THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 69, 23 March 1931, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

Dear M.A.T., —A commonplace of the newspaper columns everywhere is the daily report that So-and-so, man woman or child, was knocked down by RECIPROCAL motor car or motor bike TREATMENT, in the street or the coun-

try road and taken to the hospital for treatment. This too-familiar news item, by reason of its very familiarity, is apt to breed contempt and an increasing disregard of the ordinary rules of safety. It seems to me, as one who walks a bit and also motors a bit, that the one-sided arrangement by which the pedestrian invariably goes to the hospital while the man in the ear simply goes on his way rejoicing should be adjusted more equitably."' Now, if I were Mussolini, or even Mr. Forbes, I should rearrange it in this way: There should be a law, regulation or Order-in-Council providing that in every case where a knocked-over pedestrian is taken off to the hospital and put to bed there the car driver should be taken off with equal speed to the lock-up and given a bed there for so long as the injured person remains in the doctor's hands. In common justice and equity this should commend itself to all. If anything the car driver would be in the more comfortable position in his compulsory seclusion; he at least would be free from bodily pain, however severely the pangs of conscience might afflict him. The question oi who was to blame need not, of course, arise at the moment. Time enough for that when the maimed or bruised pedestrian comes out of hospital and the motorist emerges from his retreat with the police. The more I think over this suggestion of mine the more I am charmed with it and convinced of its likely practical efficiency in decreasing the number of accidents on our highways. It would automatically equalise the consequences of a collision by ensuring perfect synchronisation of treatment for the two parties concerned. Would that I were Mussolini or even Mr. Forbes. —Tangiwai.

A correspondent doubts if the organised destruction of weeds by the ex-unemployed paid for with money raised by tax is useful expenditure. Wonderful WEED SURGEONS, how pruned weeds grow,

he says. There will be jobs for the unemployed pruning the offspring of these weeds from now on through the centuries. As an alternative to the temporary spoiling of weeds he suggests the employment of the weed surgeons on the oft-debated Wai-temata-Manukau Canal. He think.; that in the far future when a man is asked "What did you do for your dole in the Great Slump?" he would far rather point to the Canal and say, '"That:" than produce a dead dandelion pressed between the pages of a book and boast that he pruned it for money in the year 1931. The correspondent, in his advocacy of a Canal as against' comparative and temporary weedlessness, calls attention to the permanence of the Panama and Suez Canals. He considers that if the human labour necessary to the digging of these canals had been employed in digging weeds off footpaths the ships that now pass through them would have to go round a longer way. This belief has been confirmed by eminent engineers.

The relative fewness of clerical positions has necessitated many readjustments, proving that many a man is susceptible of work that

was previouslv anathema A NEW RACE, to him. Thus one mav

find men who were formerly agitating a pen or a pencil in the quiet backwater of an office armed with a pick and shovel joyously threading their way to Number Five Scheme and there making the clay or gravel fly. Previously this class of toiler was possibly a pale, ethereal person, feeling his superiority to the habitual wielder of the long banjo. Now, having overcome the first agonies of physical toil, he is of a new race, tanned, muscular and often expressing that crude joy that conies so naturally to the hardhanded son of toil. When society is readjusted and he goes back to the desk this man of the new race will actually boast of the number of yards of mullock he shifted in a given time. Watching a very fine body of well-tanned ex-clerks throwing showers of mud, one was reminded of his own youth and his sudden introduction to laborious toil. The new chum was introduced to the art of digging post holes in limestone country with a crowbar. About ten in the morning the new chum paraded before the boss and exhibited his hands. "My hands are badly blistered,'' he said. "What shall I do?" "Work till they bust and you'll be all right!" said the boss. A lot of those clerical Number Fives have worked till they bust and they are all right.

Pointed out in the "Star" that street diggers working for local bodies, because these bodies are not co-ordinated, often spoil each other's work, one partv THE DIGGERS, digging up the result of

the other party's toil, and thus making John Taxpayer bleed double, so to speak. Reminds one of a notable example of co-ordination in street work that was undertaken in London about a quarter of a century ago. Lord Montagu of Beaulieu was one of the co-ordinators and has admitted it in cold print. _ He and a party of young bloods of the universities learned the navvies' language, assumed navvies' clothes and a watchman's box and proceeded to Throgmorton Street. This gang set to and dug up one hundred yards of the street. London's millions passed by and occasionally watched the lordly gang, who, when they had finished the job, left the Teat hole and departed to collect the bets made by them with people who said it was impossible. Throgmorton Street traffic dodged round the caverns for some weeks in the usual nonchalant London way, until Mr. Nosey Parker wrote to the paper to ask the authorities why they didn't fill up the hole. By the way. Montagu of Beaulieu was one of the pioneers of motoring in England and naturally never dug up any thoroughrares after the' Throgmorton Street episode.

A San Francisco magistrate has made an innovation which may or may not be followed by his magisterial cousins in Xew Zealand—he does it to music. The SILENCE! judge (they call them

judges in U.S.A. police courts'! takes his seat, and as he does so eight instrumentalists burst into music. The sefection for the opening of this musical court was the "Humoresque" of Dvorak, and the prisoners in the dock, who were going to have something funny done to them, applauded vigorously. It is here suggested that this instrumental innovation could be enriched by vocal solos from the Bench, duets by the Bar and glees from the dock, while those unaccountable people who hang over at the back and watch the proceedings with lack-lustre eye from January to December might supply the choruses. There is no reason whatever why in the case of fatal accidents for which street scorchers are arraigned the band should not strike up the Dead March from "Saul," Chopin's "Marche Funebre" or that other attractive post-mortem dirge, •''The Flowers of the Forest." There are occasions when the prisoner is discharged without a stain on his character. In such a case there seems to be nothing to prevent successful counsel leading a ballet round the Court, the whole strength of the said Court joining in the dance. The only occasion on which M.A.T. has observed any musical disposition in any person having business with a local court was when a juryman wai3 kindly excused from service by the presiding judge. He sang slightly as he emerged into the daylight.