THE PASSING SHOW

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 276, 20 November 1926, Page 8

THE PASSING SHOW

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)' PLANTING. "Arbor" writes, "Apropos of your reference to the passion of New JJealanders for the destruction of trees Margaret Lee Ashley's verses'":—I have planted a tree. Sweet winds, will you wait for its branches to grow 7 0 friendliest snow, Will you cover its boughs from the cold When my seedling Is old '! 1 have planted a priest for the sky; A temple tor birds passing by ; A net to entangle the moou A green shelter at noon. I have taken a spaae And a naked brown shoot and have mads A miracle. Nay, the glory is Thine, 0 God of the dew and. the air! But the wonder is mine— And mine is the prayer; In far summers my eyes ma.v not see. Let green brnnches murmur of mc 1 have planted a tree. AN 1.0. U. A northern contemporary tells the story of a bank manager who has haci a long and varied experience. This experience has lately been added to. Besides being bank manager he has been treasurer of a bowling club. On the defaulters' list is a man who owes the club a shilling. The bank manager has received a promissory note from the defaulter for the amount in dispute, the same being due and payable on October 2026 (a hundred years hence) "on the Bank of Hell." A courteous note accompanied the 1.0. U., saying that the 'drawer would esteem it a personal favour if the president, the secretary and the treasurer would be personally there to receive payment. The drawer added that he himself would be unable to be present at due date as he would have higher things to think about. NEW REFORMERS. Steps are being taken to form si new political party in New Zealand.— News note. All other brands but ours are wrong, The earth can never get along Unless we put it right. We coihe a new, but mighty band « To take your politics In hand. ' We come, of course, to fight. What scoundrels Other parties are! Of course, well give 'em all a jar. Our motives are the purest yet. They're villians—every one but us. We'll give 'em beans—yes, every cum. We'll sock it into them, you bet I The country can't be ruled in peace Unless we rule it. Then wUI cease All quarrels and aU piques. Our rivals are a race of thieves. By Jove! our honest heart it grlMea. Our s-oul with pity reeks! ' The country's going to the dogs. Simply because all men are hoes (Excepting us, you see). But we will put New Zealand strtlgnt (If it, of course, is not too late.) For all eternity! MORALISTS OF THE MITT. Jack Johnson, formerly senior bruiser, was, before he discovered the size of his punch, what our friends in America call a "hobo.' He knew as much about art, letters, politics and sociology as Julius Caesar knew about Zeppelins; but instantly he had put over the celebrated _ punch, his views on the League of Nations, the Seventeenth Amendment, and European politics were given in terse and excellent English, proving that a large number of punches on the face make a man's intellect spring to attention. Now that Gene Tunney is the premier slugger his intellect is all wool and a yard wide, and although previously he was in the educational primer classes he appears to be now a don of purest ray serene. Hear him moralise (per a sporting writer): "The fight game is just like the game of life. Fix your aim high, hit hard, take the blows "that come your way, and fight on. You can't lose that way. You many lose material battles, but you can't lose in the moral battle, end, after all, it is the battle of morals and mentality which counts in the long run." ALL MAD. One is glad to observe that Professor Leonard Hill, of the Institute of Hygiene, reads "The Passing Show.' Ha agrees that men are over-coddled. They should discard collars and adopt opennecked shirts, knickerbockers and sunning shorts. The Prince of Wales, he says, could start the fashion by appearing in an open-necked shirt. The probabilities are that when the professor was telling men to go nakeder he had sixteen pounds of evening clothes on him, a shirt stiffened with white mud, the usual "whitewashed fence round a lunatic asylum," patent leather shoes, and all the rest of it, while the women students to whom he talked hygiene were breathing normally and heathily, cool and beautiful in four ounces of clothes per lady. It is all very well to insist that the Prince of Wales shall set the fashion for bare briskets for men. A national hero like Hobbs ought to do it. Reform will be difficult even then, for man is a queer fish, who, like the lower male brutes, really loves to be decorated. There is nothing so appalling and absurd as a field-marshal in full fig, from his rooster feathers to his gold box spurs and his baton. All male decorations seem to be based on the supposition that a fellow loves to carry weight. We are where the women were in the eighties. Somebody ought to tell men about themselves. A man who will proudly prance round the beach in bathing togs all day long as bare as possible will spend the evening complaining thnt he will catch cold without about lewt of clothes and an overcoat on him. THE MOTHER STATE. That quaint person. Mr. Lang, Premier of New South Wales, who inteeds to retrieve the ruin he is causing in running the country like a benevolent association, by taxing those he dislikes (including newspapers), might take other suggestions from history. Tuber - culosis definitely increased in England when light was taxed. It had previously been the custom to have plenty of windows, especially in laige houses. AS soon as windows were taxed, owners M anger built in tens of thousands of windows and all over the Old Country these blind eyes are still to bo seen. Taxes have not only cari~r-d irritation, but bloody war. We nearly had a small war with the Maoris over taxes & few years ago. The Natal rebellion, in which thousands of excellent dark people wore swept to death with machine guns, w* B caused by the hut tax, the American colonies were lost to the Empire beeauis the colonists renounced their allegiance to Great Britain on the principle that "taxation without representation" was an iniquity. The vivid Mr. Lang, should he surviv* politically, will be ablo by Weeding F* enemies and assisting his friends to Coßl*j mercially destroy; the State he. laSJ__fS dearly;,. ,w. -••-•-• ■.-..-