THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 232, 1 October 1928, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

Southern motorists, met together to arrange for the elimination or the more athletic behaviour of pedestrians, have called attention to the aeandal STOP! that walkers still perambulate the earth, obviously assuming that humanity is divided into two categories, the infinitely small minority who ride in motor cars and that enormous congregation of fools who go afoot. One of the elect mentioned that in Melbourne a New Zealander is recognised "by the reckless way he walks on the road." Walking on a road is obviously a crime. What is wanted is a race that flies, bounds, hops, runs, gallofw, handsprings, shoots, catapults. The motorist hereinbefore indicated "ventured to say" that if motorists relaxed their precautions for one day the hospitals "would not be able to contain the accident cases. Now the f9 per cent of the population aheel is composed of blind, lame, halt, deaf, "limby" soldiers, vomen over eighty, centenarian men, school children, and the whole long list of wretches who should jump or be killed. The man who mentions that New Zealanders "dare to wqlk" !n Melbourne would likely spend a pleasant hour in innumerable cemeteries where tfiese daring ex-pedestrians lie buried; he could be shown several hundreds. Motorists who have driven for a quarter of a century and have never assisted reckless pedestrians off the road under the ground could be shown the British law, which still gives the foot passenger the inalienable right to cross the roa4 in preference to the person awheel. The irritating foot passenger will, never cease to displease the motorist until he can beat an aeroplane over a measured mile. Another motorist at that pedestrian-eliminating conference gave an excellent slogan for the mere crawler upon the earth: "Stop, you d lout!"

Nowadays the youth of the country very naturally lumps Paardeburg with Waterloo and the Maori War. A veteran is a tottering old chap on a stick, YOUNG VETERANS, fitted with whiskers and a comfy possie in an old men's home. But Mr. C. G. Macindoe, the juvenile-looking Auckland merchant whose horse Prince Humphrey won the Australian Jockey Club's Derby at Randwick, is a veteran of the South African War, a picnic that began in 1599. In that far-ago time intensely youthful would-be soldiers either told white fibs as to age or practised assiduously on the copper torture and enlisted as buglers. Charlie was a bugler, hence his youthfulness as a veteran. This excellent backdoor for keen young fellows permitted the enlistment of good soldiers who would otherwise have been barred. For instance, Dr. W. A. Bowie, the well-known Gisborne medico, entered the forces as a bugler, and to his eldrich efforts the troops ever gave him the encouragement of "Well Played Bowie!" a name by which he is still known. Bowie went to London to learn all about medicine, and M.A.T., giving him an introduction to a Colonial Office man, added: "Please show Bowie round London." The incurable Londoner wrote to M.A.T. subsequently: "You asked mfe to show Bowie round London. I didn't know London till Bowie showed me round it."

The abolition of the offertory plate at a local church may begin an epidemic of plate abolition and ultimately aid in killing the ....... ancient jest of the univerTHE COLLECTION, sal threepenny bit. The open plate, even unaccompanied by a rattle (so dear to street collectors), is contrary to the advice "Let not thy right hand know what thy left hand doeth," although ra some places of worship the long, velvet bag has shrouded the donor's sixpence and left the rest of the congregation in a state of pleasing speculation. If all hands at church suddenly developed a pound-note-giving habit, wardens might experience the shock certain church officers once received during church collection An aged stranger, extremely shabbily attired, entered a church strange to him. in a" Gloucestershire village. He appeared so unworthy of note that aristocratic pew owners passed him by on the other side, and a supercilious verger showed him into a seat plainly marked "For the poor." The old chap created no disturbance, behaved like a human being and listened to the service. When the plate came round he dropped a fifty-pound note in it. It was incredible that a pauper could have obtained so much money honestly, and he was quietlv detained at the door as a possible eccentric thief. A warden kindly asked him "Where did you obtain the money, my good man?" "It was my own money, sir," respectfully answered the old man. "What is your name?" pursued the suspicious warden. "I am the Duke of ' sa jd the old fellow handing up his card, if you do not wish to receive my monev, may have it back?" A certain Carpenter'in his working clothes would hardly have had a loud welcome in that aristocratic church.

Riots have been quelled or made worse from time immemorial by armed force and it seems possible that bloodshed is to be preFIX BAYONETS! Id Ancient fi°ht misS jT g ' with L/ r i gaD , the P° kin ? business with sharp sticks and our freedom-loving ancestors used to tie the old scythe, billhook or hedging knife on a pole and charge. Even m modern warfare the hastily-mobilised fightfn?i mCn T .I 6 - aken . the field with hay forks. In the invasion of Prussia in the earlv stages of the Great War Russian peasant troops charged with hay forks, s ticks? stones and slashers and actually routed modern 7° PS ;i, The 6U^stiv e pitchfork gave . m °de™ bayonet, which was born at Bayonne in France. In appraising the quahty of an enemy it is usual to sav "Ah but they won't face the bayonet!" During a' ong experience of soldiers one has never come aero,, one wlo w„ uld „ re t0 rective . (WiantooL profe * sioMl ttUi

CHAOTICS. The word is not so gigantic as its accepted meaning indicates: p eu Ggtnnaarua Gargantuan. Here is one with blood in it: Ooisstbmrh. THE HIGHEST TRUTH. The highest truth that a soul m&r „ »f ver I^ e wises t sajres teach * Has been but this since the world began • To serve and to comfort a fellow man." To bid him see in the universe n,^ e » er wra ,t hful God nor a primal curseBut a loving Father's tender care ' For all of His children everywhere. Katherixb E. LIXCK. THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds for our beliefs are often iSS:-H£a£° al * ttempt * to <"» • • • . As it is better to be compressed in a narrow bed and be healthy than to be tossed with disease on a broad couch, so also is it better to contract yourself within a small competence and tobe happy than to have great fortune and be wretched.—Epictetus. • • • • The art of wisely using the spare five minutes, the casual vacancies or intervals of HT £L&y m ° St T * luable we ctin acquire.