THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 205, 30 August 1926, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By TEE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) WHAT IS FAME? Fora few lines consider Fame. Who created the gro.u Nil, dams that tranefvirmi-d Egypt* You don't know What was the name of the wonderful chap who made London and other railway tubes possible? No answer. Who made the Xew York subways? Silence Who are the greatest footballers the world has ever seen? Uproarious unaniminis (and correct) answer from every tin oat in Xew Zealand, barring two Welshmen. Who is the Worlds Sweet-in-art 1 Easy one that. Who wears impossible trousers, a hardknocker, ear. ries a Whanghai cane, and turns his feet out? What a question! And who is The Sheik? And thai's the point Rudolph Valentino, once a kitchen hand became a world iimiiv because of the wonder of mod urn publicity. There would have been no Jiysteria'if he had remained a dish wa,!ier. He was more widely known, and mourned more sobbinply than any king or statesman or scientist who ever lived. More money poured in to him in a week than pfcure in to an unknown man in twenty years But he had noiu- when he died; " a o eager people still pour it in for a memorial!

Still speaking of Fame. Here is James Vuunjr, senior laboratory assistant in Sydiivy, who is eullVring progressive mutilation because of X-rays. "He saved others, himself iie cannot save." An effort was made to ob;ain him a grant from one of the hip American or Emdislj ■■X-ray martyr funds." Xone was available.

Valentino for the purposes of ths game was au American. If his name lives in ton years he will be claimed as 100 per cent American. One of the greatest of all Americans obtained no fame till lone after lip died over an affair with drink and ruffians. Still many really do discriminate between ths gnniu 5 of the -rreen artist, and that of Edjar Allen Poe.

MEMORIES OF TOWNS—(7) BATH. Tiiose who have nevah been to Bath, and connect it merely with. Prince Bladud, livcrless Anglq, Indians, Komaa washing places, chalybeate waters aed aristocratic poverty, will be astonished to, hfar that Lansdown Hill is as steep as a story told in Bellamy's after a division in which the Ins won. Ferocious old -generals from India prowl about the streets, chests to the front, their inflamed yellow countenances being a welcome 3 pot of colour. Dissociated from the persistent supposition that it is the gathering ground of gouty gentlemen and poverty-stricken duchesses seeking eligible partis for their seven younger daughters, Bath is beautiful beyond the understanding of he who has but basked in the bounties of Grey Lynn or revelled in the glad aroma of Vincent Street. It is a , place of crescents —beautiful late (Jeorgian and early Victorian houses in circles with magnificent gardens in the centre, and the circle of well-kept road and footpath. A Xew Zealand town planner with a notion that "here is a tree, let's kill it and make a concrete knob/ let loose in a real town such as this would be slain by seven infuriated generals. Here one remembers to seen the largest concentration of volunteer troops held up to that time in England. Here the Romans roamed. Here are still the bath chairs propelled by ancient men and containing hooked noses backed by arid aristocrats with blue complexions.

Religiously they go to the pump room and drink the waters, and with faces expressing the greatest detestation are wheeled back to their hotels saying what a lot of good it has done them. One has tasted chalybeate water in Bath, and many other places where Xature does this dreadful thing. Even if you haven't been at Bath you will remember that Sam YVeller told his footman friend the water? tasted perticklerly like warm flatiron?. The description, stands, but one would have been glad to have Sam's description of the taste of that dreadful spring at Te Aroha which lurks in the bush just before you do your daily sprint up to the Bald Spur. THE GHOSTS.

There have been recrudesenees in the Old Country of ghoets. Footfalls unattached to feet have stolen up stairs. Eerie voices have been heard. Mysterious whispers have circulated round corridors. Severed hands have waggled before the eyes of portly old gentlemen, after dinner, and England is herself again. At one time it was hardly respectable to be without a family ghost. If you could have a Xorman knight in armour prowling about the front passage at midnight, you could easily get into the House of Lords. One ghost one remembers was, according to popular rumour, seen murdering a lady alongside a pooL The whole tragedy " was to be observed through the front window of a nobleman's empty house. Thousands came to see. One remembers gluing one's infant and terrified gaze >'ii that fearful window and not seeing anything. In one's own hous-e. (an ancient edifice antedating a few Ueorge*) an old Quaker used to wander a bunt looking for his money. We knew he did because we heard him creaking on tlic stairs. One distinctly remembers finding no money Friends posse-sed a mo?t valuable low moan. It had been in t'.ie family for generations. Jt runic from a lady in grey, and she used to s-tagger aruund the roof giving vent to tlrs "moau. Some fool of a plumber muiulud the chimney cowl in a lit of tliuiifrlitli-—ne -. and one of the best gho=ts in (iinueestershire ceased. At Thames during the last century. Parawai had it; spring-heeled Jack, 'if- was of the lifted turnip and broomstick variety. He was credited with powers of spring hilhcrtu unknown. He sprung int-. a irivup of miners one evening. Their particular superstition was to jjivr ..1! ■jh.js! s a "hiding." Illness prevent, d she ;:'.f<>l from further nitinitVgiing hiinsi-Sf. in the Waimarino ihcre i« a liaunied wlurc due remembers That the only tiling it wasn't haunted with when 'la-: <>iw was there was fn..d. S!iakps|i.-a'-j ha 1 a paragraph about tin- witching hour it li'.yht when ciiun.-hyan'n yawn . ■! 1 ;;■,■■„•; give up their dead. '.M..-:. ■■':,,-; ■.■•\'xs would make ariytliing y.i\\ :.. NO MORE SMOKE. Jt i≤ anti,-i;.,r,r,l lii.n -oner or later Lo/idon will'iic -:.■,.: ■-. This promis-e of Muuki'io- u> > v i.iiuls one ot thi! smcikine-? hi \\ .. i ::!■_■:. n. where they ii.-cl to h:ivii mij.-'i an c' v -- ; w destructor i]iat the blast '.i.fw :. : - nf :'.".iier tha- fiivoiii-. :: ■ ■■..!. • . .\- rJ.I backyards knee-deen ivi:!i t:i-.i-ure->. Auckland, as yet. i- hnppih" almost irec from the s:nuk.' ::i;i-;iino, although it may l,c oxpcclcl a- -onn as com - _ meroe moistens its ■•.ilrn-. Pure and unsullied as the onto"- atmosphere is in the Queen City. ■.nuikeleJsnesa has not yet invaded Auckland bi:*o«. i What a chance for bacoa curerfc