THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 221, 18 September 1930, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAH ABOUT TOWW.)

Dear M.A.T., —Re the article "Marine Engineers" by "Lee-Fore-Brace" and the editorial on tie same subject, I lift my hat to tihe engineers, greasers and firemen of the Tahiti. Bronght to mind, t&efitory of Join Macleod. In . tihe dark daye of the war, when everything that could float was hurriedly commissioned to bring bacon and eggs and bread to England's hungry millions, it was almost impossible to find experienced men to man vessels. Especially was this the case in regard to certificated marine engineers. John Macleod bad sailed in the fleet of Bullard and King for five and fifty years, and when the call went out for engineers Mac responded. He was seventy-sis years of age. Bullard and King considered him to be too old, so he died his hair, trimmed his beard, altered his age in his Board of Trade certificate by twenty years, and then applied for a chiefs job in "the Glasgow "Glen" line. He was appointed chief of the Glenfalloeh, sailing next day for Boston. Off the North of Ireland the Glenfalloeh was torpedoed, Mac and. six others being the sole survivors. They were landed at Liverpool and three days later he sailed in the tramp Afghanistan as second. Returning from New York the Afghanistan was torpedoed in the Channel. All bands were saved. Two months later he signed on as chief of the Glensannox, and when making up to the North Cape bound for Archangel the vessel go'j nipped in the ice and foundered. The crew was saved by the trawler Unicorn. Outside the Humber, when the Unicorn was making for Hull, she struck a mine, only ten, including the patriarch, being saved. Six weeks later Mae was again afloat, this time as chief of the patrol vessel Lascar. She got badly smashed in the Lowestoff raid, limping into port with three of her complement dead and nine injured, Mae nursing his engines all the way to make sure ol getting there. His last adventure was in the s.s. Havelock, a river steamer built for the campaign in the Persian Gulf. She was torpedoed in the Mediterranean, all her officers with the exception of the old chitf being lost. He sustained a broken leg, which, much to his regret, did not mend until peace was declared. In bis native town of Dumbarton a presentation was made to the old hero by the Mercantile Marine Service Association. His reply to the - president's oration was as follows; "There are two kinds o' engineers, engineers, and Scottish engineers. Ah'm a Scottish engineer and the other kind dinna' want tae be told tae do their duty. . The Clyde is the nursery o' the craft, and the little Ah did will just be the same as banners mair will do so long as ony o' the breed gang oot on the deep waters." —Steam Gland.

JOHN MACLEOD.

We have now 110 army in New Zealand. Thank leaven we lave our tattered flags and glorious traditions very worthily earned in the places where traditions are made. The disbanded army is to be replaced by rifle clubs. Hitherto rifle clubs hare been largely manned by middle-aged gentlemen who do not go to war. The rifle to them is a machine for stabbing targets on suitable occasions. Military cartridges and service rifles in~ future' will be issued to rifle club members aaid they will stab targets with them. Apart from those ardent young souls .to whom the possession of a rifle and "State ammunition means more pigs-'or deer, -one imagines a still greater ardency _ among the middle-aged defenders of -the mat and target puncturers generally. It leads a rifle shot, who speaks with authority of the days succeeding Waterloo, to the conclusion that should anybody start a war in which-New Zealand is asked to share, as the middle-aged are to be the armed citizenry, the minimum age for Tecruits be forty years. He notes, too, that in the Great War many millions of young men were killed and that economically the combatant nations have been fighting this loss ever since. He thinks it far more logical that all the old target perforators (ages forty to seventy) be first recruited and made into cannon fodder so that the young (who are taught Jo shoot in six weeks when war comes) should be saved for the obvious duty of stoking the home fires. Having enunciated this plan, he took a bottle of oil a pull-through and a rag out of his pocket and went forth to seek his rifle.

.A BULL'S-EYE.

2vews comes that Major-General tie Hon. Sir Neville Howse, V.C., F.R.C.S., etc., the distinguished medical man and Australian statesman, is critically ill. He is- one of the very few - colonial military men "who won the V.C. in the' "South African ' War, in which he served as iv N.S.W. surgeon, achieving the supreme distinction at Vredefort. He had the highest medical appointments in the gift of his country on active service during the Great War, in which he served duration. He has an immensely long list of achievements, both military and medical, and his political activities have included that of Federal Minister of Defence. Like many distinguished Australians, Sir Neville is a "Homie/' Somerset is. his native county.

GREAT AUSSIE.

Dear The attempt made iby some Dunedin-residents to dear Tin-sightly hoardings off the face of the landscape the other day 'brings to mind the fact that , the people of Hawaii have dealt with this problem in a much more efficacious manner. They simply boycott the article advertised, and the hoarding disappears as fast as the offending firm can remove it. In Honolulu, I understand, there is not one hoarding advertisement to be seen throughout the length and breadth of the city, and all through the boycotting vigilance of Hawaii's housewives. If our own women were to show the same community spirit we would no doubt get rid of those blatant reds and yellows which are causing the City Council so much worry. —P.L.S.

HOARDINGS.

Some Otago people have taken the extreme measure of chopping down an advertising hoarding which outraged the scenery of the Cromwell Gorge and heaving it in the Molyneux River. Peremptory commerce has in very many countries offensively commanded people to use their wares by defacing the countryside, and however reprehensible it may be for potential customers to take any law in their own hands, even in New Zealand, where people are arranged like sums by political mathematicians, they haTe sometimes revolted. The other revolt one remembers occurred in a southern city, too. An ancient Crown grant had awarded to a man for being a magistrate a largish tract of ex-urban land, including the beach below high water mark (rather a hideous thing to do by any Government). For very many years city and other people used this beach, little children rouped on the golden sands and all went merry as a Wellington breeze. But one day men came along and. put a seven-wire fence along that beach with posts four feet in the ground. Boards arose warning the population of New Zealand off. Men, seeing. toddling infants bearing tiny buckets of sea sand awav, on behalf of, the boss forbade it. An invalid taking seawater for rheumatism was warned. Residents .viewed the great fence with angry glances. One night a party armed with chains and crowbars set fulcrums at the bases of the posts and lifted them out. They let the whole fence fall flat. As far as one can ascertain, children stiir play on the unfenced beach. Still, it was very naughty of people to be people. _ ' ;

VOX PbPULI.