WHOSE NEWS IS GOOD NEWS? / Travelling by train, I found that across the aisle from me were some English businessmen, new to Canada and apparently here to reap some dollars for the homeland. They had a lot of Canadian newspapers with them, and they expressed their dislike of these loudly and with great frankness. “Rags” was the most flattering word they employed, and they agreed that on the whole the papers were “simply Death.” Even so I have heard Canadians blather their dislike of the English press, because the Times carried no account of the ploughing-match at Tin Cup (B.C.); I suppose these Englishmen missed news of the Harvest Festival at Lesser Piddle-in-Puddle (Beds). English papers publish very little Canadian news and Englishmen are apt to snigger in a superior manner when this is pointed out to them; they imply that Canada has no news that anybody wants to hear. So I was glad that these noisy rascals found our papers distasteful for identical reasons, and I read my own sheet with loud “Oohs” and “Ahs” indicative of extreme relish, to vex them. And it did, and they moved to the dining-car, grumbling at the thought of being given ice-water to drink.
NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS / Attended a theatrical performance and was impressed once again by the amount of coughing which a Canadian assembly can manage, and by the freedom with which this national habit is indulged. Not merely the aged and infirm, but the young and the hearty, the valiant and the fair, cut loose with coughs like the roaring of lions. Mentally ran off a new verse for our national song, thus:
O Canada, our home, our native land,
Chronic catarrh makes all our tubes expand;
With raucous cough we greet the dawn,
With snorts we hail the noon,
The emblems of our nation are
The kerchief and spittoon;
Post-nasal drip!
Woooof! Let her rip!
We face the future trusting in our grippe —
(Exultantly and accompanied with loud coughs, hawkings, gaggings and retchings.)
DE-FY The World with Freedom in OUR GRIPPE!
From My Files
To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.
Dear Mr. Marchbanks:
I hear that you are going on a trip abroad, and that you are going by plane. Of course I wish you the best of luck but I suppose you have been reading the papers lately? These plane accidents are the limit, aren’t they? Every day a plane or two seems to crash somewhere. This being so, will you be wanting your garden hose if anything should happen? I mean you won’t, of course, but what I mean is can I have it? We have never been very close friends, but I would like something to remember you by, and mine is going all to pieces.
Bon voyage and happy landings,
Dick Dandiprat.
*
To Richard Dandiprat, ESQ.
My good Dandiprat:
No, you may not have my garden hose under any circumstances. If evil should befall me while in flight, it will become the property of my heirs. They will, I presume, have to water the grass just as if I were alive. Your attitude suggests that of the vulture.
Indignantly,
Samuel Marchbanks.
*
To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.
Dear Mr. Marchbanks:
I have received your request for something to keep you from being sick while flying. I confess that I have never had such a request before, but it is an interesting one, and I have spent some of my unengaged moments experimenting on a pill for you. I am sending you something which will deaden most of your nervous centres, and completely close your oesophagus, so you will be in no danger of throwing up, at any rate, ha, ha! I should be obliged if you would let me know how this pill works, and particularly if it has any unpleasant effect. I wish to perfect it, and any help you can give me will be appreciated. It is still in rather a rough state, and may be a little too powerful at present. Still, kill or cure.
With good wishes for your voyage, I am,
Raymond Cataplasm.
*
To Raymond Cataplasm, M.D., F.B.C.P.
Dear Dr. Cataplasm:
Thank you for the pills. You don’t think they are rather big, do you? And don’t you think black is rather an unsightly colour for a pill? You know best of course. However, as I wanted them for use while flying I experimented last night by giving one to a dog, and swinging it violently in a hammock. I am sorry to say that its oesophagus was not closed tight enough to prevent a very disagreeable outcome, and I had to get someone to do the cleaning up, as such incidents unnerve me. Furthermore, I was busy trying to revive the dog, who seemed to be in a coma, complicated by bad dreams. If you don’t mind, I shall not take a whole pill if I feel unwell in the air; I shall merely lick one. To make this simpler I am mounting them on sticks, like lollipops.
