THE LUMBER ROOM

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 49, 13 March 1937, Page 4

THE LUMBER ROOM

' PAUL PBY."

[a]

Staying Put. On peeping over the very high wall which separates me from my neighbouri Ute new*»' column, I notice commeati upon the spread of that new French oustom, namely "le strike stay-in" or more expressively "staying put" Wheto. dissatisfied. ■ There ia no doubt that this metho.d of expressing disapproval might be distinctly embarrassing under certain circumstances. Suppose for one moment that the passengers of our express to the Capital city declined to disembark on Teaching their destination, beeaUee of §ome trifiing argument with the guardl They could, of course, be shunted and left to their own devices, but what if protests became frequent? Wellington would be surroUnded by train-loads of passengers quietly living in their carriages, cluttering the rails of the shunting yards. Then again, what if an amdience declined to move at the conclusion of a poor talkie? In a large theatre it would be quite a task, don't you think, to eject each striking patron? One could set fire to the building, an expensive method of dealing with the situation. And lastly, what wbuld happen if, on a certain day, all the jolly sportsmen throughout New Zealand who gather at 5.30 in their favourito inns_, xefused to go home at 6 p.m. as a national protesfc against a rise in price of beer? Speculation of this Mnd can go on indeflnitely, of course, but I expect I hjave eaid enough. Warning to Reader*. Most of our novelisbs to-'day warn their readerS that the characters por-. trayed have no counterpart in real life. The following notice by Mark Twain at the beginhing of "The Adventures of Hnckleberry Finn" is novel in its departure from .the usual. NOTICE. Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in itowill be shot. By order of .the Authotv If a Vesry New Poet had Writtea 4 4 The Lotus-Eatexs. ' ' A SPECIMEN VEESEi Work! Did I used to work? I seern to xemember it Out there. Millions of fools are stiU at It, Jiumping about All over the plaesft s e fj s And what'* the good. of it' all? . s • » Buzz, Huatle, Pop, And then ni -Dump In, the gravey j —LC.S. ' Who Says that the No, IS IS Unluckyf As to-day is the 13th of the month, - popular snperstition would have ua believe the day, on account of the muu- . ber, to be' unlucky. Our American cousins, however, find a certain stimulna from 13. If we consider their Great Seal, we will find-— 13 Stars. 13 Stripes, 13 Arrows in the eagle's talon. 13 Clouds in the glory. 13 Letters in the motto, 13 Laurel leaves. 13 Berries on the br&nch. 13 Feathers on the left wing. 13 Feathers on the right wing. 13 Feathers in the toil, 13 x 3 letters in "The Coat of Ara* of the United States of Amsriea." In conclusion a count of the above xeveals the number 13 repeated 13 timee. And finally there are only thtee Saturdays in 1937 which fall on the ' 13th of the month, to-day. being the 5eeo,ndfl Down In the Deep, The noted comedian Stanleye Lupino, in his autobiography tells of an amming incident during a Drury Lane melodrama: — 1 ' One scene included a spectaenlar fight between two divers at the bottom of the sea. The setting was most realistie and the illusion that the men were really beneath the sea was remarkable. But one night, in the most « tense moment, the gasps of apprehension from the audience guddenly changed to giggles, and 60on swelled to peals of laiughter. For there at the bottom of the mighty ocean,?amid the waving seaweed and slimy rocks, sat the theatre cat, with one leg cocked be- - hind its ear, caljnly washing itself "l Taxless Utopias. The principality "of " Liochtenstein ruled over by a Prince who is reputed to be worth more than £20,000,000 is inore than forttmate for none of its 12,000 inhabitants pay any taxes. The Prince himself takes this duty upon his own shoulders. Have we an embargo . against princes of such a naturel The citizens of Monaco are not toxed either. All the expenses of running tha country are defrayed by the visitors to the casino in Monte Carlo. Such are the profits from the Casino that it can alford to pay an annual salary of £20,000 to Prince Grimaldi, the xuler of the country. A point also, future r.ulers of this country might toy wi.th the idea of paying the civil service from the money invested in totalisators, A Tragic Mistake, In 1851, during Napoleon ITL's cOUp d'etat, when an aide reported that the mob was facing the Imperial Guard, Count de St. Arnaud, who was just troubled with a cough, exclaimed: 4 4 Ma Sacree toux ... my damned cough * .• . " This the aide understood to mean, "massacrez tous," ^ j massacre everybody. The order to fire was given and thousands of human lives were lost. The Truth Is That . . . There is no cork in cork legs . . ^ the name comes from Dr. Cork, who invented them. The coffee berry is not a berry . 8 it is a s(3eu. There is no kid in kid glovos s « t they are made of lamb skin. A steel yard is not a yard nor is it steel • * , it is a regulator jMt balance. The flying fox is not a fox s , s [it is a, large bat,