THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 5, 7 January 1931, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

VICE VERSA. The townsman's dwelling now on the merits of As with clock he bolts, the eggs and,.B. He yearns to spend his days where the sheep anu cattle graze And people don't go chasing £ s d. . He wants to lie at ease with a book upon his And watch the big white clouds go floating by. Where there aren't seven storeys twixt Jjinjßeit and all the glories • Of the clear and open spaces of the sky. | But the farmer,- far from muto, says lie doesn't For the land of curds and whey that does him proud. ■ I . ~.„ He wonders what the dickens people see in pigs and chickens, 4 And says ho wants to mingle with the crowd. So each packs his little grip und starts upon Wβ And between the two; they make the going snappy. , And the reason's fairly clear, for it's every man s If he had the other's job then he'd be happy. —A.H.

"I'm going to eleep till 1940," he said, producing a clipping in which Sir Richard Gregory expresses the belief that toil will then no longer be necessary to STAR GAZING, win food from the soil. The laboratory will (according to this, professor of astronomy, who has evidently been consulting the stars) sup* ply the concentrated products necessary, to human life.' Millions of people will probably eell their false teeth before then and unnecessary molars and canine teet&to rend flesh will be drugs in the market. But Sir Richard the star gazer promises us even a , greater wonder, saying it will 'be possible for a man to control the sex of his children and supply their defects with incubated muscle. One imagines the dairy farmer of 1940, dissatisfied with the milking output of his family, saying: "When you are in. town to-day, mum, you'd better call in at the chemist's and get Bill a new set of biceps. He's only doin . Iris twenty a day. He owghter be doin'* thirty. Bring me a spare triceps or so. There's a cheap line at the Stores. What'a that? Grannie wants a new d;eltoid? Oh, she can wait! She's no good in the cowyard at eighty." A lady commentator eays that in the glorious time to come women attired in spun-glass gowns will live in glass houses and that drese repairs will be done by any motor mechanic at any garage. Very., likely the mechanice will all have synthetic muecles sustained by a concentrated lozenge sucked in toothless mouths once every twenty-four hours. All this in nine years from. now. Oh, Death, where is thy sting?

• Messrs. Scullin and Forbes, respectively Prime Ministers of a Continent and this Better Land, have been entertained by the city of Edinburgh. Mr. Scullin BOGAN FLEAS. v tactfully observed that Austral-Scot squatters had distributed prickly pear and cactus to their fellow Scots, so that Australia had now ten million acres of these vegetable missionaries. But Mr. Scullin did not mention that the dissemination of work ■ was an international industry in Australia. Uncountable square miles of country owe their vegetation to simple means. Thus swagmen from many countries who dab their blankets down in good Bathuret burr territory may wander for hundreds of miles into burrless lands, thus enemv ing a planting and endless work in eradicating the strangers. Travellers in 'burr country simplify the planting by making choice parcels of seed, go far afield to sow it, and return a year later to ask for jobs destroying the execrated crop. There is a clinging seed known to blanket bearers as "the Bogan flea" for ite adherence to 'bedclothes. The "flea," carried, far from its birthplace, bites the country deeply. Apropos of pests, the water hyacinth takes a good deal of beating. The beautiful interloper is so persistent that it simply dams great rivers, rendering navigation impossible. You can fburn Bogan fleas and the burr family generally, but to set fire to a river lias the pest experts thinking.

The mother paced the wharf carrying a baby. It was a super-baby and it cried with unexampled vociferation. It attracted attention with the vigour of HIS GOOD DEED, its appeal. Tbs mother tried every available means to stop her little one's complaint, but without avail. A man of commanding presence with knightly instincts and probably with a family of his own, courteously approached the lady, raised his hat, and gently and carefully took the baby. Nonchalantly lie paced the ferry wharf, rooking the loud baby in gentle arms. The obvious end to this touching tale would be that the baby, soothed by the magic touch of the knightly rescuer, cuddled down and went to sleep. Not so! The knight's boat came in. It was necessary for him to go aboard. Courteously he handed the.baby to its mother. And when the ferry boat was at sea the baby who lhad refused to be charmed was still crying lustily. But the Enlarged Boy Scout had done his good deed for that day.

Dear. M.A.T., —My father is in a dilemma. He is a bowler. He bowled in the Christmas tournament and got sunburnt. His chest, shoulders, arms' and back PA'S PROBLEM, resemble the tan of fresh, boiled lobsters, while his face is a glaring "look-out" signal. The. dilemma starts at night and- finishes in the morning—to wit, he cannot sleep on his back and he cannot ditto on his front. What's to be done? He asked th& advice of a friend, and was handed the following recitation: "If you sleep on your back you get nightmares; if you sleep on your front you will suffocate; if you sleep on your left side you'll get a swinging heart; if you sleep on your right side you will get a floating kidney, and if you sleep on your head you'H get blood on the brain—so stand up." Can M.A.T. offer some-' thing more feasible I— The Prodigal.

"My wife," said young Benedict, "is "not a notable hand at the trencher. A simple bit of toast, irrigated by tea, suffices her for breakfast. I wae thereBIT OF TOAST., fore cheered and astonished one recent "morning to observe that she wae .engaged with a second piece of toast, an unprecedented demonstration of appetite. I congratulated her. "Well," she said, "when I turn off the electric stove it is hot for ever so long. It seems a shame to waste the heat. That's why I am having another slice of toast." Dear M.A.T., —Your yarn about the little lady of minus one and the old cigar box drew a laugh from our family circle. Young Bryan was unfortunate enough OLDEST LOVE, to arrive eight days before Christmas two year? ago, Hereafter he is going to be the victim of a pool, that is to say, his birthday and Christmas will most likely be merged. It was 60 this year, for eight days before Christmas he got his birthday presents and Christmas boxes together. Among them were a motor car, bunnies, bears, roosters, books, etc., and after he had received them he went on playing with some saucepans and empty bottles. He has a preference for beer bottles with labels on, and, just to show how discerning he is likely to be his drinks later on, if given a bare bottle he will.at once clamour "No paper on bottle." —Locb,icl.