THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 212, 8 September 1930, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

HEY HO—SIERY ! The imp of fashion once again Js at its funny tricks, . . And skirts that went tip inch by men Now conio clown six by six. It seems, if rumour does not lie, And J3vo upholds the plan, Thai once again we'll read how she •Wicked up her skirts and ran. ' The fust-advancing tide engulfs The oft-disputed knee. Now will the calf and ankle fare Bv nineteen thirty-throe? Man can't believe it's true. And let us softly whisper. That every inch the skirt comes down His face gets longer,'" too. —A.H

Mr. Percival Norton, wbo has Jiad many adventures in many lands, is just out of the Auckland Hospital. He lias escaped fire, flood, war, tempest and'tropieal DESSERT. disease, but not an Auckland car, which fractured his skull. He talked about 'food, attracted by paragraphs mentioning the desire of native races for the strongest possible flavours. Apropos sending "blown" 'bully beef to the Islands, lie. says that in certain parts the blown beef is carefully taken out to sea and dumped and that the natives won't have it at any price as a gift. In Pondoland (near ■St. John's River, memorable for wrecks) he lias seen natives gathered round an exceedingly dead and disgusting beast, a victim to rinderpest, leaving only skin and bones, having a joyous feast of the uncooked abomination and enjoying it utterly, finishing up with a dessert of .straws pushed down the stems of pipes, chewing the luscious result. At Umtata, where there is dairying, the skim, left out in vessels in the sun (presumably for pigs) becomes nnthinkably thick and foul. Native women come for miles for a calabash of this ghastly food, shared by incredible aggregations, of flies. The women practically pour the abomination into or over their infants, and the white man takes a thousand paces to the right—and dismisses.

He loves flowers. Carnations are his long isuit. On a recent afternoon oil' lie looked lovingly at his prepared patch and his bunches of rootlets. When lie had PRETTY COCKIE. finished he looked along the rows and, behold! they were very good. He went inside and his soul was satisfied. Xcxt morning he rose early. A gardener had been there before him! The family cockatoo was on the last row. He had carefully pulled them one by one. "Pretty cockle!" he said, desiring praise. Jn Australia, where 'his relatives so greatly abound, the sulphur-crested cockatoo gardens mathematically and in droves like unto the sands upon the seashore for multitude. Vast stretches of young wheat will exhibit incredible expanses of golden crests and the sudden appearance of man will fill the air with shrieks and snowy feathers. Sometimes (but rather rarely) the air will be darkened by the black relatives of the white cockies, and the irruption of the sable birds is supposed by human cockies to portend ram. The farmer is wrongly named after the cockio. The human coekie seldom goes from growing blade to blade pulling it up and destroying it. He certainly scratches the dirt for all humanity and often (please see any reliable list of mortgages) he has devil a feather to fly with. Precious few have golden topknots.

Colonel J. G. Hughes, C.M.G.. D.5.0., etc., known among his intimates and other rude people as "Jackie," won the veterans' golf tournament at Rotorua. A GOLFER. Jackie was a good deal of a veteran during the Great War. Ho commanded the Canterbury M.R. on Gallipoli and came home crumpled up—-a mere handful. He is straightened out a bit now. Lay on his back for a long time staring at the ceiling and thinking about the past—some past. Well, this Jackie joined up with the soldiers for Africa in 1599; full trooper be was, and fivo feet five; weighed about nine stone. Went into Karori camp all dolled up in a frocker with frogs, spurs and all that— officer in a Hawke's Bay lot. Made a sergeant almost at once, officer in no time. Some fellow remembers the old sergeant-major finding Sergeant Hughes mooning about Africa" and standing to attention and calling him "Sir." Jackie couldn't make it out. Jackie did bright bite of work, bits of history in a way. But he'll be glad to be reminded by M.A.T. that he won the officer's horse race at Colesberg or some such place about thirty odd years ago and for some peculiar sporting stuff in his blood he always cajoled all ranks into liking him. There are about three hundred and sixty-five other columns about Jackie, but he'd blush. He broke out into a writing rash a month or two ago, but for unknown reasons dropped it. One of the peculiar things about this erratic person is that Lis handwriting is exceptionally good. He was entered on the roll of the Ist X.Z.M.R. as a law clerk. But he's been colonelling for years and vears' and golfing in his spare time. Saka Bona Baas!

People who have wandered in the vicinity of the produce markets—near the dock site which is to become a golf course—may have observed pairs of feet THE SCOUTS, sticking out of barrels. Instantly a sale is ended, or when there is a halt in the busy proceedings, swarms of lade, white or dark, emerge and attack the discarded residue. They breakfast on discarded oranges, lunch on unsaleable fruit, and dine on spotted fruit. They seem to have a. good time, and, on the whole, look very much like ordinary boys. Another phase; buyers intending to purchase potatoes, kumaras and so forth rip a sack, take a tuber, cut it in half, and, having examined it, throw it on the floor. The lads of the village with their sugar sacks pounce on the large quantity of halves and often achieve enough good potatoes for the family dinner, Everybody, of course, is sympathetic enough, knowing" that m most cases this scoutkig for discards is a necessity. In fact, it is welcomed, for the lads, both white and Maori, are very thorough. M.A.T. thought perhaps it might be usefiiAo remind people with full turns that there are others.

The young woman arrived at her home with the glow of health on her cheeks and a folded bandeau chapeau on her head. She PA _ had come about a hundred i'ULLYS RIDE, and ninety miles in a servico car. "What sort of a. tune, Polly?" asked her father. "Corker! Hummer!" die trilled. "Good road all the way good scat." "Food?" asked father. "Tophole! she countered. "Hot, cooked to a turn, best quality, clean, good, nice people. Plentv of time to eat it, urn!" It made pa ponde'r ol not so very long ago—"the good old times." hame track, no concrete, no service cars. Four horecs. Mud. Ruts. Two-thirty, afternoon. Wayside accommodation house. Coach passengers get off. Long barnlike dininjr room. Already partly filled with good old Bill, dear old Ike et omnes, with their sleeves rolled up, hats on heads, feeding ferociously. Tin dishes ot chops and steaks on the bare table. Every man helped himself. Salt, pepper and mustard—dry in tins. Every man dug his own Kmie in the same. There was a woman tourist on the eoaeh. M.A.T. even remembers her name. She asked the accommodation house lady where the dining room was. The proprietress showed her. "Oh, thank you I could not dine in there!" ehe said. "Oh, well, take it or leave it. that's all w e can do'" : said the lady. The tourist left it and nibbled I a biscuit or so on the next We used to whirl along thirty mile?, in six hours then. <Jn, for the good old days, Polly! I