THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 251, 23 October 1928, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) Greybeards who remember moving pictures that trembled like jellies in a thunderstorm with appropriate lightning effects will also remember that entrepreSWEET SOUNDS. neurs enriched the pictures with adequate and appropriate sounds. The sounds were supplied by a super "oft" who was armed with paraphernalia for producing them. He would rattle a piece of corrugated iron for a storm, for machine guns, for street traffic; and cases were known of the corrugated iron being mistakenly beaten during an impassioned love scene. One of the most persistent noises was the "clockclock" of the pictured horses' feet on the streets, the super using his tongue for this charming effect and finding it necessary to make an ultimate sound like a very dry mau closing his teeth on a pewter. The screen murder was adequately done by the explosion of a Chinese cracker in imitatna «f a revolver, and altogether one wondem Wliy this graphic assistance was abolished. Subsequent to this enormous musical Instruments were introduced, combining every known noise. Hie ultimate prevalence of deafness in audiences led to the scrapping of these tumultuous implements. There is,' however, a tentative endeavour to reintroduce appropriate sounds, a suburban picture fanatic averring that the local frogs have invaded the theatre and are so vociferous that their concerted song drowns the music of the piano. Dear M.A.T., —Your reference in last Thursday's issue to "Eating More Jam" and the "death-in-a-can" invention of soldiers on Gallipoli takes me back a JAM TIN BOMBS, day or two to the time When black powder and dynamite were "fashionable." It was on a bright Sunday afternoon nigh forty years ago that one of these self-same jam tin bombs played havoc with two young men near the Fishing Rocks at Tararu. In the warm weather sharks and stingray were often to be seen close in, and a practice often indulged in was to load a tin with powder or dynamite with earth for packing, attach fuse (with detonator in the case of dynamite) and await a favourable opportunity to lodge it near the undesirable. On this occasion the youths, whom many old Thames!tes will remember if I call them the "Tw# Georges," sighted a stingray close handy, and the fuse was "spit" in the time-honoured way—but the fish dived just the bomb was raised for the throw. The unfortunate holder,*eagerly watching for its reappearance, forgot that the fuse was fast bunting towards the charge, with the inevitable result—it exploded. His arm was shattered to the elbow, and his companion was minus an eye. Another destructive agent of those days was to insert a detonator with fuse attached in a fair-sized potato. There were men on Gallipoli who well remembered these happenings, and I have often wondered if the cue was taken from the pranks of their youthful days.—Tararu. "Mens" writes with unnecessary acrimony, passing on the news that some New Zealand schools fail to close on Labour Day, thus' assuming a superiority DEMOCRACY.* over schools generally. ' - ■ .M.A.T. doesn't care whether-these schools open up or shut up, recognising that no school seta the hallmark of superiority on anybody, post-school society inevitably branding the youth and putting him in his little niche with absolute accuracy. The only point of real interest in any attempt to differentiate between the son of one man and the son of that man's brother (who goes to some other school) is that in less democratic countries there is a tendency towards levelling. It is curious at a time when some New Zealand schoolboys are dissociated from "Labour" that public school boys from Britain should be sent to New Zealand to become farm labourers. It is even more 'curious that the recognised public schools from which these* young labourers are said to drawn can be counted on. the fingers of two hatodtf, but that humanity aches for superiority so much that many lads from lesser schools join this glad battalion of labourers, rejoicing in the superiority thus apparently conferred. .It is the same kind of exulting superiority which induces one to refer mcdestlyto his grandfather the admiral, knowing full well that grandad was an excellent petty officer. Should scientists joke! It seems safe enough for a psychic investigator (vide cablegram) to tell us all sorts of things about the Martians, for no one MESSAGE FROM seems to have stumbled MASS. on Hq Martian and no one knows if the psychic gentleman is romancing. Anyhow, the psychic man is willing to spend seven-and-six to send a radio message to Mars. Of course, the Martians will understand the language in which the message is sent and tune up their machines, to receive it at the proper time. It | appears that the Martians electrify the apple and thus make it contain all the nutriment necessary to the sustenance of tbe men of Mars, three apples a day keeping hunger away. If the psychic gentleman is really "in touch with these seven-footers in Mars, he can easily get the apple formula from the fruit growers up there by return radio. There will be a rare i future for Henderson when apples containing fruit, fish, steak, cabbage, peas, beans and soup are contained under the one glossy skin. Wonder if those Martian apples get the codlin moth, or is it only the psychis joker who suffers from it ? Balaclava is a health resort on the coast of Crimea in Russia, but on this date in 1854 j it was far from healthy. What is remember- 1 able is that the ' Light ; POOR TOMMY. Brigade of six hundred j charged the Russian guns, j and what is unforgettable is that no British : soldiers before or since were ever treated as badly as in that deplorable campaign. Ghastlv ! inefficiency marked the whole business; the i medical services were frightful and trade robbers killed British soldiers in shoals. Rotten meat and weevily biscuit, shockingly inadequate boots with •"brown paper" soles, poor arms and wretched clothing were the common lot of "Tommy." who would have died in even larger shoals if Florence Nightingale had never been born. It was in the Crimean campaign that the words "brum" and "brummy" attained their most fearful significance. Much of the fighting was hand-to-hand and the brum bayonets of tiie British actually curled and twisted in use. Remember, too. that many of the British regiments were hastily raised from young town lads and that they were actually landed at the front without ever having tired a shot or being instructed in the use of arms. God knows how they fought as well as they did. It was a common thing to find on the battlefields of the Crimea rifles that had never had a charge in them, and many hundreds i belonging to dead soldiers who had rammed j several charges one on top of another, forget- t ting at each loading to add the percussion cap 1 to the nipple of the rifle. Tennyson still asks, i '"When shall their glory fade? Oh. the wild i charge they made!" Apropos of the fact that ; our forefathers thought precious little of a ' sailor or soldier aliveror dead, here is a return ' dated 1768 tabled in the House of Commons, showing the state of seamen who had been in the last war: Killed in engagements, 1512; dead of diseases, 133,708; remaining, total, 184,893. Any modern contractors shriek- | ing f<Jr war? J CHAOTICS. You never know in these days of gas j attacks from the air, poison bombs and j-'> forth and so on. But may the Empire always J possess Rycj>ienntlivlau i Invulnerability. We want peace and no Sheoitwzr.