THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 282, 28 November 1929, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(Bv THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) IGNORANCE. F. C. Chichester, a Wellington man who flies about the world in a 'plane, says he was nearly shot on the' Russian border. Nobody there had ever heard of New Zealand. Oh, rugged ruffian of the Russian steppes, Red rascal, ribald wretch, oh, pray no longer. Steep your black soul ip inky ignorance Of Wharekirauponga! Oh, myriad millions lapped in crimson crime, How little light or darkness you will throw Unless you cast your ignorance away And read of Pokeno ! Oh, vodka victims, vitiated, vile, Villains! In sin you'll welter still Until you mend your very stupid ways And learn of Helensville. "Did 'ee iver taste Carnish pasty or saffron cake?" asked an enthusisatic Cousin Jack, one of the members of the highly successful Cor- , nish Association recently SAFFRON CAKE, inaugurated. "Iss fey!" replied M.A.T., forgetting whether "iss fey" is Devonian or Cornish. Then Cousin Jack went on to say that there is a local revival in the matter of tatie pasties and saffron cake and that young colonials of Cornish parentage have been regaled on these luxuries. Saffron cake, as any West Country person knows, is yellow with the colouring matter mentioned. The samples best remembered by present scribbler were veined with brown lines on a canary background. An Auckland young lady who has eaten some for the first time in her life was asked, "An' how did 'ee like the saffron cake?" "Oh," said she, "it tasted like rock cake mixed with disinfectant."

People who take a tram, or a bus, or a 'plane, or a bike, but who object to the vitiation of the language in American movies, may later object to the BE BRIEF. above abbreviations and to many others. An English clerical philologist says: "Cab is a vulgar abbreviation of cabriolet, pun should be pundigrion, mob is mobile vulgus, wig is short for i periwig, chum is short for chamberfellow, wag for waghalter, rum for rumbillion and gin for geneva. Guts is a polite Anglo-Saxon term of the same origin as ingot. Promise to pay your Williams at once; ask your dad to lend you the Williamhook; offer him the bootjohn; telL him you have broken the beer-judith; implore him to stop playing the banjoseph; and say you hate Marytics. Ask mother to pass the Sarahaddressing; inquire after baby's ragdorothy. After all that you will probably be allowed to abbreviate at your own sweet William."

Several people of distinct social tonnage dined together on a recent evening at a smart local hotel. The party included gentlemen from other lands and a 'WARE few local gentlemen and PICKPOCKETS! ladies; One of the subjects of conversation was the cenotaph. One man, mentioning that a large gun was placed on each side of the cenotaph, thought it was an expression of belligerence, hardly fitting. Another defended the idea as expressive of obsolete death dealers for ever out of action, and thus indicating peace. "And what do you think?" asked a gentleman of a lady. "What are they for?" And the lady said, "I think it is quite right to have guns there. There are bound to be a lot of pickpockets about!" j

Doctor Dodds, dean of dentistry at the Otago University, deplores publicly that in a few years there will be an acute shortage of dentists. As a logician, A LITTLE LOGIC, the eminent gentleman should rejoice and bo glad. Dentists deploring the bad human habit of eating tooth-destroying food, lecture, write and beseech us to save our teeth by means instinctive to the savage. We have, indeed, according to the faculty, merely to return to Nature to possess natural teeth capable of masticating raw maize at the age of eighty. Dentists, in giving us this priceless gratis advice, in a manner of speaking, dig their own professional graves with their teeth. Dentists among pre-pakeha Maoris would have been absurd. Nobody lectured to them. Nobody, barring the enemy, deprived them of their teeth. Nobody told them that if they ate soft food (as they certainly used to do) they would lose their precious fangs. Nobody pointed out the lack of lime in the local creek. There were no dental philanthropists and no papers to philanthropise in. It is obvious that although dentists point out the way to a life of toothfulness for all they expect increasing toothlessness, that although their advice as to feeding would result in teeth for all it would result in dentists for none. As a matter of fact the dentist is as necessary to us nowadays as is the grocer or the butcher, and his self-denying attempt to render himself unnecessary is one of the most touching examples of abnegation presented to the thoughtful. People clanging synthetic molars together may stimulate themselves with the sure and certain hope that the professional death of dentists is deferred sine die.

Dear M.A.T., —One learns from Home papers that Oxford women undergraduates are agitating for equality of social status with the men. A proposal is that WOMEN FIRST, they should be allowed to wear coloured gowns, but it is not suggested that this is on aesthetic grounds. To quote: "It is merely that the Proctors can identify malefactors more easily." Surely this should read "femalefactors" ?— M.F.C. The children of a standard in an Auckland school have a canary. As they file past tho bird in the morning the children will say, "Good morning, Percy!" and THE CHILD MIND. Percy will chirp cheerily in reply. An inspector, a tall, portly gentleman, visited the school recently. To the class possessing the canary he said i "I eee you have a canary. Now what can the canary do that I cannot do!" "Please, sir!" "Well?" "Please, sir, you can't have a bath in a saucer."

Verily we are fearfully and wonderfully made. A message from Brisbane speaks of the appetite of a man weighing nine stone and a half. Eor breakTHE EATS. fast he eats a pound of bacon, nine eggs, a onepound loaf of bread, half a pound of butter and drinks five cups of tea. This appears to be an appetiser for lunch, at which he assimilates two pounds of chops, two pounds of beans, two pounds of potatoes, bread, a tin of fruit and drink to match. He has a hearty meal at night and an extra fowl on Sunday. Then we read the other day of a fellow named Sacco who made a living by starving himself to death. This intolerable nuisance used to starve in a glass case for money. Then, again, we had a note in New Zealand papers of a m&n, who, suffering from a chronic disease, starved for forty-nine days, cured himself and lived a vigorous life for many years thereafter. One man will make gargantuan meals and live a life of leisure, another will eat sparingly and hump half-tons about. G. B. Shaw confines his diet to select vegetables, nibbles nuts and produces literature of the highest type, while contemporary nibs like H. G. Wells and Arnold Bennett are said to be meat trenchermen of almost unbeatable calibre.