CUTTING IT SHORT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2095, 26 February 1920, Page 1

CUTTING IT SHORT.

A FEW EXAMPLES OF THE PITHY PAR. „ (By R. Dunstan Gray.) “In the woollier parts of America they have a terse way of recording that which, given in detail, might read undesirably gruesome. Thus a. Philadelphia paper: ‘John Jones, coloured, employed at Smith’s Stores, looked up the shaft to seedt the elevator was, coming--down. It was." 1, —Daily Express. If this method of reporting were to be adopted by our English newspapers we should, no doubt, coma across paragraphs something like the following: — In Birmingham an electric tramcar endeavoured to turn a somersalut as well sis a sharp corner. It was quite upset because it couldn’t do it. Archibald Perkins, tifty-six, threw himself in front of a Tube train yesterday afternoon. In a letter which was found in one of his pockets, Perkins complained that he was fooling tired of life. To-day he isn’t feeling tired of anything. Ernest Goods!one endeavoured to pass an animal, in a (icld which he look to be a cow. Long before ho arrived in the centre of the nexl Held he knew'it was a bull. A laundryman, charged at the police court with being drunk and disorderly, was informed by tho magistrate that his excuses wouldn’t, wash. “That’s a line sort of joke!” exclaimed the laundryman, in disgust. And it was. A good many people left their umbrellas at home yesterday, under the impression that it was going tobe a line day. "It was a very tine day indeed —for the umbrella makers. Finding that the train he was on did not slop at his destination, Paul Jones jumped from a third-class carriage yesterday while the train was rushing through the station. The platform was not seriously damaged. Amos Stewarl, a farm haild, while litling a bucket at a well with a broken winch, over-reached himself and pitched headlong down the shaft. On reaching the hottoni of the well he kicked the bucket.