Whiskers In
p. 10 · Read in the full issue
Tahiti
PAPEETE, August 10.
WE, in Tahiti, are becoming accus tomed to doing without superfluous things. But we face the terrifying prospect of becoming lost in a jungle of whiskers. Razor blades for our type of flaying instrument have vanished from the earth.
A spade beard, in the Torrid Zone, is equivalent to wrapping one’s face and throat in red flannel. Perhaps we shall have to revert to the primitive method of tweezers.
New Stamps
mHE most exciting thing which has X happened in our island during the past month, is the issue of a new series of postage stamps.
The ardent collector, whom neither war, pestilence nor famine can divert from his hobby, will have fourteen new stamps to add to his accumulation of treasures.
The War And Tahiti
rE war? We hear about it from Lon don and the manifold broadcasting stations in the USA, and our learned armchair generals map out the course of empire for our enlightenment.
Our American industry seems to have adjusted itself to the pattern of war; but, unhappily, our broadcasting net works have not. The directors of these no'sy institutions are arranging their programmes on the theory that all the men in the United States armed services are jitterbugs, vulgarians and in a state of arrested mental development. Our soldiers and sailors, moreover, must be highly edified whenever some smug Babbitt assures them (over the radio, as often happens) that he is 100 per cent, with them on the field of battle!
And the shrieking sopranos and bleat ing tenors who clutter the air, whenever the makers of bar-room jokes pause for breath, must incite our boys to go out and kill Japs in order to relieve the ten sion of exasperation. Our research scien tists have not discovered the stirring military music which regimental bands played in the days of Grant and Lee.
However, those ineffable “chestnuts” of John Philip Sousa (which have been dis interred from the rubbish heap of the Spanish-American War) are brilliant classics compared with the ’rah ’rah “pep” songs of Middle West freshwater college, which are being served up as military band music by our broadcasting systems.
Weather Gone Haywire
THE seasons, in this part of the world, have (to use our American idiom) gone haywire. During those months when rain is supposed to fall abundantly, we had a long dry season. Now, when we should be in the dry season, we are drenched with rain and buffeted by winds whenever we venture abroad.