THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 257, 30 October 1928, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) , WHO? /. I sat me down with throbbing brow. The problem: family votes. Oh, shall, we vote for rood Sir Joe, for Holland or for Coates? Does rain face the country If the Bines should beat the Yellows, Or vice versa? Oh, dear me, please help me out, you fellows! I wonder if I take a pin on next election day And stab the voting paper with my eyes fast closed I may Stab the wrong name. Oh, do you think 'Twill be a fatal day? Suppose we put the wrong ones in and cruel our little plot, | And ruin this fair land of ours and send It straight to pot? The grass, of course, will sprout no more, the cows will all give in, If I don't stab the proper name with my bright little pin. Exhibiting all the outward appearance of excellent health and a punch like the kick of a horse, lie complained to HJLT. that he had a pain between the sboulOYSTEBS. der blades, a brown taste and a feeling of lassitude. Putting a finger on his ten-inch wrist, the amateur physician asked him sternly: "What have you been eating?" "Nothing!" he replied angrily. "I had a couple of dozen oysters," he murmured, "some cheese and a bottle of Btout for supper," and then went into raptures about the size of the delicious oysters, which were as big as crown pieces. The amateur physician broke in on his raptures with the solemn word, "Liver," and the .roystering oysterer continued a rhapsody about the Colchester . feast and envied the man who ate seven dozen and then cleaned up the natives his elbow neighbour didn't like.- It occurred to the amateur physician that oyster fans who really want to achieve indigestion in its complete form should live during an oyster season at Port Lincoln, South Australia. There one oyster is a meal for a family, and many are larger than a dinner plate. A Colchestrian or the Auckland amateur oyster eater with seven dozen Port Lincoln oysters beneath his vest would be in a state to attend a. Parliamentary candidate's meeting and talk acidly about the rising cost of* living.

Expert opinion is to the effect tbat the new tslky-movies will not oust 'the silent screen story. As most movies luiil from the land of the timber , nut* TALKY-MOVTE. meg, the dassic stories of the earth and the stories that are not classic may yet be accompanied by much one hundred per cent American language. One has always feared that at some tune or other the adored of the ■»'«••»» will burst into language and spoil the show, It is nicer to have Mary Pickford silent thai to chance a possible nasal accent, to take Charlie as he is for fear he would break out into and to accept Douglas' noisy movements without risking a wealth of purest Down East. Talking of talking,, a few years since there was a fine all-American theatrical company in New Zealand. It played Ouida'a "Under Two Flags," and noble dukes and swell guardsmen talked through their noses, guessed and calculated in aristocratic drawing rooms, and wore the dress of society with the air of the cowboy. It was extremely laughable, this unconscious Americanisation of a dassic. Pre* viously the dukes and earls and officers had played a cowboy play to the very life, and the comparison was grotesque. Still, all Americans do not talk that way. America sent to England one of the finest Hamlets to date, and that famous actor didn't guess calkilate or talk through his nose a~bit. The inimitable Gilbert may or may not have had the Duke of Manchester in his eye when he created Plaza Toro. His Grace of Manchester (vide cables) PLAZA TOKO, spent seventy-two thousand a year and paid a shilling in the pound. Still, you know, he kept a lot of people going while he was at it, and very likely even now manages to afford a clean collar every day. The most interesting things about his Grace of Manchester do not appear in the cables. Only a year or two ay*\ he .dashed out on. a London pavement, cheerfully engaging a shoplifter and showing a most gratifying turn of speed, although he is far from thin. He wrote some extremely facy stuff about himself not long ago, and he w certainly a comic duke. Has been cowboy, sailor and actor, obviously getting tired of dukwg every now and then and doing what his fancy dictates. N He is only nine years of age, and has been talking about Christmas and Banta flans already. "What shall Santa Claus bring you this year?" his fond KING THE BELL! parent asked him. "Oh, a , ' cricket bat!" piped the budding Dacre. "You mean a cricket set?" asked the indulgent parent. "Wickets, too?" "Oh, no, Dad, only a bat. If you have a good old kerosene tin for the wicket you can hear when they're out!" There is no end to the use of the cinema. Mentioned that army recruits who have been blasted by sergeants-major since ______ Wellington was a boy are POLITE ______ to watch troops at work SLAUGHTER, in the pictures and their training thus. Far nicer sitting in a dark theatre luxuriously at ease watching the other fellow doing it than humping a marching order kit and a nasty rifle all over the place. Since ever then have been armies the sergeant-major has been esteemed for the power ' of Jhis vituperation. Non-coms used to sit in mess and invent new curses for recruits. All is to be The recruits who are not trained by the movies are to be trained by polite sergeants-major. "Will the gentleman on the right kindly two paces forward? Thanks!" "Company, please form fours. Do you mind marking time? Thank you so much!" Instead my ! Blow me if there ain't a bloke trying to climb his blinkin' rifle!" and thousands of other highly original methods of shaping raw material into cannon fodder. Mention is made in discussing the new and kindly method intelligent recruits will be less upset by pictures than by sergeants-major. As an intelligent potential recruit for the next Armageddon, M.A.T. appeals to the High Commands to do the next war In pictures. It's far Wif messy. Dear MAT,—"A boy's greatest and best f ? c ° d * mothw," said Archbishop Averill at the YJn.CJL v gathenng on Saturday. Forty UJU „years ago the song "A MOTHERS V Boy's Best Friend Is His Mother" was very popular . ' and was whistled by every orchm in the streets, whether Ids mother loved him or not. His Grace would have —atj and clinched his assertion if he had rendered bnt the tail end of the refrain: "So wherever you may go, you will always find it so, a boy's best friend is his mother." I regret that I remember no more of the song, but "nwrifit »y unregenerate youth recall somewhat more of the parody thereon: ta etotb2[ ar Bndiy And hit am when I said Td ten my mmw *«o. Ter yoa "** *°* Toa wm.aSnsa«s' it A boys worst Mead is Us brother. Si sSiaur?'**'