THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 72, 26 March 1931, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

He is temporarily unemployed. On a recent day there was a rumour that work had been heard of in an extra-suburban area. It was a long walk, and GRATITUDE. he started early, tramping hopefully. Some miles along the road the out-of-work man came upon a motor truck facing the way he himself was walking. The driver couldn't get a kick out of the truck,' and was stuck up. The out-of-work mechanic peeled his coat, crawled under the dripping entrails of the truck, spotted the trouble, and, after an hour's work, said: "There you are; she'll go now!" And the driver said: "Oh, thanks very much; that saved me ten bob or a quid," and drove on the same way as the unemployed man was going, but without that tired (and by this time very greasy) benefactor. New Zealand experts are dotted over the world, giving the cosmos a hand. Some of them come back and some don't. We do not so often lend them as NOMADIC PEOPLE. give them. For instance, here is Lieut.-Colonel "Jack" Matson, of Jubbulpore. He commands the army farming operations and the people thereunto toiling in that portion of the Dark Empire, which is at present darker than usual. Long, "oi'g ago Colonel Matson was a young Waikato farmer and joined up the first New Zealand troops' to go to South Africa in 1899. He was a sergeant in that little lot (214 all ranks). Several colonial soldiers applying for commissions in the Imperial Army got them, and Sergeant Matson was one of the lucky ones. The Army, as you see, is a knowing bird and uses the speciality of its officers, so for years and years and years the man from the Waikato has been addicted to the military side of farming in India. Colonel Matson is having a look round the cow byres and so forth of this country prior to retiring from the Army.

Brigadier-General W. R. N. Madocks has, on the suggestion of Mr. Ernest Davis, of Auckland, become the liaison officer repre-

senting New Zealand WAR AND SOCCER. Soccer football at Home

on the council. General Madocks, an Imperial Army artillery officer, was on the New Zealand staff in 1899 and then hastened to obtain employment with the New Zealand troops going to Africa. He was one of the First N.Z.M.R. and is always remembered with respect and affection by the surviving veterans of the little corps. He is best remembered for the exploit on what became New Zealand Hill. The enemy, incredibly brave, crept up the scrub-covered hill towards a post held by a company of the Yorkshire Regiment. Gaining the top, the Dutchmen sprang into vision, opened fire, and killed the Yorks officer, sergeant-major and others, leaving no responsible leader. Madocks, in the vicinity with some New Zealanders, took command of the little combination, leading a bayonet charge down the hill. Connell, of Auckland, and Gourlay, of Otago, were killed in it. Madocks and the Boer command spotted each other at the same second. Both fired from the hip, the Boer a fraction too late. The Boer's bullet ploughed through Madocks' hat and Madocks' bullet killed the Boer. General Madocks married a daughter of Sir Walter Buller, the ioted New Zealand ornithologist. He had an artillery command in the Great War and since has lost two sons in motor accidents. He is descended from Field-Marshal' Lord Napier of Magdala.

Marvellous results have been achieved by memory systems and the protagonists of the same have reaped much utu, the pupils, too,

achieving results they OH, MEMORY ! thought impossible. In a

great commercial undertaking the outside staff has (inside the building) every gadget making for their comfort. These include cavernous cupboards which will swallow up the staff's wardrobe, including macintoshes, gumboots and umbrellas. An interloper admired this mahogany sarcophagus and one of the staff (the only one present) begged the visitor to note that each cupboard was secured from the intrusion of the unauthorised garment collector by a miniature combination lock bearing letters. You merely have to know the selected word for the day, set it, and "open sesame!" In the meantime the rain fell in torrents. "Would vou like to see the inside?" asked the staff man. "I've got to open the door anyhow to get my mac. and gamp," looking through the window at the deluge. He nonchalantly fingered the combination lock. Nothing happened. He became, in a manipulative sense, alphabetical. Nothing doing. The rain rained. "Now what the dickens was the combination for to-day?" he said, and continued to play at missing words with the stubborn lock. The time arrived for his departure. He had to meet an important client and the beaten man dashed out into the torrent. An hour later he returned wet to the skin, but with a damp countenance radiating joy. "I've got it!" he screamed, set the combination, and opened wide the door. There, perfectly dry, were his other boots, his mac., his goloshes, his umbrella. "I knew I should remember it!" panted the drowning memorist.

In a sense relief workers are toiling for us. It seems to be the duty, therefore, of every well constituted Pro Bono Publico and Paterfamilias to see that CONSULTANTS, citizens' servants do their jobs well. There is nothing to prevent a public-spirited shopkeeper from taking the long-handled shovel from the hands of the worker and showing him how to do it. Unsuspected engineers abound and gifted amateurs spend long golden fyours in explanatory orations as to how it should be done. There is the case of the Maori worker engaged, among others, in levelling operations o*n °the highway. He was manipulating a spirit level when a man of intellectual appearance stopped and watched him narrowly.' He was a polite man, too. s not the way to use a spirit level!" he said kindly, and took the implement from the brown hand of Hone. "That is the way," he continued, with an indulgent smile, showing Hone by manual demonstration. "Ah," said the Maori, "you te ferra! You make te water run uphill, elioa!"

A few days ago a Waikato resident was seized with the idea that the elusive tide in the affairs of men had arrived for him. Taken at the flood (or the lowTHERE'S A TIDE, est • market prices in the history of the Dominion, as the case may be), his- plan, he hoped, might lead on to fortune. He resolved to become a potential wool baron. Ten fat fowls comprised his total available liquid assets. He sold them to a Hamilton hotelkeeper, and with the proceeds he purchased at a stock sale that day one hundred breeding ewes!

THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. Half the giant's strength is in the conviction that he is a giant.—Anon. • • • • Hatred ceases not by hatred, hatred ceases only by love. —Japanese proverb. * » • • One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.—Addison.