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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 15, Issue 3 (June 1, 1940)

Button-Bound

Button-Bound.

It might almost be taken as a truism that the man with the fewest buttons has the most success. Going back a mite, there were no buttons on the breeks of the Greeks, and look what they produced. The Roman legions were as buttonless as a bare majority, and look where they got—that is, before they got. The Zulus and Hottentots and Oozey-Woozeys were the happiest of folks in nothing but the old school tie; but that, of course, was before their energy was sapped by buttons, aided by mouth organs and gin. On the other hand all the Nazis are practically asphyxiated by Buttons, which is perhaps the greatest indictment of buttons possible to imagine. In the words of the Buttonless Bard:—

Men boast that they're fully aware of their muttons—

The good and the bad, and the fat and the phut ‘uns—

And yet they're in trouble the most of their time,

Their policies palsied, their verse out of rhyme.

Some say that the reason such policies vex

“We have all longed to sit on tables.”

“We have all longed to sit on tables.”

Is merely that living is far too complex. Some say it's the fault of the opposite sex;

And others that Progress has taken the fence

And galloped to glory with man's common sense.

But don't you believe it! The reason why man

Is constantly leaping ‘twixt embers and pan

Is merely that he, in extreme agitation,

Is faced every day with a devil's creation.

His temper is frayed ere he faces the fray,

His passions are purple; his outlook is grey,

Through twisting and turning and grunting with pain,

While buttoning buttons again and again.

The reason why men make a mess of their muttons,

Is mainly that moderns are gluttons for buttons.