THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 282, 29 November 1927, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

People remember best the things and events in which they take the greatest interest. Here, for instance, in Auckland is a

middle-aged man who OH MEMORY! puts his collar stud down

on the kitchen mantelpiece and then turns his bedroom out looking for it. But when it comes to remembering Derby or St. Leper winners, or what romped home in the Pukapukanui Handicap, he is a marvel. He was talking to a friend the other day and boasting mildly of his gift. His friend said: "Well, as for me, I've got a memory like a sieve. Would you believe that I don't even remember my own age, except that I was born the year Galopin won the Derby?" The sporting Pelman instantly said: "That is dead easy—lß7s; you're fifty-two, old horse." Re "Shoreite's" idea that ferry skippers at the wheel should have a clear view ahead, astern, and on both hands, if wheelhouses

were constructed on that THE MORNING plan, and the man at the CHAT. wheel away from the

passenger deck, it might end the cosy conversations many passengers insist on having with the master. On all ferry steamers everywhere there is a notice: "Passengers must not enter the wheel house." But in most cities where ferries ply there are passengers who appear to believe the notice has nothing to do with them, and that they are privileged. What particular joy a tna.n feels in immuring himself in a wheelhouse I don't know, but many would rather travel that way than in the bridal cabin of the Berengaria.—"Circular Quay." A FAVOURITE SONG. Dr. E. F. Armstrong, director of the British Dyestuffs Corporation, declares that the modern flapper is the patron saint of chemistry. Drink to me only with thy dves. And I will pledge with mine; Leave but some rouge within the cup. Drop powder in the wine. Synthetic stockings made from wood. With colours wrung from coal; Together with 6ome rubber stavg And a synthetic soul. I bought thee late a rosy blush. For two-and-six a tin: Some henna for your raven hair. To let the sunshine in. Sweet patron saint of chemistry. With belladonna eye. Oh. tread with me the rosy path. Till both of us shall dye. • Colonel Harry Whyte, D.5.0., D.C.M., who has been promoted to the command of the Central Command, Xew Zealand, is an Auck-

land boy who used to KHAKI IN 1899. work in the Post Office.

What is best remembered about the gallant officer, who has distinguished, himself in two wars, is that he was the youngest recruit to the New Zealand First Contingent for the South African War, and as scared a boy as ever wore a pair of unaccustomed riding pants. He was frightened someone would find his real age and keep him from going for a soldier! Harry belonged to the Auckland College Rifles, which corps one seems to remember was the first to wear khaki drill jackets. Anyway, it was from the sample Trooper Whyte wore at Karori that the uniform of the First and subsequent Contingents was designed. Anybody who wore this uniform will remember that the jackets turned a brilliant yellow in the South Africa sun, and then gradually to a dirty white as easily decipherable as Slim Piet with the clever rifle as a red coat with a black background. Colonel Whyte won his D.C.M. in Africa, and was admitted to the D.S.O. after brilliant work in Gallipoli and Egypt. He was one of the few Xew Zealand officers married in Cairo.

Tennis players whose activity is handicapped by the creeping hand of time should arrange to play alongside the electrical trans* former that blows up THE' next. It will stimulate TRANSFORMER, their form remarkablv. By Somervell Church there is a tennis lawn, and people were enjoying their Sidey hour, when the transformer in the vicinity committed a noise like a battleship going into action. Immense celerity was displayed, and if there had been any need for artificial light at the moment' there wouldn't have been any. Such untoward events arc the penalty of progress. In the days of unassisted gas, explosions were rare, and sudden darkness almost unknown, except in strike time. Footpaths behaved themselves, and rarely blew up. A timid friend foresees the possibility of an electric light circuit refusing duty just as a surgeon is performing an operation, and mentions that as so many places nowadays have unassisted electric light with no second string for emergencies, people may sometimes have to go back to the dark ages with halfpenny dips for illumination. But be certainly did enjoy the leaps the tennis players took when that transformer transformed their leisurely play into glorious sprints.

If the ghost of Mark Tapley happened along stud wanted something to cheer him up, the best present to make to him would be a

dai 'y newspaper with the CHEERFUL cablegrams undiluted. To PROSPECTS, an optimist other than Tapley the future has hard work to conjure up a grin. He might cheer himself up a bit about the bright prospects of disarmament and the immediate possibility of war in Poland. He could get a radiant smile out of M. Jouvenal's cheery talk about the inevitability of war in 1935. That hopeful bird, Sir George Paish, eminent economist, says the world will be bankrupt in 1928, and trade will break down. From London there is the hilarious declaration that some of the largest millionaires are going to achieve industrial peace, and at the top of the next column there is a black outlook in Melbourne, and the watersiders will strike. Mark Taplev would read with elation the news that ail Australasia is saving the babies by science, and that Australian hospitals are far too small to admit all the people bent, broken, or bruised by motor cars. He would confirm the opinion that business was going bun<» bv "'JjpS that Henry Ford was buving five million acres to grow rubber on, presumably to make motor car tyres for bankrupt business men. Then he would turn to the devastating opinion of an Africander, who purvevs the terrifying news that New Zealand All 'Blacks will find it difficult to beat the Springboks in the forthcoming tour. Is there no end to this sable pall?

THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. Women who make men talk better than tney are accustomed to are alwavs popular, even when they are plain.—E. V. Lucas. • • • • 110W ha S « e ieft he ie. haTe aml 801,56 th^ ATld depart taken fronx me; 811 are All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. Charles Lamb. • • • • a kingdom is: Such perfect joy therein I find. As far exceeds all earthly bliss. Ben Jonso.v • • • • War. I abhor; And yet how sweet ine sound alone the march ins street « nd «e, and I fonfet and the whole uark butchering without a souL Sichaio Ls Gallic xx e.