THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 279, 25 November 1929, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(Bv THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

THE GOOD OLD SUMMER TIME. A perspiring poet sends tliese following verses, hoping the sartorial tyrants of Sa\illc Row and of Bradford will not find him out and prosecute him for high treason: In the good old summer time, the good old summer time, , _ You feel the lieat in Shortland Street In the good old summer time. Walking fast up Shortland Street In the good old summer time You're like slewed fruit in your old tweed suit, In the hot old summer time. You feel you're going to melt, Perhaps you've often felt You'd like to take your waistcoat off And try to reach the nearest beacli In the good old summer time. On Auckland's burning slopes, Bv Maungawliau o'erswayed With fearful lieat the noonday reigns And verandahs yield no shade, There are very few verandahs, too,' In steep old Shortland Street. You curse your thick tweed suit, And the Romney sheep tlie brute ! You're as red as beet, you've melting feet, As you toil up Shortland Street. Up the long incline of Shortland Street In the good old summer time. Who dares to speak of dress reform In the stifling summer time? The roasting summer time, When you stew like fruit in your thick tweed suit And dream of far-oif shady lanes, Or the wet West Coast, where it always rains In the good old summer time! i The pedestrian is frequently peeved, believing that he gets all the kicks, the motorist getting all the ha'pence. Here, however, are eleven motor LEVELLING DOWN, accidents reported as a result of local Sunday traffic, all the people hurt being motorists. A peeved pedestrian in the "New Statesman" asks, "Why is it so much safer to kill a man with a motor car than with any other instrument?" while Mr. T. C. Foley, who is forming a society for the prbtection of pedestrians (probably, begorra, wid shillelaghs) draws attention to the fact that in the South African War only eight thousand men were killed in action while in Britain the yearly killing per motor car is seven thousand. Almost as cheap to have a war as to have motor cars. These pessimists, however, must remember that according to the medical scientists more people live a longer time than formerly. One medical friend threatens humanity generally with an allotted span of one hundred years. Highbrow logicians will prove to anybody that if Nature doesn't use war to keep surplus humanity down she will use something else, such as floods, tidal waves, pestilence or motor cars. It is proved that the latter method of elimination is as bad for the driver as the foot passenger. Ex-soldiers have debated the question "Uniform or plain clothes?" for the opening of l the War Memorial Museum. As the oxsoldiers sat, one after MUFTI AND another would say, ."I MEDALS, haven't got any uniform."

"Neither have I," "Gone years ago," and so forth, so the men will dress as they like, barring the president, who has been warned to turn up in full kit. However, on suitable occasions very old soldiers have appeared in the streets of Auckland in uniform antedating Omdurman. White helmets and red jackets, frogged frockers and strapped overalls, double as old as any man in the 1914-18 N.Z.E.F., have appeared, showing how the ancient pomp and panoply was treasured by the men who wore these brilliant trappings. Hundreds of ex-soldiers of the Great War still possess uniform. You may frequently see a man on the front of a dray Or a loiTy wearing the honoured jacket once worn by a major. Old military riding pants long past their grand climacteric still cling to the sturdy but older legs of Flanders and Gallipoli heroes, and khaki overcoats upwards of /eleven years old are common wear in the country (and the brave colour is often seen dyed on town backs), increasing in weight from nine pounds to sixteen according to the rain absorbed. The old army method of manufacturing indestructible clothing went out before the Great War. And in New Zealand there are still innumerable blue red-lined cavalry cloaks, served out in 1900, fit for another thirty years' service"Mufti and medals" seems to be a suitable kit for old soldiers who formed a great citizen army. May all the Massey boots be worn out behind the plough and the old khaki be fed to the moths or worn shred by shred in peaceful avocations.

There is a man mature and beloved with a phenomenal memory. He is a perambulating encyclopaedia of old Auckland. He knows exactly where the little THE TIN HAT. bootmaker's shop used to stand when there was more tea-tree than bootmaker's shop in Karangahape Road. He knows whom the old settlers married, where the children now arc, their names, occupations and fortunes. He remembers dates; the blowing up of the Pink Terraces, the death of Mr. Seddon and of many great events. He knows what numbers there were 011 his yesterday's tram ticket and will tell you in a second what date Easter falls 011 next year. This morning he sat dabbing a few thoughts down on a typewriter. "Heavens!" he cried. "I've got to see Mr. H— at ten o'clock!" It has been this memory specialist's habit when leaving his office to imprison his typewriter in a large tin cover. He picked the cover up and placed it 011 his head! It didn't fit a bit. The finding of a homemade bomb packed in a cocoa tin at Waihi will remind many old Gallipolians of the days when bombs were father and mother and CRICKET. daily bread to them. Bombs were in short supply among the British troops. Beautiful bombs of the cricket-ball variety were common enough among the Turks. A colonial inventor came to the rescue with the jam-tin bomb, and death and destruction (often tied to a "kidney" stone) were heaved from trench to trench. The supply was often so short that many colonials when in close contact with the Turks used actually to catch the Turks' bombs as they were thrown and heave them back at the Turks with their blessing. The riskiness of this form of warfare is apparent. On occasions the cricketer who returned the ball was a second too late, with fatal results to himself. One Auckland man, induced to explain the fact that he had only a finger and a thumb on his right hand, said: "Bit of good luck, that!" and. explained that as he heaved a Turkish bomb back whence it came it exploded, merely maiming his hand only. "I might have gone west," he said cheerily, leaping on his motor bike and going south. Dear M.A.T.,-—'When the Education Commission calls on you for advice I think it would be a good idea if you suggested a course in shopping for secondary FULL OF BEANS, schoolboys. I am always getting into rows for making mistakes. This morning I made a terrible bloomer. Mother sent me to the greengrocer's for some peas. The greengrocer pointed oat some shrivelled old things and said they were fourpence per pound. In the next box there were some nice big green ones, which, when I asked, he told me cost only threepence per pound. I thought they were far the best and took two pounds. When'l got home, however, mother went off the deep end. She said they were not peas at all, but French beans. As if I should know that. I don't learn agriculture. Any rate, I packed my bag and left for school as quick as I could, leaving mother to work French beans into the mutton stew.—Per Augusta.