THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 261, 3 November 1928, Page 8

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

"E.D.R.," at a time when the whole object of nil political candidates is to show what a fool the other fellow is, quotes Thackeray: "Oh, be humble, my SOUND ADVICE, brother, in your prosperity! Be gentle with those who are less luckv, if not more deserving. Think what right have you to be scornful whose virtue is a deficiency of temptation, whoso success may be a chance, whose rank may be an ancestor's accident, whose prosperity is very likely a satire."

James W. Anderson, chairman of the Matamata County Council, in his day was athlete, footballer and a great man with the dogs. To-day he is still MODERN willing to take less than DIVERSIONS, "yards for years" at sports meetings in the Matamata and Tirau districts. He is looked upon as an authority on New Zealand s national game and consequently he was quite a popular selection for the distribution of trophies at Matamata the other night. However, ho gave the "young fellows" something to go on with. He was speaking of complaints of play being too hard. He did not think it was us hard as in his day; in fact he thought tho young fellows of to-day "practised courting more than collaring." The good old days! —Yard.

PERSONALITY OF THE WEEK,

Herbert Harry Sterling;, LL.B., barrister and solicitor, is now General Manager of the New Zealand Railways, and :nany people who do not get paid £3500 a MR. H. H. year and who will not STERLING, superannuate with £2333 per annum protest, although maybe the discrimination between the horny-handed and the higher strata - will grow. Everybody knows that Mr. Sterling left the railway service for an executive position in the dairy trade and that the railways got so cold without him that he was asked to name his own terms to go back and take hold. Barring occasional Royalty, Vice-Royalty and our own Ministers, Mr. Sterling is the only man with a private suite on the railways,* having his own staff within sound of the buzzer. The G.M.R. is only forty-two years of age, brisk, businesslike and confident. And he is a New Zealander, born in Christchurch.

In the old whaling days the whale sometimes did have a kick corning; might flop a dinghy full of hard-bitten hunters in the blue, thus evening up for the COMMERCE slaughter of the family. AND SPORT. To-day even the cleverest whalers with fast motor boats and harpoon guns tell us it is "plain murder." Perhaps it is because the rapid elimination of whales in the Ross Sea is plain murder that the business is in the hands of strangers. The man who tells us a patheticstory of the mother love of a slut for her puppy wouldn't think of pleading for the mother whale which forced her wounded calf down the other day and thus lost it temporarily to the Maoris who harpooned it. Couldn't imagine the shark towed for some hours with hooks in its throat having any mother love about it. One wonders if ever the element of sporting conduct will reach the sea. A duck shooter Avouldn't think of lying off with a gun and blazing at a nestful of ducklings, but cow, calf or bull are fair game for the whaler, the danger to the whaler having become negligible by the application of science. By the advance of science, too, sportsmen in uniform hope in the future to be able to eliminate not only the mother but the children. Funny old earth, and funnier old sea! "Carlo" read with interest the paragraph about the film actress who desired to obtain maintenance from every one of her former __._ husbands, thus assuring VOICE THAT an enormous income BREATHED. He tells the story of the impassioned George, of Los Angeles, who pleaded his case with the star. "I'm afraid it's hopeless, George," she said. "You see, my lawyer's mixed up mv affairs dreadfully. I'm three divorces ahead of my marriages. You'll have to wait a bit, I'm afraid, darling, but I'll put you down if you like." Noted as*a novel occurrence that the two families of a Maori woman bv successive husbands (the one being a pakeha) took opposite sides in the FORTUNES Maori War. From time OF WAR. immemorial during the foolish arbitrament of war brother has found himself potting brother in periods of national insanity. Literature abounds with such cases, and particularly the history of the American Civil War. Read that little gem of American literature "The Perfect Tribute" for a charming example. The brother versus brother business was common, too in the South African War. It frequently occurred .that an Afrikander had a Dutch father and a British mother or vice versa, so that the poor fellow didn't know whom to kill. It led to regrettable incidents, such as desertions to the enemy, the making, of rebels, and so forth. In a certain celebrated case the daughter of a leading Dutch officer was the wife of the British officer oommanding the troops that rounded him up. Now that we are threatened with talkymovies, habitual seers of silent movies will remember that the actors and actresses have „_ ' „„„ . always been most voluble THE SILENT ! although unheard. It is „. . suggested that when old nims are shown they be accompanied by the language the unheard performers use. It would be highly interesting. Some deaf persons who are expert in lip reading like silent movies very much because they know what the people on the screen are talking about. A deaf friend tells M.A.T. that if many of the silent performers were before a New Zealand magistrate ned fine them heavily. "Such language," he rather pathetically says, "I never heard!"