THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 250, 22 October 1928, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) LABOR OMNIA VINCIT. Let's all unite, the prince, the peer, the worker. A universal brotherhood (barring, of course, the shirker). We're very like in many things, for each must do some labour, So that in time each one may have more money than his neighbour. Dear M.A.T., —The different definitions of the words "down" and "up," as applied to motor car curtains, caused some confusion in tho Matamata Courthouse "UPS" AND this week. Various wit"DOWNS." nesses used the words with different meanings in giving their evidence. The curtains of a touring car would certainly be "up" when in use, but those of a saloon car would be "down." People get similarly mixed up with regard to "up" and "down" trains. We say we are going "up" to Auckland. Is it on the "up" train? I don't know. In any case, in the inquiry under review a solicitor got over the | difficulty by suggesting that the witnesses | should use the words "in use" or "not in use"; so that after a couple of aspros we were all right again.—Matamatatoodler. Havelock Wilson, the famous old plain speaker of the Seamen's Union, says that politics is a dirty game and that by keeping .out of it money rolls in. PLAY ! Havelock unhappily is not in New Zealand politics or he might mitigate his accusation. Apropos of games, Mr. P. T. Eckersley, the new captain of the Lancashire Cricket Club, has resigned his candidature for the Newton seat at Home. He says that he had to choose between politics and cricket, and chose cricket. Gentlemen, play cricket. Stimulating to our sturdy assertions that class distinctions do not exist in this fair land (loud cheers) to read that Mr. Justice Blair has been seen attired in DUNGAREES. dungarees, heavy boots and a workman's cap exploring a sewer. This sartorial carelessness in an eminent person is not without precedence, for the Prince of Wales has been seen similarly attired on many occasions, and has recently so far descended in the social scale as to wear a ready-made overcoat. You couldn't imagine, however, a judge sentencing a man to death in those dungarees, or an admiral winning a battle with a stoker's greasy cap on his head and a sweatrag in his hand. Unconvention in dress is unthinkable. Mr. Speaker without a wig, the statesman without his frock coat and silk hat, laying foundation stones in blucher boots and overalls, a general planning the glorious death of ten thousand in a bowler hat, a black bow tie and a white waistcoat! M.A.T., however, has seen a general mooning about a battlefield in a shocking old civvy coat, a dirty old cap, one green puttee and one brown one, a rusty spur on one boot and an old ash stick in his hand. With him as staff officer was a prince of the blood, got up regardless, red tabs and all. How on earth could old Micky Mahon win & battle in that cap and with that ash stick? It's absolutely not done. Interesting to read that while Britain is scrapping old cavalry regiments and making mechanical units from horsemen Germany is laying emphasis on" the PREPARE TO great use of horsemen in MOUNT! modern war. While we talk loosely about "the passing of the horse," nations who see life in the old gee yet rake the earth, Ireland, England and Australia included, for good army sorts. And Russia, which probably knows as much about horses as anybody, picks the best she can find wherever they are, and gives thumping prices. Very likely there will be interesting horse affairs when the petrol hussar, the oil lancer and the tin dragoon are masses of spare parts on the wayside. Recalled that cavalry, I British, French and German, pushed their bits first into the Great War and that French villagers wildly cheered the first horsemen, believing them Chasseurs, when, in fact, they were Uhlans. You know the "Punch" picture? The general in field uniform is standing in the mess anteroom. The aristocratic lieutenant in undress uniform is leaning nonchalantly against the mantelpiece. The general asks: "And what, Mr. Bridoon, is the function of modern cavalry?" Mr. Bridoon replies: "To give distinction to what might otherwise be a mere vulgar brawl." Reference herein to things that people swallow induces the reflection that fiction is often as strange as fact. The jovial medical student in "Pickwick THE Papers" told the story BEAD NECKLACE, of the poor sir l's necklace of large wooden beads. When the necklace could not be found the girl wept, as she rarely treated herself to a bit of finery. One day, to the consternation of father and the rest of the family, the small son rattled in transit. The father threatened that if this child didn't stop making a noise like a watchman's rattle he'd give him a hiding "in a pig's whistle." The child, being questioned, admitted he had swallowed a bead a day for many days past—hence the internal clatter. He was rushed to Bart's and put to bed, where he rattled so violently that the patients couldn't sleep until the noise was deadened by a large overcoat. One notices that many political candidates swallow the party dictionary to produce the noises the child achieved with beads.

Some acute individual said that he cared not who made our laws as long as he made our songs. No doubt the real and alleged poets do immortalise events in RHYME easily - remembered lines. AND FAME. When you are told that yesterday was Trafalgar Day you do not immediately think of the history of the mau with one eye, one arm and one purpose, but *Twas in Trafalgar Bay We saw the Frenchmen lay. Each heart was bounding then. We scorned the foreign yoke. For our ships were British hope And hearts o& oak our men. In fact England has been expecting vocally ever since on suitable occasions. Maybe the effect of Nelson's supreme achievement would always have been remembered by the navy, schoolmasters and historians, but undoubtedly the poet added a length of immortality. Apropos of verso that permanently marks events, no one ever quotes the prose of the history book about the "Charge of the, Light Brigade" at Balaclava, but everybody knows Tennyson's verses exalting that famous blunder. Nobody nowadays would know that someone had blundered if Tennyson hadn't been searching for a rhyme for "volleyed and thundered." Oftentimes the banal becomes' relatively immortal because it marks a period. "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary" is the best available example. Apropos of songs, Grace Darling, who died on October 20, 1842, does not owe her lasting fame to her gallant act alone, but to the fact that it was popularised by song and recitation. Grace shared in the saving of the crew of the Forfarshire, died of consumption and is buried at Bamborough Castle. Her attractive name has a good deal to do with the survival of her memory. You couldn't expect a rhvmster to make Priscilla Bloggs solemnly immortal. CHAOTICS. The colossal toughness hereinbefore referred to turns out to be Taneeenlihp Elephantine. Appropriate t<» a date reminding us of "England «xpecW: BXbieaafclixitft!, I