim^ who wasn't interested in valtaee,- a. hundred years hence, but being tired; of a nomadic existence, was-compelled' to pay the price demanded, in order, to. end it. Now our cure for this was to let the- optimistic raiding specula^ tors and knaves get away with th« plunder,' and tax'! tho buyer, -bo he,foo| or victim, in order to make the build-' ing costs of "a house and expenses ofliving in it so high-that no one would want to livo in it. The scores of empty houses in the city to-day shows our euro to be right. . Single tax will cure the depression. To do this you assess all the improvements on a pro-. perty as unimproved value; two-thirds of the improvements are already assessed as unimproved value, so it would beno,hardship to add the rest to it; an<^ tlien you tax this unimproved value. Thus you get a single tax. This would do away with all the landlords. These skulkers would immediately become "conscientious, objectors" of payment of the tax, and would disclaim all ownership of tho land; and the poor people who occupied the h"^«s, nolv being tho owners, would not only havo no rates and taxes to pay but be abl« to liv' 3, rent free into the bargain;'and so we could all. live hnpjiy ever after.;. 1 VCOUJtijl