THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 147, 23 June 1928, Page 8

THE PASSING SHOW.

The Atlantic has again been flown, at last by a party which included a woman. This was much to the disappointment of Miss Mabel 8011, who had hoped to be A FLIGHT the first woman to fly the OF PEARLS. Columbus Ocean. The poor lady seems to spend her life in being disappointed. She was all dressed up in a rig that included several thousand pounds' worth of pearls to accompany Mr. Levine and Mr. Chamberlain on their successful flight last June, but she was left behind at the last minute in favour of more fuel. It is reported that she hopes now to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic from east to west, which is the more difficult route. Even if that record is denied her, she will be able to console herself when she does eventually land on the other side with the consolation that she holds, and will hold for a long time, the record for the largest value in pearls worn by any transocean flyer. Does anyone know who was the first woman to cross the Atlantic*in a ship! Presumably one of the natives that Columbus brought back to Spain. Or were they all men? A curious feature of all these ocean flights is that they are all purely exhibitions of pluck and skill. None has yet set out for the purely prosaic reason for which a chicken crosses a road.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

Thirty-three Lancashire men in the town of Kumasi, on the Gold Coast, West Africa, have just revived memories of their northern homes by meeting at a HOT-POT. jovial hot-pot supper. The supper was the inaugural celebration of what is believed to be the first Lancastrian Society formed on the west coast of Africa. The secretary and treasurer, in sending a copy of the menu and the programme of the smoke concert that followed the supper, remarks that allowance must be made for printers' errors. He says: "The printer was a native to whom the Lancashire dialect is a foreign language." The menu was: HOT-POT. an' if that wants owt more tba con 'ave sum more-er— HOT-POT . , . If , th *\ B a , sood lad we might see abowt thi avin a bit o CHASE Wl' BISCUITS. ! ! ! That con 'ave sum BEER all t'time» ' ' What doesna fatten'll fill! ! The concert programme was no less perplexing to the compositor, as it was written in dialect. The first item was: "Mester Fardell will brast off wi' a gradely selection on t'joanna. He meks a proper job on it!" The disputations and dissertations evoked by the proposed change from port and starboard to left and right recall a classic story which Charles Grave, the PORT "Punch" artist, used to AND STARBOARD, tell about a mercantile marine inquiry. A certain skipper had got his gallant barge into a collision and it was alleged that Bacchus was at the root of the trouble. A seaman, who had been at the wheel on the fateful occasion, was the principal witness, and he had to tell the Court what orders the skipper gave him. In fruity Cockney he said, "Well, it was like this 'ere. I was at the wheel and the skipper comes up to me and sez, "Ard a-port, 'ard a-starboard, 'ard a-port, 'ardi-star-board,' just like that." The president of the Court gazed goggle-eyed over his spectacles. "Good gracious, my man," he said, "weren't you surprised?" The sailor nodded vigorous assent. "Surprised!" he said. "I should well fink I was surprised. S'welp me so-and-so, guvner, yer could 'a well knocked me down wiv a sanguinary fewer!"

Some people have all the luck. Young Mac -dashed out of doors the other morning with just nine and a half minutes in which to accomplish his ten LINKS minutes' sprint for the WITH LUCK. goo<f ship 8.35. He pulled his coat on as he ran, and, as he thrust his big right arm into the sleeve, he "heard something go." It was the chain of his sleeve link. One link was still in the shirt cuff, but the other was not. A frantic search failed to reveal the piece of gold and with sighs, pants and curses intermingled Young Mac tore on his way. Walking home at teatime in company with a friend, the latter spied something gleaming on the pavement. It was the broken link and it had lain there all day! Now Young Mac i 6 wondering whether he is lucky in finding it or unlucky to have lost it. It is unofficially reported that he regards the whole incident as luck for the office, and has made a mental resolve to allow ten minutes for the tenminute dash in future.

"How do you like sitting in a sarcophagus?" asked one of those who had the privilege of attending the quarterly meeting of the Couacil of Christian COLD Churches the other night CHRISTIANITY, in a room in the basement of St. David's Presbyterian Church. With feet resting on a bare concrete floor it is to be feared that in some cases thought wandered from the subject under discnssion to a feeling of renewed sympathy for Nobili and his companions who are stranded near the pole. WOMEN'S SPHERE. They talk about a woman's sphere As though it had a limit. There's not a marriage, death or birth, There's not a thing on all the earth That has a feather's weight of worth, Without a woman in it. Can Parliament be safe and sound. No woman in it ? Think a minute! By every law they're tied and bound. You ve only just to look around— How foolish many an Act is found That bad no woman in it. Then call her up to take a seat— She has the right to win it 1 No safety dwells in home or street. Nor can our land be pure and sweet. Nor Parliament ever be complete Without a woman in it! —A.J.S. CHAOTICS. The clue which "A.8." gave helped Teprevoaa to Evaporate quite easily. "Grammar" perpetrates a deed of darkness for the week-end. He sends M* n *tablisterhadasi«tinfimiiL If this doesn't kill Chaotic enthusiasm nothing else will. THOUGHTS POR TO-DAY. Whether our neglect of the great books of the world comes from our not reading at all, or from an incorrigible habit of reading the little books, it ends in just the s&me thing. And that thing is ignorance of all the greater literature of the world.—Frederic Harrison. • • • Trust in God, but tie the camel's leg.—Old Arabian proverb.