THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 59, 11 March 1927, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) It is proposed that the new military organisations of France shall include every person in it whether SOLDIERS male or female. HumorOF ists in France seem FRANCE. to think it funny. Sec the lines of prams advancing Vive la France! See the lipstick host advancing. 00-earts prance! S«h» the silken hose a-wheeling. Nee the Prussian front line wheeling. See them to Jeanne's knees a-knoeling In a trance! Front line rations— poudrc d'amour, Vive la joic! "Eyewash" for the fat Potsdammcr. Mort f« roi: See the pickclhatibcn breaking. Frits his dugouts nil forsaking. Prussian hearts for Nanette breaking. Nanette coy! Victory crowns the shingled sisters, * Eton crop ! Big battalions can't resist her. Fall down flop! Hands up to bright eyes vivacious. Beauty ever efficacious. Victory for France—good gracious ! Ficc.' tip-top! A man in the south, charged with being intoxicated while driving a horse in a cart, said that he had only had ten or twelve drinks all day. He mentioned THE WELL. that it took forty to " make a man drunk." People always envy the real expert. Many dilettanti, mere striven* for a lance-corporal's stripes in the Froth Blowers' Association, have been known to achieve twenty. A philanthropist one knew held that it was perfectly wrong to prevent an expert human sponge from exercising his art. He said that you couldn't prevent a sponge from doing it, therefore it was in the benefit of humanity to fill him as often as possible so that he would float gracefully out of the world and cease to be a nuisance. The carrying out of this policy in the case of the southern soak would ensure that if his capacity was forty drinks (that is, a pound's worth of beer) he should be given two pounds every day and led to the trough where he could spend it. One expert who certainly has hopes of achieving ocean honours is said to have drunk twelve pints of beer while the clock struck twelve. These speed kings!

The other men about town have a universal topic and the air reverberates with opinions about boards and butter. One concludes that every man LONDON could have rescued New ON ITS KNEES. Zealand from this impasse if London had taken every man's advice. There has been an opinion expressed that London will be brought to her hoary old knees and come with her crust to be spread with butter by the disciplinary forces of Lambton Quay. How are the domestic ways of Mayfair or the courts of Whiteehapel to be lubricated if Tooley Street will not obey us? London a butterless bun; the children of the poor crying on the housetops for Fernleaf at one-and-seven-pence a pound, eight million folk with one accord crying to New Zealand to help them. In the clatter of argument on bus, train and ferry, one gathered a highly important fact; Tooralooral is a dead cert for the Hangitoki Handicap. All's well with the world:

Teredos, dry rot, wet rot and history are being torn to shreds at Devonport. • Tens of thousands of feet have passed millions of times over the wharf that is VALE ET VALE! soon to be no more (sobs.) People who have seen a carpenter shifting house flooring with a claw hammer will appreciate the method employed by the breakers of this historic ruin. A wire cable depending from a floating crane has a hook on it; the hook is attached to the end of the heavy plank and the plank is drawn. It appears to watchers like a dental operation on a large scale and in a septic case. For many years this wharf has been rotting. The patchworkers have had a constant job. Providence alone knows why heavy lorries and Jlethoric citizens have not sunk through the ecking into the ooze. Thousands of millions of shellfish arc being deprived of a home, and in a short time even the most careless cigarette thrower will be unable to burn the wooden wharf that isn't there. The Hon. E. W. Alison mentioned to MJLT. that the repairs to this disappearing structure "had cost the interest on fifty thousand pounds." If there is one thing the habitual passenger will miss, it is the soothing soporific movement of that dear old wharf as the Pacific Ocean tried to push it over. And the Devonport people used to get small sensations during a blow speculating whether it would weather the gale, at the same time getting their dinghies ready to pursue the fleeting firewood.

Reference was made in this column on Saturday to a ely-grog case heard at Otorohanga, the novel feature of which was that whiskv was said to DECEPTIVE have been boiled for CHRISTIAN NAME, chest complaint. In the paragraph this line occurred, "Another patient was Hannah Isaacs, who said she often visited Mr. Low Lee and drank wine and whisky with him." Mr. Hannah Isaacs writes to say that the person mentioned is himself and not a woman, and declares that there was nothing in the original report to indicate that TT«n««h Isaacs was a woman. The paragraph should thus have read: "Hannah Isaacs, who said he, etc"

The death of Royalty affects the community to a far greater extent than does the death of the common, for the world becomes immediately aware of the THE KING one, and is perfectly unIS DEAD, conscious of the other. One learns that Fern's Wexford Noble was "not an accident, but waa bred in the purple on both lines and left a royal liege." The "Jersey Bulletin and Dairy World" has this touching obituary: "We are all sick at heart over our loss and feel that we have lost a real friend as well as the greatest bull of his time."

Mourn the great dead! Thts monument of meat! This royal mound! Xo more the paddock echoes to the sound Of tuneful bellowing*, No more the ground Shakes to the sound of Noble's feet. Weep for the fallen horn! The drooping tail '. The nenreless cloven hoof! No more alas! need cowman stand aloof •£. t £&*ll* t hU P»«»dock-Bhaklns "Whoof !'• To wak* the mourn. He's dead, alas! he's dead'. Weep for our loss! I.lfe vai for him A game of pitch and toss. *~ J he H ue » tion »«* to be: "Should a doctor tell! and the cumulative answer was: "Certainly not:" The new question is: "Should _„ * doctor kill!" A PariDOCTORS sian message says that PTirrnTtA« B c an . incnribl « l patient beEXECUTIONERS. seeched a doctor to kill .. A . , *" m > and, the doctor refusmg, the patient fatally eh ot the doctor. The quaint part of this i, that the patient, wJo s™,h i l \V? h *? d * mcans <or his own death, should have desired the doctor to commit murder-rough on the medico! sJiaTSSJ * ««**kOl « iTVL i *?' instinct "» the doctor old soldier knows that some mortally injured men will entreat a mate to killl #K--f t? Jurea old soldier h« eve?* Sen" sol'dier commit e !ni atUre9 ° f the WOr,d d that dearS tSra'V by thexa can h. ««-k . . thc executioners)