THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 62, 14 March 1930, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

At the present moment there are at leas\ a hundred million new babies in the world that are the most perfect and intelligent specimens of their respecTHE ASTERS, tive races ever born into this vale of sunshine. The recurring miracle of birth is to the people most closely concerned the most remarkable novelty that ever occurred. Every baby is the best to someone. In restricted suburban areas where the very latest news of the baby market is bandied from lip to lip, discussions as to the perfection of the intimate home baby and the next door baby's comparative imperfections are common. The complexion, the weight, the intelligence, the colour of the eyes (which in the initial stage of life are usually blue), are all discussed, every mother,* bod bless her knowing that she has drawn the prize. Momentary disappointments to the sex of baby disappear, and there arrives a day when accumulated young mothers proudly display the most wonderful infants in the world. The youti" fathers are, of course, proud in a certain peacocky way. Thus, to a new father, an old father eaid the other day: "Well, how is the little boy?" "Girl!" snapped the lad. "Is she well?" "Corker!" reptfed the owner of the finest baby on earth. '■Intelligent.' "My word! She came into the dining room four days after she was born with a lady. Looking* round, she said, 'My word, nurse, what lovely asters! , "

News comes from Sydney that several people have been poisoned by sleeping in a room having arsenically treated wallpaper. _ In older countries arsenical RABBITS AND wallpaper has reaped WALLPAPER. many a life, especially where people believe that the proper way to go to sleep is to shut the windows, put rage in the cracks, lock the door and turn in. M.A.T. is interested in arsenic because once in his infantile sports he sucked well and truly a green label attached to a straw hat. But for a rigorous doctor this paragraph would never have been written. (Tears.) Once the Firm (including M.A.'l.) travelled up the Murrumbidgee. Along the banks one day the Firm found an old, old man. He had a long bit of fencing wire with a flattened end, chisel shape. He u.-sed to push this wire down hollow logs. If there was a rabbit there he twisted the chisel end in the rabbit's fur and yanked him out. He babbled more or less coherently in unexceptionable English of Surrey and Castles, Eton and Oxford of failures, of drink, of rabbits., 'possums and bunyips. Had a bit of a rat. He showed the Firm where lie lived—in a small boat in the middle of the river, a line fast to either shore. To get home he merely pulled the boat in, hopped aboard, and let her go to the length of the line again. He used to think he was C being pursued by a red-haired woman, henco his precaution. The Firm went upriver and back. At the same old spot the Firm saw the old boat and hailed it. No answer. Pulled on the rope. Foul. Cobb swam out and clambered aboard. The old man was asleep on the bale of rabbit skins ho had collected. Couldn't wake him. No—dead! He had been in the habit of using arsenic to treat the skins. Hence his departure.

It was impossible not to hear the conversation, for the two gentlemen spoke in a loud tone, so as to be heard above the roar of the tram. "Oi see be the A HEAVY MAIL, paper," said the gentleman with the shamrock eyes, "that they've imported from England tin tons of tombstones, siventeen hundred tons of wheelbarrows, an' free hundred tons of gunpowdher into the Oirish Free State." "Slmre, they're going ahead at a great rate," remarked his friend with the extensive top lip. _ "Anythin", else?" "Yes," said the man wid the shamrock eyes. "They, imported a ton of tripe, too." "An , phwicli of thim English papers would that be?" asked the man with the top lip, simply. A Scotsman in the far corner almost laughed.

Inter-department cricket matches are a great vogue of the moment. In a recent struggle between teams selected from a local business house, while one THE WATER side was batting 'the WAGON, other side, with modest ideas of a collective thirst, obtained two bottles of ale to refresh the last out batsman* It occurred to a humorist on the bank to drink the contents of one bottle, which-then contained but a little froth. He carefully filled the vessel with water, replaced the crown cork and waited for the batsman. A batsman came, and was given the bottle.. He decorked the bottle, took a sip, and tumbled to the jest. Carefully recapping the fluid again, he placed the bottle on the bank. The teams were hovering about when they saw two ladies with perambulators and infants on the path. One lady looked furtively round, stalked the supposed bottle of ale • on the bank, and with a lightning movement captured it, hiding it instantly. It is assumed there was high, festival in the lady's home when she decanted the froth and water for Bill's dinner. Two ladies, each of whom seemed to be in excellent physical health, one having a gocart and an infant, were about to board a tramcar. As they were CHIVALRY. struggling to get the gocart up the steps, a man hastily descended and courteously helped the ladies with the little vehicle. The ladies glared fiercely at the man, and without a word of acknowledgement sat down. When they were seated one lady still gazing malevolently at the man who had sprung to her aid, said in"a stage whisper: "He must have been drinking!" The idea that a sober man could so far forget himself as to aid a lady had apparently never before occurred to her. Phyllis called in to tell a story father had made the family laugh with. Maybe everybody hasn't heard it. ' The London spruiker stood on the Embankment in THE CURE. the fog while a few shivering folk stopped to hear hie patter. He was a very hoarse spruiker, with a small squeaky voice. " 'Ere y'are, lidies and gents," he said. "For corfs, colds, asthma, pewmonia, etccterer, you cawn't beat these tablets." Hβ stopped to clear his throat and cough. "Wy don't you tike one, guv'nev?" asked a eostermonger. "I will!" said the itinerant—and did so. Then in a tremendous bass voice he roared: "Lidies and gents, these 'ere tablets is the finest in the world! Look what they done for me!" Dear M.A.T.—Re problem of books sans women, am disappointed in you. One of thebest of English writers MORE BOOKS, has written "Greenmantle." "The Thirtynine Step," "Mr. Standfast," "Prester John," etc., etc., all with no more femininity than is introduced by an occasional maidservant. Refer your inquirer to Mr. John Buchan.—J.D. THE CHILD MIND. A bear sliding down a chute appealed largely to Bill, aged five years, when dad took him to a. circus. Bill watched a series of slides with enthusiasm. "Dad," he said "he's got no pants to wear out, has he?" " THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. By persisting in your path, though von forfeit little, you gain the great.—Emerson Our actions, not our feelings, are the proof of our faith. —Canon Cooper.