THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 214, 10 September 1928, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) TOM. September, 1928. Back to the town where the cowbells are ringing. Back to the bush where the tuis are singing. Back to the peace of the coastBack where a wonderful welcome is waiting. Back where the plaudits will know no abating, Back where "Our Tom" is the toast. Jaxcary-March, 1929. Back to the ring where the quick blows are falling. Back where the fight fans are frensiedly calling. Back to the jolts and the jars. Back where the slow count will soon be declaring That his opponent is quite beyond caring— "Toin's" with his glove to the stars. —S.F.T. Dear M.A.T., —Your par headed "Home John" set some of the old-timers talking about the old "jug" that stood at the corner of Victoria Street on the site THE STONE JUG. of the present City Chambers and was the "home" of Auckland's lags way back in the 'fifties. According to oral history the good-behaviour prisoners were given a bob or two for pocket money and set at liberty each Saturday evening with orders to be back at nine or they would bo locked out. Towards that time one would see the prisoners running up Queen Street from their favourite pubs, making sura that tliey were not shut out. The reason was that if they were not in at nine they were posted as "escaped." There was no chance of them getting very far, and when they were caught they were sent up into the Waikato to fight the Maoris. They much preferred the safety and comparative comfort of "clink" to the rigours of bush warfare. —Broad Arrow.

When our new friend Frit* blew up some millions of tons of British ships, and when Britain boiled down its sovereigns and sent 'em in a lump to America POOR OLD BULL! we noted in ten thousand leading articles that Britain was doomed. The financial capital of the world was New York. The United States, hopping in while British shipbuilding was moribund, would outbuild the universe and poor old John Bull was on his last legs. British manufactures went phut, blue ruin stalked abroad in London and pressimists foresaw an Empire so enfeebled that it seemed a rather shameful thing to belong to it, and stalwart colonial Governments, feeling that the bottom had dropped out of Bull's money box, borrowed dollars instead of pounds. The Old Country was so backward and conservative, and all that. It can't be right that "Britain is now building twenty times as many ocean-going vessels as is the United States,"and fifty per cent more than all the Continental countries put together." And while we were deploring the crass stupidity of our own race, poor, silly old Bull was beating Uncle Sam at his own game in the oil world, a rather important point, as Mr. Gas O'Lean, of Herne Bay, who has an American car, will agree. After all, however, when we grizzled at the stupidity of l_ nele in Toolev Street we didn't mean a word of it. If Uncle and Co. could win a war the old firm could win a peace, too. Cheer up, pressimists!

Things are really 'Hooking up" these days. The scientific war skywards proceeds, and the masses watch the portents. Despite ambitious catapulters, who excite ASPIRATIONS amazement for frantic ARE LOFTY, exploits to master 1 * the

secrets of Nature and reach the moon, the toll of "space" is eloquent of civilised advancement. Fulfilling the prophecy of imaginative Jules Verne, who had the rank audacity in the sailing ship era to write a book called "Round the World in Eighty Days," in which, picturing a submarine trip, he predicted feats of swifter transit by sea and air, we have done pretty well. The realm of bird and insect is opening up a new vista for human activity. The fact that the passage of the Tasman will complete the possibility of an Empire circuit of new navigation enhances interest. Meteorology, a subject hitherto of small significance to the New Zealand layman suddenly arouses all sorts of airy ideas. «r> lgl l t * v „ eat . her » * potent topic indeed. Pockets, air currents, cloud effects, visibility and other atmospheric elements are being freely discussed. At this time Auckland must recall the tireless enthusiasm of the late Clement Wragge, whose uncanny knowledge of the astral plane and its constituent bearing upon this universe was not lost on thoughtful people. Now this flight business has got us going, as they say in the vernacular.—Rastus.

At a moment when we are adding Tom Heeney to our roll of national heroes we remember the sixtieth anniversary of the NATTOWat national hero who apNATIONAL pealed to the public iUiKO£S. imagination as no other . . , 3 . ma » has. Von Tempskv, the foreign soldier of fortune, passed over sixty years ago, having written his name with that long sword of his (although how he managed it among the bush lawyers and supphyacks lustory sayeth not). At Te-Xgutu-o-te-Manu (The Beak of the Bird) there is a monument memorialising the engagement. Old soldiers who lought with Von Tempskv have £vrv ?, slO the £«* wi«4 Perio^ lcalI y pilgrimages take place to the place, and a nowadays pilgrimage would u?Jd ° ld " tim ® Taranaki people who used t® go there per foot, per bujrev or ner horseback, but where at the appointed time nowadays hundreds of motor cars dot the scenery. One doubts if Bernard Frevbere V.C has written his name so permanently in New fortune 017 as the easier soldier of

tin,, ob^. u ™ scnbe has decided to continue reading Dickens in preference to C. B Roberts, who has strewn garbage on the name BAPTTWt ° f , an English author AKKIir. w h o created immortal tiWa ™ + • 1 c P. eo P' e from the inexhaustible material of Ins unique mind. Verv likely one could make a best smeller bv exhuming incidents in the life of Thackeray (who used to play cards and drink wine), and XfvVk A mg , of glvin ? Ster °e once round the kitchen As for that Feilding, one could make a garland of accusations that would help to revive interest in his books. UnhapnUv Kipling is safe from the lash at present but' a come, h», E'lS being when a man is dead and unable to defend himself. Dickens could defend himself during r!f V'! • remarkable adroitness, and, as Conan Doyle is in touch with Charles, it would be useful to know what Dickens thinks of Roberts Y ou have heard, of course, that the S er the Queensland Parliament and the old story! A gentleman nimed Willis was exuding material that would have suited Roberts very well, and Dickens wW M,v ?'L M ° " th « utrthr' ' ren,,rt tb,t "Will. CHAOTICS. Lyvoenseemar Eleemosynary. A simple one. Now altogether.* GmsuiipL A THOUGHT FOR TO-DAY. It is very fantastical and contral.Vtflr. m human nature that men selves above all the rest of tbf ~h em" yet never endure to U rt2L° r \ d and Abraham Cowley. wwmselv*.—