THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Issue 38, 14 February 1929, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

The cable grammarian draws a pathetic picture of Melton Mowbray ruined by the withdrawal of the Prince, of Wales' patronage.

Poor little place may COBBLESTONES, have to fall back on

selling Melton Mowbray pies. Or maybe the hunting habitues will be able to scrape up three or four hundred million pounds to keep the old show going. M.A.T. always remembers Melton Mowbray as the plaee where old Money Shilling, the wealthy foundling, lived, and where a duchess could yell '•Hello.'"' across the cobblestones to a countess without loss of caste. In the hunting season there is more money represented in Melton than would pay the national debt, and a man who loves horses would go soft-headed with admiration. Cable says that Meltou publicans and tradespeople fear a slump. Don't believe it! Every tradesman there has in the season dukes. marquises, earls, barons, baronets, knights, plain millionaires and company promoters for the picking, and they are picked. It is one of the most curious things about this village that great showmen do not follow this opulence into Leicestershire, but society rolls up to the crudest shows and thoroughly enjoys itself. M.A.T. has seen the wives of the a hove-enumerated folks vigorously applauding "Kast Lynne" done with the utmost feebleness in the dreariest playhouse before an audience that comprised the highest rank, the greatest fortunes and the oldest and proudest names in all the Empire.

'"We must buy something at the bazaar, J Dad: it's for such a good object." "Well, what are you going to buy?" "Something useful, I think. What TROPHIES. about towels, or something like that?" "Right oh!" Mother bought the dozen towels all right. \ cry good towels, too. Folded with the brand inside. Father had a look. They were all marked "Whitepool Corporation." You will iiudcr>taud. <>f course, that "Whitepool" alone is fictitious. The student who imparted the above mentions that lie hired for the summer of 1027 a lurnished seaside cottage. He thinks that although the owner is quite young and apparently not at all opulent he has at some time been proprietor of a large number of hotels. There are hardly two spoons with the same hotel name on them. The forks have come from live hostelries. He commends the quality and variety of the crockery, but says that most curiously there are no dinner plates. He likes the ones marked "Grand Regal Hotel"' best, but the cups from the Capitol are very dainty. There are several large chased silver mugs all with initials on them, each holding about a pint. "I wonder what they are? Trophies, I suppose. 1 wonder how my landlord won them »" Talking about Blackpool, says Lanky, trippers swarm there in tlie season and often carry soap. Xo, that's not why it is called Blackpool. A townie of THE VEST. mine went for his annual to Blackpool and took his wife. I remember it well, because he bought a new waistcoat—a black one—for the occasion. They bobbed up and down a bit in the sea, and my townie emerged fresh and fresh. Rerobing himself, he found to his unutterable horror that his new waistcoat was missing. He told the people, he told the bathing machine proprietor, he to«d the policeman and he told the world, but he didn't get his vest. He sorrowed for a twelvemonth. The time for his annual arrived again. He an' t' missus went to Blackpool. They bathed copiously. Afterwards, as the wife emerged from her bathing machine, my friend rushed up to her with a waistcoat in his hand. "Lass." he yelled, "Ah've fahiul it, ah've fahiul it! Dash me if ah hadn't put me shirt on ower it laast year!" Mr. Sam Weller (the report of whose death is unconfirmed), noting the date of the hearing of Bardell v. Pickwick in the Court of Common Pleas. ST. VALENTINE. exclaimed. "Felirooary the fourteenth! Reg'lar good day for a breach of promise case." You will remember, too. that almost the only literary exercise Sam ever permitted hiinseif was to send a letter and an eighteenjienny Valentine to Mary, housemaid at Mr. Xupkins, magistrate at Ipswich, a proceeding which ultimately j resulted in the binding, and not the breach, of a promise and the appearance of two sturdy little boys. It is solemnly pointed out iu current literature that wc New Zealanders have long since abandoned this old-fashioned flippancy. Superiority to flippancy denotes progress. That quaint immortal. Pepys, never fails to mention his \ alentine. He had a rare taste in ladies, and he was married. Xo doubt the choosing of Valentines for an ensuing year led to incidents both matrimonial and destructive of ordered domesticity, which is possihlv the reason why we modern morals eschew old-timo custom. Mature citizens remember pictorial Valentines as gorgeous cards sprinkled with powdered glass and bearing skewered hearts, Cupids and other emblems of love. On the other hand, grotesque pictorial insults were sometimes forwarded, especially to lorn females whose chances of being Valentines faded as February after February faded together with their greying locks that had once been gold. Unhappily there are too few ladies who live on berries to provide wives for the whole of the Caledonian male community of Canada. It is Mr. Jordan, M.P., A LOVE STORY, who brings back from our Lady of the Snows the j narrative of the woman who during heavy i weather was lost in the great white world o"f whirling flakes. lhe settlers searched for her for three weeks, and, presuming sorrow fully that she had been immured in a snowdrift, went their ways and on with their work. They found to their delight, however, that the lady had not died, explaining when she returned that she had, like the bears, lived on berries. Xo sooner had she again settled down than 1 she received upwards of three hundred offers of marriage from members of Caledonian societies. Correspondents and other "Mothers of Ten" and '"Constant Subscribers" are exercising their ingenuity in mentally devising the perfect garments for the perfect THE CENTURION, man. Shorts, a jumper and rolled stockings, terminating. one infers, in the usual footwear, is suggested by gentlemen who haven't the faintest intention of wearing such raiment themselves, for the morrow cometh when the thermometer drops a degree or so and stalwart citizens rush for woolly undies, overcoats that look so much like dear old Rover, neck cloths and jazz pull-overs. Passing in review the man garments of the ages, one undoubtedly lias two tickets on the old Roman single varment. The toga is both simple and becoming. It was formerly the sartorial sign of a man. Von would lose all thought of the romance of a Roman centurion if he were pictorially produced to you crowned, not with the bays of victory, but with a twelve-and-sixpennv hard hat. You can't imagine Julius Caesar in a tie. or pulling on his underpants, or getting into a 1 eriitoilal khaki overcoat, or turnin <r his coat collar up and shutting the train window on a boiling day because the nastv fresh air was blowing in. M.A.T. is all for the toga and the belt. The old Roman not only wore the toga, but protection for the front of his esteemed legs, his bulgiii" calves projecting uncovered behind. We want that fashion back in Queen Street! One imagines I the sudden change and the wearing by citizens of the universal Roman gladius! which, of course, would come under the Registration of Arms Act. M.A.T. votes for the toga above all other man garments because it isn't fair that only the ladies should show their , The world, except on beaches and sports grounds, is unaware that we possess 'em, '