THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 280, 26 November 1928, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) Communicated from Shanghai that China is to have a new silver dollar. In future, therefore, a Chinese will be able to carry enough money to buy the family CASH. groceries and need not take a packhorse to bring home the change. Even when our British forefathers dressed in suits of blue paint and spent strings of shell money on bear steaks the Chinese were making good copper coin. Hero is a collection. One is the size of a threepenny bit, smooth as glass. It has been in circulation for centuries and about fifty of them used to have a value of an English farthing. A hefty-looking bronze coin as big as a half-crown, but three times the weight, has a square hole in the centre. The proud owner of about a hundred of these would string them on a piece of twine and buy himself a house, or a sampan, or a junk, or a cherry garden. Some of the coins in this collection aro square; probably invented by tailors for the destruction of clothes. One queer thing worth very likely three farthings has two legs; another is the shape of a dagger, while a set of 4reaty ports quarter-dollars are hotter-looking coins than British shillings; but the pictures and the hieroglyphics and dragons on them look like an army of microbes marching against a host of animalculae. M.A.T. once took :i Chinese quarter to a Chinese launderer and tendered it for a shilling, watching the inscrutable East as he did so. The gentleman picked up the coin without the faintest expression. "This bally coin," said he, "is no jolly good." "There's interest along the country roads," said the business man who threads the mud and concrete in a Henry, "and it is surprising the number of motorists J."HE BLESSING, who pass the man on foot. There are many swagiiion about at the present time, and I overtook one on the hard concrete and offered him a ride. He was a sturdy man of about iifty yea r< with navvy written all over him. He*peeled his swag and put it aboard gratefully with 'And manny thanks to ye.' I asked him where he was going, and he said he was 'afther going for a job of worruk if he could foind one. There's a swate little hut so there is along be the soide of the road near Pappy - kura —just the. place for a camp for the night.' •But,' said I, 'I'm going into Auckland; it will be just the same for me to land you in Atieklancl.' 'Arrah thin, I'll not go to Auckland, for 'tis a lonely place phwin a man is by himself.' He pointed out the empty hut—a ruin with the windows out, canted over on one side, and as much like home, sweet home as a gunny sack hung over a stick. 'Then you won't come on with me?' I said to him. And he said, 'I will not, I thank you.' I felt that this was a man with pride and I was reluctant to offer him money. But ;.„ last I did so. He tooli it gingerly and pocketed it, stepping down with his swag held by the straps. Standing in the road thus he raised his hat and said heartily, 'An' may the blissing of Saint Pathrick rest on yez, me lad,' and walked towards the little ruin." Diurnal records contain one relative to a man who was found with a mallet and chisel chipping the. pavement. An official of the little town where this sculptor PUBLIC WORKS, operated demanded" to know what he was at, and tho man said he hud been told by a leading citizen to erect a statue to Lord Jellicoe. You can't do a thing like that, it seems, without the authority of the traffic inspector, and the proposed statue is postponed. One wonders what would really happen if citizens of philanthropic tendencies took it into their heads to undertake public works without permission. Tho multiplication of statues of Mr. Coates turning tho corner would be embarrassing to traffic. Apropos of public improvements, the Jellicoe statue incident recalls the excavations in the Strand, London, in 1909. The public was annoyed at finding large holes in that busy road, but went about its business as usual. The holes continued to exist for some days until "Father of Ten , ' and "Pro Bono Publico" wrote to the "Daily Wail" to know what was being done. Tho authorities must have read the letters, for inquiries were made, it then being discovered that a party of undergraduates led by tho eldest son of a duke had .dug the place tip for a bit of a rag. No wonder public schoolboys are found on every farm and in every navvy gang. A magazine short-story writer recently mentioned that modern pot-boiling scribblers never have anything to write about. They sit down and ban? tho SHORT STORY, typewriter until they scribble themselves into a plot—spar for an opening like a prize fighter. "Ah, ha!" says the reader; "here's a yarn by Herbert Whang; well-known name," and sits down and reads eagerly. Herbert describes the scenery around the dear old home, the colonel's whiskers and the fearful beauty of the heroine in two columns. Then comes"the intimation "Continued on page 149." He sedulously turns twenty pages, during which he is told by grinning photographs to use Burr's Barillo foV the Breath; to achieve eternal happiness bv manicuring yourself with Nailer's Powder; or to reach the highest height of heaven with Salonika Soap. On pagc"l49 the writer continues to describe the heiress and the colonel, but you are thinking of soap and armchairs, mil files and nose machines. At the foot of the page you find "Continued on page 19," and fall asleep dreaming of patent razor blade?, cheap cameras or Pivot's Purple Pills. As for tho yarn of the colonel and the heiress (for which Herbert Whang is being paid £50), there isn't a yarn—just shadow sparring. There is high romance in the motor bike fitted with a flapper bracket, the delightful girl clinging confidently to the young Adonis at the handles. One ROMANCE. imagines the same beautiful ivy-like disposition throughout a longhand happy wedded life. And so the story of the girl 'who rode oil the bracket is apropos. It was her third appearance in the casualty ward of the country hospital, and as she had been mended twice before free gratis and for nothing the prevailing official put it to her that she should pay up for the third mend. She mentioned airily that as she had no money of cour=e she couldn't pay, and the official said: "Well now, if your boy friends can afford to buy motor cycles they can surely afford your hospital expense?." "Oh," replied the sweet girl "but I never know who the boys are!" "The best-laid schemes of mice and men gang aft agley," even in politics. There was a humble servant of the State working within FORTTTTVFQ the P re T cincts of parIia*UKTUNES ment. It was mentioned OF WAR. by the stalwarts of a , ~. , party that a southern seat might be a little shaky. Now with a few pounds the young servant of the State miHit win that seat. The young man intimated his intention of contesting that election. He proceeded south on his campaign. His political master (an habitual M.P.), Wring of this incident, remarked, "All right, but if the younfool comes back a defeated candidate he won't get his job back!" The younsr man went, saw and conquered, and came back In M.P. His political master does not go back, for the electors have ruled otherwise. You can imagine the young and humble M.P vivid'v addressing tho House and casting a youthful Galled. mer bOSs in the Singers'