THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 19, 23 January 1929, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

HUM'S MUMMY. j Wife of King Solomon. Discovery of Her Mummy.—Newspaper headlines. Dear mum (or mummy), which are you? ■ For I hare read or heard Thnt papa had three hundred wires All decently interred. Six hundred other ladle*, too. Lie In the silent tomb! Why of this female army should One Moti get a boom? Oh. do you think it fair of Sol To make so great a shine About one lady and forget Eight hundred ninety-nine? And if the diggers dig for one In a selected spot. Why don't they «lijr all Palestine. Exhuming the whole lot? A local tram conductor thanks Providenoe that the old-fashioned Georgian pennies, which weighed about an ounce each, are not current during this pleasant warm PASES,'PLEASE, spell. He also mention* the collector of numismatic oddities who tendered eight halfpennies for a fourpenny fare, but considers that the man who tendered a five-pound note ex|iecting to be given four |>ounds nineteen and tenpence need not have been angry when the transaction was impossible. In a town far, far greater than Auckland a passenger- tendered two farthings and a halfpenny stamp in payment of his fare. "Wot in 'ell 'ave you bin a-btiyin' of? Moty caws?" asked the conductor.

Reading that an unfortunate citizen had been struck through the heel with a gaff and of the pain and trouble that ensued, one frit sorry for the man an-l THE GAFF. weakly wondered if innumerable sharks and other denizens of the deep share the unhappv man's dislike of gaffs. In the van- of a shark he. would have put up '"a gallant iight.*' tugging a boat with a larj:e hook in his gullet before he received the gaff. Perhaps, as one commentator says, a shark may be a sjiort, recognising the skill of his |«rtuer in Jhe fun, «a that instead of crying "Ob, b !" be might ery "Splendid! Hooray!" Human beings do not as a rule neglect to claim any money to which they are entitled, and it is really quite curious how often a large number of persons own FOUND—A PURSE, the same money. A man who found a purse containing money advertised it, receiving twelve replies. He did not, of course, doubt their bona fides, but wondered what sort of a divvy he could pay out of one-and-ninepence, two penny stamps, a piece of bootlace and an excoriated tram ticket. Published that some New Zealand banks have an aggregate of nearly two thousand pounds unclaimed money, which they are" philantnropically willing to disburse to the lawful owners. Not all people trust banks, and we have innumerable instances of unhappy folks who have, while in personal possession of hoarded wealth, died in povertj*. There is a recent local instance of an aged lady who had lived for many years by herself. She Actually was in poverty* and. many people, feeling for her (as, of course, they should), helped her daily. She refused to leave her small home, and it was only when it was found that she might die unattended that she was persuaded to "go for a holiday"—and so to the care of kind people. But it "was found after her death that the old lady had sewn into her clothes a sum exceeding one hundred pounds.

One does not wonder that Nelsoni.ins sometimes rhapsodise about their lovely little town. A writer charmingly calls attention

to its perfections, niciiTHE NELSON turning inter alia that at TOUCH, the feet of a rampart of

protecting hills the favoured town "gathers all the sunshine the heavens have to give." One had thoughts that a ray or two had wandered north, but |>eihap«, one is wstaken. The ardent admirer mav be excused for saying that its ehurehes *and chattels exude the spirit of social welfare and divine worship, but what will appeil most 'o Auckland folk is that "although it has no trams, its fleets of motor cars and lorries aroly exceed a speed of six miles an hour av.d invariably giv e way to j»eminbn!aiors and podestriaus. It is the chief seat of manners hi the Dominion." Hitherto one had believed Auckland to be the chief seat of manners, the leading canon of which is "Get out or ~et under. In old Madrid and in voun» Nelson the motorist politely nnbonnets with the intimation, "After you. dear sir (or madam)." In Auckland the bonnet (on the car) is far less polite.

n»,. ery T " ,e flatr *te 'are for street ears ~» Ln.ted States urban areas is nV because there arc several people in the United "PUNCH States. and whether an BROTHERS." equally pleased to hand

#««..• i- r U '* twopence halfnennv for ruling from Customs Street to Shortland 4l£L and Pa> the 6ame for ridin S to Mount Albert one is unable to say. But a man will, fne cents on some American system mav not Tor'tsl de t0 $• ten » inU8 > may transfer for the same five cents and with a little ingenuity begin his ride at dewv morn and Wr'i 2* 'W eve far. far from his old clap board home and even in another town. But Amenca, philanthropic as it surely is, does not serve dinners aboard for the 'five cents b»nU aS ™ a \l S °"l k "°S S ' h:,s ~ot introduced bunks on the "kyars." One curious tbi.w about our own beloved Auckland is that oH one occasion the populace desires the comuletscrapping of the street cars as bein S *old--fashioned, and on another the reorganisation eat It " CaD ' t baVe ° Ur rake an ' l Noted that Piako people, alarmed at the prevalence of that picturesque but villainous weed ragwort, have determined to slay it. THIC ww™ Good ,Uck to then,: * once -in*. W££D. upon a time there were several thousand acres of TTr 0 ! ~ ltt,e l,ian inva( 'ed the paratorium or M.A r. with a medicine bottle containing a brown fluid. M.A.T. wiped his lios and waited It wasn t a drink, it was a weed killer. If . . ,r WO « d eon,e out i,lto the ragwort pad- &? m' w-!r tb , at is ' Mr - Br ~- would -**«■ h m. Mr. Wilb selected a particularly ferocious plant in full bloom, uncorked his* bottle of death, and poured a spoonful on it. He marked the spot with a tea-tree stick and darklv said•We 11 come and see it again next Wednesday " We did. The ragwort, if anything, was*in better health than before, and Mr. Wilb poured more death on it. This interesting experiment might have gone on until the present moment but a sad faced man came in to M.A.T. asking if that person had seen Mr. Wilb, because two medical men had certified, and so on And the ragwort still bloomed.

THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. Win the battle o'er yourself and vou wii easily put to rout.—Thomas a Kent pis. Worthless things receive a value when thev are made the offering of respect, esteem and gratitude.—Locke. • • ■ If hopes were dupes, fears mav be liars.— A. H. Clough. • • • Remember a word is not a bird. If vou once let it fly, you can't whistle it back again Anon.