THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 269, 13 November 1928, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) DO YOUR DUTY. To-morrow will be Wednesday, we've got no votes to-day. But when the morning dawns again each voter has his say : We'vo talked for months and put our names upon the country's roll. So do not simply say, "Taihoa!" but get you to the poll! Your fathers fought and bled and died to get a vote for you. So never mind who's going in, or if you're Green or Blue : It's your affair, so hide yourself within the canvas booth And do your duty like a man so we can have the truth. Take the first buckshee car that plies. Free rides for all to-day ! Strike out the names you do not want so everyone may say : "I've done my duty, may the man I like best have a win : But above all I want to see tIH Winning side set in!"

Modern chairmen of candidates' meetings make no bones about the side they are on. Some of them frankly rise while the candidate

moistens his larynx and THE CHAIRMAN, pour forth the partisan

formula with a vim and continuance that leaves the audience in doubt as to who is the chairman and who the candidate. In such cases, of course, that part of the public in antagonism to the candidate is not represented at all. In reality a chairman in charge of a meeting should have no politics at all for that evening. He should be merely the introducer and the referee. It is perfectly in order for a Tory chairman to preside at a Labour meeting, or for a United partisan to do the job for a Reformer. Partisan chairmanship is not new. One has seen a brilliant chairman of other days spruik against time for fifty minutes before his principal appeared, warming the audience into a semblance of enthusiasm long before the eminent one has finished his dinner. The rather decent method of going to a meeting at which the chairman is selected by the audience from the audience seems to have lapsed. In reality the audience hasn't the slightest immediate interest in the politics of any chairman. They want to know something of the man who may unhappily (or otherwise) represent them in the Talk Shop.

One of those little wars waged far from the eye of the man in the street has taken place in Central Australia. The forces of

justice have cleaned up BINJIE'S seventeen blackfel lows FUNERAL, and two gins. Civilisation

used rifles and the savages boomerangs. In reading the cablegram you feel intensely sorry for the constable who mentioned- that boomerangs are effective up to one hundred and fifty yards. Whether you feel intensely sorry for Binjie, who could be killed at six or eight hundred yards by a rifle that is sighted to two thousand yards, is for yourself. You might raise riots in any part of the Empire if you matched a man with a eockful of horse shoes with a man in eight-ounce boxing gloves, but the handicap wouldn't be as great as a war with blackfellows, between riflemen and throwers ofi sticks. Some game Australians might be called on yet to proceed into the wilderness to wipe out a tribe or two, both sides being armed with boomerangs. An alternative would be to arm the blackfellows with rifles as a sporting proposition. All the same, blackfellows are notoriously incapable of becoming good rifle shots, so even then the man in the shako might have an advantage. Another sporting feature in this Australian elimination of the native race is that the police use black trackers who for gain are the chief agents in carrying death to their relatives. As the cable savs, "they were hundreds of miles from civilisation." Who cares ? And the two blackfellows about whom all the shooting happened were acquitted of murder. Let civilisation flourish! Binjie's fighting boomerang is not the toy that comes back. Much larger and heavier. He can penetrate a kangaroo with it at a long range, but one doubts if he could hit a rifleman hiding behind a tree at eight hundred yards.

Dear M.A.T., —In view of the recent outcry against the methods adopted by Scotland Yard in their relentless efforts to track down offenders, it is' rather inC.I.D. teresting to observe the methods of the Criminal Investigation Department of our own University College. After all degree candidates have been solemnly adjured by the supervisor to hand over any clues, keys, cribs or other insidious devices laboriously prepared with a view to deluding the examiners, they are allowed to commence writing. Suddenly a female detective shuffles on slipper-clad feet up to a candidate, and, plunging her hand amidst his papers, drags out his spectacle case and subjects it to a close interior scrutiny. Very efficient, no doubt, but rather humiliating for the examinee.—Eve-witness.

This recent conflict between police and blackfellows in Central Australia will revive the contention that it is impossible to really civilise the race. It is BACK TO known that a wandering NATURE, tribe once driven into a Murray Biver station were treated with every kindness and clothed by well-meaning people. Although they did not resist being clothed they afterwards tore the garments to shreds with teeth and hands. It is curious to read in a London paper that the Willesden Guardians have a child in a hospital who shows the same atavistic tendencies as the Australian blacks. The girl, onlv three and a-half years of age, is described as a pretty and delightful child and the picture of health. Although she is clothed in the strongest possible material she gnaws and tears it all to pieces. A guardian says it is sad to see a child clothed in sackcloth imprisoned in a cage like an animal. A return to remote ancestral characteristics is not unknown in people lost in the wilds. In the last stages they alwavs remove their clothes and discard all artificial things.

The nations are vieing with each other to produce striking objects which aid both motorist and pedestrian to stay above ground. In 3lr. Hoover's country HONK ! the erection of plain mortuary crosses alongside portions of roads where fatal traffic accidents have happened are common. One of the most compelling, however, was erected by the Rotary Club Chauffeurs' Association in Venezuela. It is a large fenced monument of marble. On the solid top reposes a real car which has been well and truly smashed in collision and which is worth about three-and-sixpenee for old iron. On the monument are words. Being translated they mean: "Attention! Go slowly and you will go far!" Auckland people with experience of local safety zones know that if the authorities erected such an object here there would be quite a competition to see who could hit it first. The most curious thing about the recent sale of umbrellas which had been left in tramcars was that not a single loser leapt to his -„...,„ or her feet and claimed BKULLIES any brolly, gamp, parasol, AND BOOKS, chubby or husband beater . . offerings If any of the original leavers attended the auction sale they lay low and said nuffin , . The periodical sale of umbrellas and other goods (but particularly umbrellas) has a sinister side. There is a possibility that a public tramear is the best place to leave an umbrella which has been "borrowed," for, however often this matter is joked about, there is no doubt that an umbrella is common property. They vie with books as unconsidcred trifles. M.A.T. once knew a man who borrowed books assiduously and brought every one back! "Funny blokt/' said a mutual I acquaintance, "one of those memory guys."