THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 26, 1 February 1932, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) Dear M.A.T., —I am still hearing of record cabbagcs. Modesty has heretofore prompted me to remain silent on the subject of the world's champion, which HIMALAYA. I grew recently. It had attained such a height that I had intended to offer it to, the nation as a mooring mast for airsh:|.s. However, when I sent a couple of steeplejacks aloft to cut a piece of the heart out for dinner I was horrified to find that the luscious heart had perished —it was above the snow line.—B.C.ll. Dear M.A.T., —It is easy enough to imagine that to be found in bed as an uninvited guest in a home may create a most embarrassing situation for the person WRONG HOME, concerned. A well-known Mount Eden resident had a bad turn in the street the other day and several friends, including a doctor, decided to take him to his homo. Though very ill, the semi-conscious man gave the directions. There being nobody in the house, the party of rescuers looked about and found a side window unlocked. They were in the act of lifting their charge inside with a view to putting hiin safely between the sheets when a neighbour informed them that the sick one did not belong to that abode. It transpired, however, that he did dwell there some time previously. The good Samaritans ai;e still wondering what mi'dit have been the development had they carried out their kindly purpose, with the indisposed one eventually being avakened by the shocked home-coming occupiers. One of the amateur piper-hunters, a triumvirate of whom have gained honourable mention in this column, tells M.A.f. that professional fishermen with THREE FISHERS, kind faces treat amateurs brotherly. Thus when they are returning from the hunt with spare gentles which 011 the morrow may be Hies, they award them in large quantities to eager amateurs. On a recent Sabbath, professionals handed to three a box two feet by one by eight inches, filled with bran and spotted with gentles of an athletic build. As one of the three said, whenever he inserted a finger and thumb "something stirred in the forest." At a modest computation there were seven hundred and fifty gentles of the bulldog breed among the bran, but the three fishers on St. Helier's far-famed wharf caught but one piper between them all. This rare fish was simply thrown in the box of gentles while they went 011 fishing. Suddenly a boy who was also fishing came running to the three, exclaiming breathlessly: "Mister, mister! Yer piper's eatin' all yer bait!" Hence the necessity of an immediate rescue party consisting of thirtysix stone seven of combined fisher. There is a glittering little magazine story of the aristocratic Russian lady who was received in English society with great acceptance, for she was the NAUGHTY WORDS, daughter of a thousand grand dukee. She spoke English astonishingly well, but included large numbers of words absolutely taboo in society and had been heard to say in the presence of British loyalty "Strike me pink!" and other colourful phrases of a sanguinary tint. It was pointed out to this distinguished personage that this sort of thing was not done in English society. She excused herself by saying that she had learned her English from an English stabloboy whom she had employed in Russia. Quite recently a Chinese gentleman and his wife were travelling in the South of New Zealand,. Both were of high birth and superlative education. The man spoke impeccable English. The lady also spoke our language with ease and fluency, but there was a highly distinct American flavour. In fact she used phrases known only for their robust imperfection in the Bowery, highly picturesque, 110 doubt, but hardly the sort of thing a Boston blue-stocking is guilty of. The gentleman explained that during their life in New York liis wife had picked up her fluent use of Bowery English from a servant who possessed the gift of that outrageous tongue. One has already mentioned the Chinese resident of New Zealand who tells Scots stories in Scots dialect to great applause. The explanation is that his Chinese parents chose Glasgow to have Sin born in. You'd hardly believe that the innocent Hindu swears, would you? You ought to hear how dear little Anglo'lndian children, brought up amongst Hindu servants, prattle innocent blasphemies. A magnificent opportunity was afforded the wage-slave at the maritime entrance of Auckland 011 this very Monday morning. He was enabled to snatch from THE commerce moments of MOTOR TYRE, pure pleasure. At the hour of nine when he swarmed across the lower end of the city a lorry loaded half-way to the. blue sky with motor tyres shed a half-dozen of them. Instantly the concentrated gloom of the immediate populace brightened. Hundreds whirled in glad surprise to see perfectly new tyres bouncing gaily in the sunshine. The point, however, is not in the glad cessation of traffic and the thrill of adventure, but in the fact that none of the entranced sightseers picked up a single tyre, leaving the gleaning to the professional carters. How different to old days! Exactly on the same spot at the same hour in times gone by a passing lorry shed a hogshead of ale. It rolled off the wagon, bumped the road, and bowled merrily almost to the feet of the standing population. Instantly there was immense enthusiasm for doing good deeds. The whole of the available poptilation manhandled that hogshead as if it had been a feather pillow, settled it comfortably on its broad side, patted it affectionately, and even accompanied it for an appreciable distance up Queen Street. One wonders if the present generation is more selfish than that immediately preceding it. There's nothing new about the kiddies going back to school on Black Monday, which seems to be just about as white a Monday as last. The little begSCHOOL. gars are so brown that mum either did or did not scrub their necks. High-water mark wasn't anyhow. Of course, adult travellers in bus, boat, train and so forth glared at the irruption of brown little faces, but it was relatively harmless, and mcst old bites remembered they had been boys or girls themselves ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fif-tee year-r-rs ago. A practised eye run over the phalanxes of school tcachers, the girls among whom were absolutely Mayfair in appearance and perhaps a leetle too brown for Lido, noticed 110 sign of the dreadful things our highly-educated politicians had done to them, what they are doing now, and what they intend to do in putting back the Clock of education to bullockdray days, when J.P.'s wore dungarees ami Ministers would open a bridge in a hardknocker. In short, the composite sadness of teachers and taught could be covered with a thimble. It was a thimble that made present scribbler think of the matter, for a charminglymanicured lady teacher sat opposite one, a schoolbook under one eye, and a dainty garment in course of construction under the other. One observed for the first time in ten, twen-tee, etc., years one of these modern misses tatting with the funny little ivory torpedo that dashes in and out among the netting. And the whole thing reminded one of the days centuries ago when one's self with sliineless morning face stole miserably along the obblyonker boulevard to the den where Old Butler waited in fiendish expectation, his bit of harness leather poised in his nervous right hand.