THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 165, 14 July 1928, Page 8

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

Dear M.A.T., —Recently Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh was presented with the Hubbard Medal—the eighth that has been struck in

forty years. It was pre-

THE sented by President CoolHUBBARD MEDAL, idge on behalf of the

National Geographic a 1 Society, and awarded for exploration. The previous recipients are worth recalling-: RearAdmiral Robert E. Peary, Captain Raold Amundsen, Captain Robert A. Bartleet, Dr. Grove Carl Gilbert, Sir Ernest Shackleton, Dr. Viljhamhtir Stefansson and Commander Richard E. Byrd. Pferhaps Nobili will be the ninth. There, are over one million members of the National Geographical Society in the United States and fifty thousand in New Zealand and Australia.—J.W.W.

True to the traditions of the sound British stock of which they are made, New Zealanders are more amused than disheartened

by the reverses which WAS IT have overtaken the All PESSIMISM? Blacks in South Africa.

It's just as good fun to hear a Rugby" enthusiast say, "Oh, another cricket score," as it is to hear the would-be leg-puller inquire what was the score against the Hottentots! This laughter in the face of defeat was the one thing our German foes could never understand during the last war. An Ober-lieutenant of the Prussian Guards nearly died of mortification when he was compelled, at the point of the bayonet, to sing the "Hymn of Hate." He just couldn't understand British mentality. However, M.A.T. digresses. The real object of this paragraph was to tell the tale of a schoolboy in one of the country districts who wrote to the editor of the boys' page of the local paper as follows: "Dear Sir, —I am very fond of collecting cigarette pictures. Could you put me in touch with anybody who will give me* one of To'n Heeney in exchange for a complete set oi the All Blacks?" Wag this leg-pull or pessimism?

A pearl of price amongst schoolboy '"howlers" of recent date concerns a small boy who was asked to tell his teacher what he

knew about Queen ElizaMIXED HISTORY, beth. The lad's historical

diet must have been in the nature of a mixed grill, for he said: "Queen Elizabeth rode through the streets of Coventry with nothing on, and Sir Walter Raleigh put his cloak on the floor for her to walk on. Her motto was 'Dieu et mon droit'." The teacher was interested, not to say intrigued. He asked the boy what the Royal motto meant and how it originated. To this our young friend replied that Sir Walter Raleigh had asked if the Queen was cold, and that "Dieu et mon droit" meant, "Too right I am!"

Auckland, like many another growing city, suffers from growing pains, one of the most painful forms of which (to the average citizen,

at least) is the habit of A DEAL IN LAND, those in authority of

making pavement excavations and of leaving heaps of earth on the footpath. An incorrigible wag of M.A.T.'s acquaintance sallied forth from his very-centrallv-situated city premises and promptly stiftnbled over a heap of earth outside the office of a land agent. Picking himself up, he tottered into the land agent's sanctum and inquired, "You do sell land, old chap?" The agent having assured him, with becoming gravity, that he did sell land, our friend replied: "Well, what about selling that little lot that's piled up outside your front door?" The German battle cruiser Moltke has just been salved in Scapa Flow, and only a few days ago a rusted cannon was dredged to the surface out of the skeleDAVY JONES, ton of the British frigate _ Lutine, which went down off the French coast way back in seventeen seventy-something. The bell of the Lutine was recovered from the wreck manv vears and it hangs in Lloyd's to this day,'being tolfed when news comes through to the great mercantile insurance centre that there has been a loss, at sea. "Lloyd's"— named after Edward Lloyd, the owner of a small coffee house in the city of London, where organised marine insurance had its genesis—has moved to a palatial new building, leaving the Royal Exchange after long years of tenancv. The Lutine bell has moved also. Dear M.A.T., —'-He rode a good third," says Ginger when we were going across on the ferpy boat last night. "What's it all about?" says I. Then Ginger savs A GOOD THIRD, that he had seen in the "Star" that the Duke of Gloucester, the third son of the King, had rode third in a "fair dinkum" race. A' course I gives him my opinion on it and asks him if there was anything about the blokes that rode first and second. Anyrate, when Royalty rides third in a race, I don't suppose anvone else Counts much. Reminds me that me cobber. Sandy, rode third once in a race before he took to butchering. He didn't get praised, either. The "stipes" held a meeting and he had a hard job to make them believe that he wasnt ridin 5 a dead s un."—D.M. It all depends on the point of view when it comes to "talk of graves and worms and epitaphs," and M.A.T. agrees with Andv Fisher, un0A........ a f° nner Labour Prime TSGOTISM. Minister of Australia, who, like the All Blacks a few days ago, was conducted to the top of the Matoppo Hills, in South Africa, to gaze in awe and reverence at the grave of Cecil Rhodes. What egotism!" sai4 Fisher, and perhaps he was right. There is salutarv correction in the homely story of the Lancashire lad who went to visit a sick friend—a friend, moreover, who was at the point of death. "Eh. Willie," said the comforting visitor, "these stairs o' thine's a bit twistv-like. They'll 'ave a bit of a job in gettin' t' coffin downstairs." CHAOTICS. The Staggering answer to Get Gas Ring was fairly obvious. M.A.T. appends a cabalistic affair in LlkscabaL ; This is more cabalistic than might at first appear. THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. Riches I hold in light esteem. And love I laugh to scorn; And lust of fame was hut a dream That vanished with the morn. And as my swift days near their soul 'Tis all th.it I implore : In life and death a chainless soul, With courage to endure. —Emilv Bboxte. * * • All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries he may learn to improve his own; and if fortune carries him to worse he may learn to enjoy his own. Johnson. .**.** 1 The highest knowledge can be nothing more than the shortest and clearest road to "truth: all the rest is pretension, not performance, mere verbiage and grandiloquence, from which we can learn nothing, but that it is the external design of an internal deficiency Colton. •