THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 196, 20 August 1930, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

SPRING ! The motor cycle season is "I?; 1 " " s io And till the local "grousers arc comment 11 „ Thev'don't'a(lmire the dashing lad wliosc mobiko They b ; l a'e S him-w. IC n they madly sprint to dodge The very 1 sound of an exhaust will send them into In fact'the pessimists expect to see the lads in When'streaky Sam brings out his brand-new racer Thcv°"ook C at him and murmur, "Yes, he il soon M%IUn Cn 4)S «"* Say ' ° Ur y ° Uth And we hop and J un ]^ r— well, 'tis spring. j.vx.u. Tlie sceptic and the trusting one talked •Music Week as they strolled along the Auckland boulevard (by which the aristocratic street is easily pickcdj. TORRY GOO' F'LA. There came from a sumptuous building the sound of many men all joining in harmony. The burden of their accumulated lay was Mjor He's a Jolly Good Fellow." The distance was too great to distinguish whether the choir sang "jolly" with an "r" or not. The sceptic endeavoured to destroy the other's faith 111 human nature by suggesting that apparent]} "•lad ■ gatherings of men will often carol complimentary song about people they have never seen, of whom they know nothing, or of whom they know too much. He reminded him of those unconscionable people who mumble any nonsense to hymn tunes in places of worship, of schoolboys who in the general din consider it exceedingly funny to sing words foreign to tli-o text, and so forth. He conceived it possible for the accumulated men who sing with more or less fervour "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" to leave the meeting remarking that he was anything but a jolly good fellow, that ho was in fact the middle and two ends of a naughty man, or words to worse effect. Then as the twain listened in rapt ecstasy to "We'll tak' a cup o' kindness for," the sceptic glowed. "That's genuine, anyway!" he said, and the pair passed along , thinking hard of men and their funny littlo ways. A man lost eighty thousand pounds in a few hours at Deauville gaming tables. As the croupiers dragged in his successive thousands the loser remained as ! MAKE YOUR GAME! imperturbable as the croupiers. They haven't got a suicide's cemctcry in Deauville yet, but there is one at Monte Carlo. The imperturbability of the Deauville loser will remind old [hands of the equal imperturbability of one of the few men in history who broke the bank at Monte Carlo. Playing rouge et noir, he bet on the red (if one recollects aright) far, far into the night and every spin was a win. Was not his name Wells? Didn't some one write a song about him? . As I walked along the Bois dc Boulogne With an independent air The ladies nil declare, "He must be a millionaire!" You can hear them sigh And wish to die. You can see them wink the other eye. At tlie man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo. This being a restraining and moral paragraph, it may bo added that Mr. Wells spent a great deal of money and the best part of his life devising invincible gambling schemes that never came off. He died in poverty. One of the morals is don't do iix eighty thousand pounds all in one whirl. , _ .■. r ■ .There corn.es froijv the United States , a cabled messa.ee referring to the inexplicable passion df a divorced man for a bath. Parted from -his wife, the poor STOLEN BATH, fellow sought solace in a batliless home, for he could not afford this luxury. He therefore stolo back to his wife's house, probably every month or so, and used her bath. An American court has now restrained him from stealing a wash. There have been people not nearly so keen. The classic story has been told of the London coster, -who, getting on in the world, looked through a new cottage "with all modern conveniences." He and his wife came to the bathroom. "Blime, Liza!" he exclaimed. "'Erc's a barf room; wot can we use it for?"

A thoughtful and welcome interloper has asked M.A.T. why he shouldn't speak ill of the dead. Mentioning that Bernard Shaw had been rapped for writing WHY ? of the personal habits of his deceased father, he wondered why it is that the larger part of humanity loves to talk "behind the back" of his contemporaries. Every man, whether he is pure gold or mere dross/is the subject for delighted and wicked scandal. While a man is alive and scandal will harm him he is the target for every kind of abuse. When he is dead and scandal cannot touch him it is indecent to rail at him. Xo doubt the old Latin tag is responsible—"De mortuis nihil nisi bonum." There is no answer to the thoughtful interloper's question, except that people are human beings.

Mr. Justice Blair has said in Court that some peoplo seem to be "natural born wrongside drivers." Some people are born left-

handed, some people (aeLEFT INCLINE, cording to some "people) ..,•'.. tllink with the wrong side ol- the team. Some people hear better with one ear than the other, see better with one eye than the other, smell better with one nostril than the other, and so forth, and so on, ad infinitum. There is, however, one action common to humanity, with the necessary exceptions. Mankind naturally progresses to thei left and although for generations the rule ot the traffic road was to keep to the.left and the rule of the footpath to keep to the right, the first is natural. .Open two separate exits for largo numbers of people to escape and the majority will flow towards the left exit A lost person will circle to the left. The truth of these observations has even struck the military authorities, who insist that the man shall step off with the left foot

FAIR GO. o to+o De ,f; (I , M IV T -<Gen 9 ral vain in United States. Bcndigo milkman stabbed and robbed " J noticed the,foregoing "Table Talk" items in tie Star." Do you not think it only failthat the milkman should have been riven a chance to submit a sample for analysis ?- THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. The greater the difficulty the more glow m surmounting it. Skilful pilots gain their reputations from storms and tcmpests.-Eui-curus. * 1 * * • Genius is to other gifts what the carbuncle is to the precious stones. It sends forth its own light whereas other stones only reflect borrowed light.—Schopenhauer. •* * * Cursed js he that does not know when to shut his mind. An open mind is all very well m its .way, but it ought not to be so open that there is no keeping anything in or out of it. It should be capable of shutting its door-* sometimes, or it may be found a little draughty.—Samuel Butler. ** * . Death is an angel with two faces: To us he turns A face of terror, blighting all things fair; lhe other burns With glory of the stars, and love is there —T. C. Williams. ,