[Editor: Extracts from “The Critic” column in Truth, 12 October 1918, including some humour, poetry, and current events.]
The Critic
Who can undaunted brave the Critic’s rage,
Or note unmoved his mention in the Critic’s page,
Parade his errors in the public eye,
And Mother Grundy’s rage defy?
* * *
Youth pays compliments, but age has to pay cash.
* * *
Teeth are stopped with gold — tongues, too, nowadays.
* * *
A bachelor is a man who’d like to have a wife, but is glad he hasn’t.
* * *
The summer girl is full of possibilities — bare possibilities, so to speak.
* * *
We are just beating the German grip,
When along comes Spanish La Grippe.
* * *
Beauty unadorned is all right — for those who like it. So is tripe without onions.
* * *
Who dares decide when doctors disagree? The undertaker, mostly, with a tape-measure.
* * *
In the race of life women naturally have much the better chance. They’ve got such winning ways.
* * *
Clothes mean such a lot to a woman these times; that is such a lot of woman to go into such a little.
* * *
Perseverance is commendable, but the man who tries to have the last word with his wife is merely pig-headed.
* * *
The trampled worm will turn — but what of that?
When he gets trod on till he’s trampled flat.
* * *
The charms of Nature, minus art,
Have not a hope;
For who’d canoodle with a tart
Who don’t use soap?
* * *
While simple-minded workers take the view
That politicians earn their handsome screw,
For just as long will M’s.L.A. engage
To see that workers get a living wage.
* * *
There is an ancient story told
Of one whose touch turned all to gold.
But profiteers, at every clutch,
Take gold from every thing they touch.
* * *
The courts really are funny. If, say, a co-respondent defends himself in a divorce case he is stigmatised as a liar and perjurer, as well as an adulterer. If he owns up and fails to appear, he is referred to as a base seducer and a cowardly scoundrel, who had made no attempt to exonerate himself.
* * *
When if came to burying George Reid it was the Commonwealth that paid the undertaker. Australia had kept Yes-No for a long, long while, and when it no longer held a good job for him he dropped it and took up with “home.” And then the bill for the coffin was sent to Australia by Andrew Fisher.
* * *
“Fellowship,” in denouncing Premier Holman’s infamous Sedition Bill, remarks with sorrow that “Mr. Holman is an Australian.” “Fellowship” can spare its tears. Holman is a pommy, like Billee Hughes, Joe Cook, and most of our political misrulers. He was born in London; but, unfortunately for Australia, he didn’t stay there.
Source:
Truth (Melbourne, Vic.), 12 October 1918, p. 1
Editor’s notes:
Billee Hughes = William (“Billy”) Hughes, one of Australia’s long-serving federal parliamentarians (1901-1952), who served as Prime Minister of Australia during 1915-1923
canoodle = to kiss and cuddle in an amorous fashion
M’s.L.A. = Members of the Legislative Assembly (parliamentarians elected to the lower house of state parliament)
pommy = someone from England
Spanish La Grippe = the Spanish Flu
tart = a young woman; C. J. Dennis, in the glossary for The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, says that the word is a contraction of “sweetheart” (a later meaning is: a woman who behaves or dresses in such a way as to be considered sexually provocative; an older meaning is: prostitute)
Yes-No = Sir George Reid, New South Wales parliamentarian 1880-1901, federal parliamentarian 1901-1909, and the fourth Prime Minister of Australia (1904-1905); he was referred to as “Yes-No Reid” as he had been a supporter of the movement pushing for the federation of the Australian colonies, but when it came to the first referendum for federation he took an equivocal stance, neither supporting or opposing the vote, although he later campaigned for a “Yes” vote at the second referendum for federation
The Institute of Australian Culture
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