THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 172, 23 July 1928, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

A LISTENER'S LAMENT.

In verse '"S.F.T." deplores the fact that the broadcasting of race meetings is to be prohibited.

Never again to hear tlie stuttered story Of the Announcer from his lofty nest. Never again to hear that Fame and Glory "Fought out the finish" as they "tailed the rest.

Never again to hear that some "hacked" filly Led from the harrier rise and tied the course. Never again to wait —light-hearted, silly— Till Jutlge confirmed the triumph of your horse.

Never again to hear the frenzied calling—As drumming hoof beats quicken down the straight. Never again to hear the "Speaker" bawling— "He'll win—he won't—he will—you'll have to wait!"

News that -Mr. Denis Ryan, of Tawa Flat, Wellington (the oldest man in Xew Zealand), is one hundred and three years of age and

still going strong recalls FATHER AND SON. memories of that far younger Denis, his son. in whose memory there is a very handsome monument at Tawa Flat. '"Dinny" was possibly the youngest soldier in the First Xew Zealand Mounted Rifles, serving in Africa in 1899. lie was a gay and likeeable youth and an excellent horseman. He rode an untiring dancer which, when all other horses gazed earthwards with melancholy eyes, "shimmyshaked across the veldt and pulled the. arms out of the rider. M.A.T. knows, because when Dinny had no further use for any horse, M.A.T. was the strong arm merchant assigned to Dinny's charger. It was because it was seen that Ryan had difficulty with his horse that his weakness was first noticed, for the son of the centenarian, although sickening for a j mortal disease, shut up about it. Even after all these years M.A.T. would like to congratulate the splendid old gentleman of Tawa Flat on his gallant son. who played the game under dreadful stress. The horse referred to was in due course sent to a rest camp and M.A.T. was bereft of him for months. As M.A.T. strolled down the horselmes near Pretoria, a horse laid his wicked ears back and threw his heels at M.A.T. Dinny's horse recognised Dinny's substitute!

Mr. William Wallace, chairman of the Auckland Hospital Board, conveys the astounding information that 103,409 pieces were

washed for the general WHAT A WASH! hospital in June. There

seemed more to M.A.T., as he watched siroccos of sheets, billows of blankets, snow storms of pillow slips and avalanches of every conceivable spotless covering going past in the capable arms of ladies in cool, clean blue, smiles and soft-soled shoes. Hospital folk hate the sight of a speck the average person wouldn't see. They perpetually rush towards lucky patients with speckless garments. One imagines unthinkable Himalayas of bubbling blankets and unplumbed depths of saponaceous sheets foaming into snowy sierras. And M.A.T. noted that the good New Zealand blankets are so perpetually kept clean that they "sing small." Thus a full-sized blanket becomes small by decrees and beautifully less, so that now 'and 'then you may see a blanket, onee proud of its' tleecy expanse, become little larger than a felt typewriter silencer. M.A.T. heard a delighted chuckle from a patient six foot six inches tall who examined one of these and laughingly covered a small area of his huge frame with it. By the way, the giant conveyed the information that he is one of six brothers of equal size, and that each of his sisters is taller than six feet, his father having been a bare six feet and his mother a ladv of small size.

Hobbes, the celebrated philosopher who flourished in 1770, was such a queer old bird that an extract from his philosophv gleaned

from a musty tome may THE ICONOCLAST, be interesting to avid con-

sumers of "best sellers": '"All authors hate each other on principle. I am at enmity with the whole corps. I hate their wiitings as much as I do themselves. There is nothing so pernicious as reading. It destroys originality of sentiment. Devonshire has more than ten thousand volumes in his house. When I was a guest in his lordship's house I entreated his lordship to lodge me as far as possible from the pestilential corner. I have but one book, and that is Euclid, and I begin to be tired even of him. Jle hath set fools a-reasoningand hath thus done more harm than good. I write to show the folly of writing. Were all the books in the uoiid on board one vessel I should feel pleasure in seeing the wreck. Poetry is a foolish thin-*, and 1 hate doing anything that can be better done l>v others."

Ai dent amateur stock raisers who hope to turn the front lawn into Angora rabbit farms and to supplement inadequate incomes with

_ the rabbit wool clip will THE CHILD MIND, appreciate the enterprise of a. suburban bov ten years of age. He is the proud, if illegal, possessor of a trio of ordinary everyday grev cottontail rabbits. An enthusiastic student o*f the Smallholder.' he decided on a wholesale shearing last week. In his absence at school his mother went to the hutch and fed the iabbits, finding them, however, singnlarlv slim and undeniably cold. Dear little Bertie had obtained his mother's scissors and garnered his clip. It is of interest that Bertie took the proceeds in a small paper bag to one of the laigcst \\ 00l factors in Auckland to negotiate a sale. The tloor on which he found himself would accommodate at least ten thousand dumped bales of sheep wool.

Dear M.A.r..—Here's another doggv par. ihis time we will talk about those "dangerous Alsatians, whieli the Australian papers so often contain columns THE GENTLE about. This one has not ALSATIAN, yet eaten a single sheep. has not bitten" off any lady's ear and has not torn blankets left on .clothes lilies into slireds. I was a spectator at the Domain on .Saturday and took shelter in the giandstand. A few yards from a large Alsatian was a baby girl, not two vears of age. lilio struggled and cried to be put down off Iter mothers knee to get near the doer. 1 lie toddler stroked and patted the Alsatian, which reciprocated by wagging his bushy tail and licking the child s hand. Other spectators in the immediate vicinity became alarmed and advised th<- mother to pick the baby up before it was eaten. Evidently the parent was a true lover of animals, for she not only alb wed the little one to caress the dog, but "ave the child a handful of biscuits. J lie gentle manner in which the Alsatian accepted the biscuits from the child s small hand, and the pleasure it < r ave the baby made an impression upon those "who watched. This continued for lifteen minutes oi -o, and when thu dog and its owner were leaving, the little girl protested by crvinoaloud for her "dogga." It might interest readers to know that the AKatian is a. protector of children. The smaller the child the greater the protection which this dos; affords ' Animal Lover. ! CHAOTICS. 1 "M.li.K.'s" zoological mix-up of oaphiinu st pop 1 rc>olvcd itself into a simple II ipp op ot a 111 us. To-day "J.W.A." gives us | Ripecistim. '