THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 82, 8 April 1931, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

The "Star" picture of some Cousin Jacks and Janes surging round the Launceston courthouse (Cornishmen do say Lanson) calls

pointed attention to the COUSIN JACK, celebrated tin duchy which has distributed miners to the four quarters of the globe. Mrs. Hearn, who eluded Scotland Yard sleuths for so long, is being charged with murder per poison. The last time M.A.T. was in Lanson the attendant Cornishman, in passing the Castle, called the youth's attention to the gallows that at that time still remained in sight; He mentioned with pride that the. last occasion on which it had been used was for hanging a man who had stolen a sheep. Few people outside the duchy know very much about it, although, one understands, London people go there to drink Cornish cider made in Devon and Somerset. It was in Cornwall in 1917 that a visitor from ■ elsewhere made a round of the Old World villages, which in many cases remain unspoilt. He found ,an ancient gaffer quaffing beer (not cider) in a Trepolpen alehouse. Replenishing gaffer's pewter, the visitor said: "It's a fearful war, isn't it?" Gaffer at once asked, "What war?" and, being told, passed on the news to his octogenarian contemporaries. When he heard that Cornish soldiers had "gone to England" to join he wa<s quite sure the war wouldn't take long. Explaining the point, one- remembers a Cousin Jack vegetable vendor who had strayed as far as Gloucester. He had a nice line of potatoes, and to potential buyers he was always careful to explain, "These b'en't English taties. They be Garnish." \

Old soldiers etill tell stories, especially those without blood in them. One avers that during the last push when Fritz was gradually falling back he did not THE DEATHTRAP, do so without making it as warm as possible for the pursuers. He would mine a road; leaving the top in apparently good condition, and go to all sorts of experiments to leave , booby traps for John, Jean and their colonial coadjutors. The teller of the story was with a selected band whose dutj- it was to push ahead and discover booby trape and to dismantle them —a very dangerous business. And one bright day 'they came to a dugout that was a perfect network of electric wires cmscrossing over the shelves. They were extremely formidable to look at, and the expert party hesitated visibly in interfering with them. Knowing the ingenuity of German engineers, the .party particularly avoided a large bottle stuck , in one.corner among,the wires. It was thought that perhaps it contained some violent explosive. The party went out and found an electrician. He came along, had a look, and with his pliers cut all the wires. Nothing happened. But Mr. Wires did not touch the bottle. He was scared of that. One of the party was a New Zealand lad who was noted for his recklessness. "I'll give it a go!" he said. The party (excepting for himself) respectfully withdrew and waited for the bang. The lad took the bottle most carefully from the 6helf, and, surrounded by scared soldiers, set it down outside the dugout. Persisting in his bold conduct, he lifted the cork. He emelt the bottle. His comrades smelt it. "It smells like beer," he said. One man poured a drop or two from the bottle. "It looks like beer," he muttered. A large corporal put hie lips to the bottle. "It is beer!" he decided.

Earthquakes, tidal waves and mortgagees have in their time driven people from their homes. One now reads that in Samoa flies

are performing this office. SWAT THAT PLY. The larger part of a column is given to flies in a paper in Samoa, where for ages the attacked persons, like ourselves, have swatted them with folded newspapers, hung sticky flypapers about, and tried every means available ■to reduce the millions of pests. Samoa now boasts of a trap that attracts flies in myriads. Even in a place that is comparatively flyless the trap, baited with a bit of liver, will bring ■the flies from the nearest slaughteryard or the nearest butcher's shop. By the way, the New Zealand butcher has long since settled the fly question. One user of the new trap, who is a large landowner, says that he uses one trap per thousand acres. The trap is placed on the top of a kerosene tin, which is baited with liver and water. Millions of flies fight for the privilege of getting caught. There are people in Samoa, however, who; observing the marvellous attractive, power of the traps, refrain from using them on the ground that their neighbours' traps will seduce their flies, leaving them practically flyless. It seems that the authorities, in trying out the new trap, used it in the schools. Myriads of flies hitherto not at all scholarly entered the schools from the neighbouring butchers' stops and slaughteryards ,to get caught, and the little children have been highly delighted at the new system of arithmetic available in counting the prey. One small Samoan, kept in after school to count flies, -was found exhausted after counting nine hundred thousand in a kerosene tin baited with liver. Success is assured. Flies are going from all quarters to be. caught.

The two friends were coming back early (on foot) from the races. They discussed the miseries of life, and particularly the frightful .habit that the horse one CHEER GERM, backs has' of romping home, a good twelfth! Business, too—not too good. Credit—notloo good. Shooting corn—not too good. Billy out of work—not too good. Rich uncle aged eighty-nine still going strong—not too good— and so on, with drooping lip and drooping spirit. The man with the, natty '■ sports coat (18/9, see our pants also) tried to cheer his friend in the speckled tie by a display of intensely lugubrious optimism. "N'em mind, Jim!" he said. "Cheer Up Week'll soon be here!" "Cheer Up Week?" moaned the other. "Why, I thought it was over!".

A sedulous scribe has been combing the district to ascertain if possible the origin of the term "The Old Dart," used not only in New Zealand as denning THE OLD DART. Great Britain, but in Aus-

tralia as defining the same. He returns broken-hearted, not having encountered any person with the requisite knowledge. He has listened to copious explanation of the war title "Blighty" (originating ■in India), and, of course, "Home" explains itself even to the Premier of New South Wales. It is claimed in some quarters that The Old .Dart is as Irish ae The Ould Sod or The Imerald Oisle, but if it is Irish it must refer solely to Ireland, for no good Irishman would care for any term of endearment to apply to England or Scotland. One learned person infers that the Old Country is termed "The Ould Dart" because people dart out of it and join the colonial police, but Devonians are of opinion that The Old Dart means really the river of that name and has been accepted as a generic title for the whole of the country in compliment" to Devon and the great swarm of navigators and colonisers who came from there. There must be many persons in Auckland who have theories as to the origin of a term universally applied in the two Dominions to Britain. It is curious that in Britain the term is unknown. It is also never heard in South Africa or India or the Straits Settlement or Terra del Fuego.