Sincerely,
Samuel Marchbanks.
*
To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.
Dear Mr. Marchbanks:
Although it is some years since we met I am sure that you will remember me perfectly. I hear that you are going to Edinburgh by air, and I write at once to ask a small favour. Will you take my sewing-machine with you, and send it on to my sister in Aberdeen? For some years I have been looking for an opportunity to send it to her, but I would not trust it to unfriendly hands. The machine will reach you tomorrow. I know that you will not mind doing this, as I have read all your books in our Public Library.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva Hawser.
*
To Miss Minerva Hawser.
Dear Miss Hawser:
I am returning your machine, which weighs 75 lbs., collect. I am only permitted 66 Ibs. of baggage.
Yours without regret,
S. Marchbanks.
*
To Amyas Pilgarlic, ESQ.
Dear Pil:
You have often complained that the art of correspondence is in decline, and I suppose you are right. Everything seems to be in decline, one way or another. The long eighteenth century letter is a thing of the past. I seem to spend a large part of each day writing notes of all sorts, though I rarely get a chance to write long budgets of news to my friends — among whom I am proud to number you, you frowsy old pedant. I shall send you a postcard from abroad. By the way, do you remember Min Hawser? I thought she was dead, but I had a note from her the other day — wanting something, as always. The longevity of nuisances is one of Nature’s inexplicable jokes.
With warm good wishes,
Sam.
*
To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.
Dear Mr. Marchbanks:
As you are in Edinburgh I know you will not mind doing a favour for an old friend and well-wisher. My family, as you know, is Scottish and I have long wanted to honour the land of my forbears in some striking fashion. Will you buy, therefore, sixteen or eighteen yards of material in the Hawser Tartan — the Dress Hawser, not the Hunting Hawser — and bring it back to me when you come. You might as well see it through the Customs, to avoid any trouble. I shall then cause an evening dress to be made from it, which I shall wear on any occasion which seems to warrant such a display. I hope you enjoy your stay in “the land o’ cakes.”
Lang may your lum reek!
Minerva Hawser.
*
To Miss Minerva Hawser.
Dear Miss Hawser:
When I made enquiries here concerning the Hawser tartan I was greeted with oblique glances in several shops, and all knowledge of your family was hastily denied. Are you sure that you know all the circumstances which led to the migration of the Clan Hawser?
Long may your blood boil,
Samuel Marchbanks.
*
To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.
Dear Mr. Marchbanks:
As you are in Edinburgh I write to you for information on a matter which arouses me to anger. I read that the British, subverted by foreign restaurateurs, are now eating horseflesh. If this is true it must stop at once. Cruelty or indignity to dumb creatures is a thing I will not tolerate, even when it is posthumous. I demand that you get to the bottom of this story at once. And if you yourself have been eating any of our dumb friends, I command you, in the name of Canadian Womanhood, to desist immediately. Cows, yes; pigs, yes; fowl (so long as they are not singing birds) yes. Of cats I forbear to speak. But horses and dear, dear doggies — NO! Please reply immediately this reaches you. The eye of Canada is upon you.
Yours,
(Mrs.) Kedijah Scissorbill.
*
To Mrs. Kedijah Scissorbill.
Dear Mrs. Scissorbill:
Pray compose yourself. I have not seen any horseflesh consumed as yet. If I have eaten it, I knew it not. Canada may therefore take its eye off me. I may perhaps quiet your suspicions regarding British Dogdom by telling you that there is a statue to a dog in Edinburgh; it is Greyfriars Bobbie, a dear doggie who used to go regularly with his master to a restaurant in Greyfriars; when his master died the doggie kept on going to the restaurant for 20 years, begging for food. Everyone was touched by this act of fidelity, including the restaurant-keeper, who reckoned that in that time Bobbie had sponged 7,300 meals from him which, at sixpence a time, amounted to a little over £180. He felt he had been extraordinarily touched. The statue of Bobbie was erected by American admirers of the dog. No other dog in history is known to have been faithful to one restaurant for so long. I am, Madam,