THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 256, 29 October 1928, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) THE LAUNDERERS. They're hanging ont the linen upon the party line. And some of it is dirty and the launderers are shirty, . , ~ _ And some of it is "wet" and some is "dry." They're making speeches soapy, every launderer will hope he Wffl be in the winning bag wash bye and bye. Both sides, of course, can't win, 'cos, yon see, the Bluebag's in. A nice clean "collar" or a well-washed "tie" They're scrubbing and they're rubbing to give their foes a drubbing; Oh, listen to their Coates and to their pants, Hear the party phonographs (same old stuff, but fewer laughs). As they try their piles of linen to enhance: No launderer is voteless. WiU they wash the party Coatesless ? Which laundry seems to have the better chance? ! That persistent traveller, the Prince of Wales, ought to have the admiration of every wearer of a hat. When Captain Pow rises in * the morning, whether it A be at Sandringham, Moose ROYAL MARTYR. Jaw or Timbuctoo, he hasn't the least notion how many hats he will have to wear. The average man hasn't got to wear himself and his knocker out by a constant repetition of salutes. He has perhaps only to raise bis lid six times a day. If his lottery of headgear includes a cap and a hat, ten to one, if he wears the cap, he thinks it a hat, and grabs it by the crown to greet a lady friend. If he wears a felt he forgets it isn't a cap and pulls the front leaf in an absurd manner. The unhappy Prince, however, will in a single day wear a cap, a felt, a hard knocker, a solar topee, a silk hat, ail opera hat, a Guardsman bearskin, an undress army cap or the bonnet of a Highland regiment. Yet you never in any picture or movie saw Captain Pow raising his bearskin, busby or shako, never observed him smartly saluting with the fingers two inches above the right eye while wearing a topper, or sweeping the ground with a solar topee. In reality the Prince is a very shy man and might easily forget if he were not constantly nudged by the admiral or general who accompanies him. You can imagine the Prince about four in the afternoon in his sixth headgear of the day and the accompanying official giving whispered instructions, "Hat, sir, raise!" "Topee, Your Royal Highness, touch!" "Bearskin, sir, salute!" "Hard hat, Wales, lift!" and so forth. Explained long, long after, but while the relatives of Lusitania passengers still mourn, that the sinking of that great ship was "just a chance," and the comJUST A CHANCE, mander of the submarine which fired the shot, was horrified at what he had done. In time the siege of Troy and the Norman invasion will be comfortably explained away. It is not to be forgotten that subsequent to this chance our new friend the enemy issued a token commemorating that chance. The medallion showed a large crowd of passengers by the Lusitania filing up to the booking office. The skeleton Death with a scythe is pictured, his grisly eye on the passengers. It is not conceivable that the people responsible for that medallion shared the feelings of horror Com- | mander Walther Schweiger says he felt. The I submarine officer, as current literature avers, was "pleasant, kindly and well liked." Oh, well* And even aspirate it if you wilL Octobcr 2fr, 1769, being a Sunday, Captain Cook says nothing of his doings on that day, but for the 30th he has a word or two. On that day he sailed northCAPE RUNAWAY, wards for ten hours and hauled around a small island. He gave the name of the point of the coast East Cape, and the island East Island. At nine o'clock in the morning they were astonished to see five canoes coming off from the land. When one of these canoes almost reached the ship another of immense size, the largest they had yet seen, and crowded with armed warriors, put out. There were thirty-two paddlers, and Cook mentions how surprisingly swift the canoe was. The gentlemen in the canoes appeared so extremely aggressive that Cook fired a gun loaded with grapeshot ahead of them. This stopped the canoes, but they did not retreat. Another harmless shot was fired, "and upon seeing it fall they seized their paddles and made towards the shore with such precipitation that thev seemed scarcely to give themselves time to breathe." In the evening several canoes came off, but the men carried no arms and simply sat and bobbed up and down in the tide, gazing in admiration at the ship that could do that sort of thing. Cook called the cape Cape Runaway that day, and he also christened White Island.

Now that Dcvonport has marked the celebrity of Mr. E. W. Alison while he is still hale and hearty and acute, it seems an appro* WTTmcPTft ' priate , to *B*™ hitherto remark that age cannot UNPUBLISHED, wither nor custom stale," etc. Noted that our many leading citizens have no "sere-and-yellow-leaf" period. For instance, one day Air. Alison was having what was probably a free ride on a ferry boat. He was absorbed in conversation with a youth of fifty or so when a boy fell from the top deck head foremost, striking the pile just as the boat was hugging the side. Very nasty if there is a head between the "rubbing streak" and the piles. The elder man, much more juvenile than the younger man' bounded from his seat and had the legs of the, disappearing lad in a trice, hauling him inboard before the crack came. No, no! He is not old, just a G.YJI.

Facetious persons from time immemorial, seeing a horse vehicle bogged, a bullock team in trouble or a motor vehicle temporarily deprived of life, have ik2.CSI.SIOR! given the grateful advice, j t.«» » "Why don't yer get out and push? It was done no longer ago than this morning. Apparent life ceased in the interior of the suburban bus. The driver agitated the self-starter. Only a slight cough emerged. He descended and whirled the crank handle. Nothing of a locomotive character occurred. He was aided and abetted in this rotatory motion by a powerful person, showing all the stigmata of a lorry driver. A slight purr and a large perspiration occurred, but the bus stood fast. The village humorist riding a flea-bitten grey with a cornsack saddle, pulled up and said, "Why don't yer get out and push?;' It was an inspiration. Fortified with porridge, bacon and eggs the men passengers did actually push the heavy bus until it coughed, sputtered and took over. On the brow of a slight tumulus it gathered way. The driver leapt like a startled fawn and gained his seat. The porridge, bacon and j eggs raced to the moving seats. Plethoric per-' sons gasped a stertorous "Hooray!" and we I caught the next boat.

In one of lis cosy chats to London admirers Sir James Parr refers to the tortoise of Tonga, left as an apparently imperishable THE TOKTOIW the Ute CapTHE TORTOISE, tain Cook, and which has , „ , never been in the soup yet. Reference to Sir James Parr and tortoises the memonst of another humourist B tortoiße - T »»e mistress, Bndget and a tortoise are pictured in a kitchen. The lady of the house says: "Good gracious, Bridget, there's the tortoise' I J? V lt ev< V. 6 l° n S-" "Tortoise is ut, mum!/ exclaims Bridget. *'Whv thaf' R Ss^J*ss?i