A FEW EPITAPHS.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 277, 28 February 1929, Page 7

A FEW EPITAPHS.

MOTORISTS WHO HAVE PASSED. Epitaph writing in connection with the deaths of reckless motorists is becoming a fine art. The following quatrain, which appeared in a Canadian newspaper, should prove an inspiration for the versatile epitapher: They’re picking up the pieces With, a dustpan and a rake, Because he only used his horn When he should have used his brake. All very nice! But I think that Mr. Kipling might have done more justice to the theme by giving us something like this: — If you had only listened for a minute And cast a heedful eye along the track; If you had seen the train, the roaring power in it, And kept your head, and held your auto back; If you had chosen Reason’s course to follow j And scorned to join the list of fools who laugh, I would not have to take my pen and wallow * In quarts of ink to write yoyr epitaph! While the Canadian poet, Mr. Service, would have rattled off a little bit in the following style:— There are strange things done where the speed-hounds run And the traffic is thick and fast; And each highway long has its own sad song Of the motorists who have < “ passed.” And the crossing can tell of strange things that befel The fellow who tried to slip by it; I But although we all weep as we bury him deep There’s always another who’ll try it. In his own inimitable style Lewis Carroll probably would have written in the following vein:— “ You were fast Mr. Binker,” the speed-cop said. “ And I wondered haw e’er you could do it: But now you are quiet, clammy and dead. ... I told you some day you would rue it. You used to road by like a swiftshooting star, And laugh at the signal lights shining; And boast how you always could make it in “ par.” . . . Now all your relations are pining!