THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 139, 14 June 1932, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) Dear M.A.T., —Reading your par of June S i-entiiKls me of another concrete mixture. There lived in a town on the north-east coast of England the owner or CONCRETE. a fleet of fishing trawlers. Born of humble parents, lie was working at nine, years of age and had little schooling! However, being a very successful business man, lie was elected to the hospital board. At a meeting there was under discussion a new ward which had just been built. A speaker said he thought it tit and proper that the new building should be consecrated. Mr. Fish immediately jumped to his feet and said, "Owing to .the expense involved I would ask you, gentlemen, to consider well before taking such a step. I had my garden paths done that way last week and can tell you, gentlemen, it was a pretty costly business." —J.J.

Dear M.A.T., —What is wrong with the mothers of to-day? I am an old maid with only a sixth-standard education, but I think I am capable of teaching ETERNAL QUERY, any child between the age of* five and six years anything it need know. Well I can remembei my mother teaching me all sorts of little tilings, in spite of the fact that was the busy mother of seven children. _ To me 1* would lie a pleasure to teach .a little tot lier A, B, C, to count, or make pothooks. When young my mother lived in the backblocks, did not go til school until nine years old, but she could read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" easily. Her father taught her to read. Mothers, your country needs you to make some sacrifice in these hard times, so do your stuff cheerfully. L remember being ill a fruit shop once, when a bright little girl asked her mother, "What are they, mumniie?'' "Be quiet!" answered her mother impatiently. The shop assistant answered thus, "They are cherries, dear," and her reward was a charming smile from a satisfied child. How is a child to learn if it doesn't ask ?—-M.S.

Do you find the simple annate of the suburbs interesting? Could you bear the stoiy of the scones? Mrs. Suburbs was undergoing a little holiday' free from THE BAKER. the carking cares of oven. Mr. Suburbs consequently, having filled the sink with dishes, took his subsequent meals at a restaurant. His conscience pricked him, and so one day lie took his wife's cookery book, turned to the chef's article 011 scones, and said to himself, "I'll show '0111!" He stoked up the lire till the top plates were white hot, mixed the quantities recommended bv the chef (not forgetting the salt and baking powder), and noted from the literature that twenty-five minutes was about the period of baking. He pushed the batch into the oven, lit his pipe, and waited expectantly for the moment when he should triumphantly rescue the scones. He stood with his watch in his hand. At two minutes there was a warm smell in the kitchen, at three minutes you could hear 'em crackle. At live minutes he exclaimed, "They must be cooked," opened the oven, and stepped back to avoid the blast of hot air and the smell of embers. Yes, thev were done —as black as night. Telling the tale, a friend advised him to post these triumphs to his absent wife to show her that he also is a cook, but he says the postage would ruin him, for the weight was appalling. Of course, there was the alternative of burying the scones, buying & batch from tlie confectioners, and showing them to Mrs. Suburbs as a triumph of his art, but he is an honest man.

The worship of the cat has persisted throughout the ages. We have local evidence that the cat has been promoted from the tiles of the roof to the floor of THE CAT. the Town Hall. The midnight battles of grimalkin, punctuated with the clatter of old boots, hairbrushes and curses, proceed in lower cat circles, but for the aristocrat with Persian blood traced through a long line of ancestors as proudly as their owners trace their genealogical tree to Norman knights, there is the silver-backed hairbrush (never thrown), the tortoiseshell comb, and the hand-worked satin cushion. Instead of the hurtling brickbat from the infuriated householder, there is the affectionate exclamation of "Darling! Sweetest!" the careful massage, the overproof cream, the dainty titbit, the cosy corner. It is anathema to suggest that these dainty darlings (many of them duchesses in their own right, "with escutcheons comparable in grandeur to the Plantagencts) might some dreadful night escape from the tapestried boudoir and, prowling among the ash cans, descend to the shocking and plebeian pastime of mouse catching. Rats are not chased in these aristocratic circles; roof parties for Persians put them without the pale; vocal sextets, apparently accompanied by the music of circular saws, are considered low. You may not smile at this evidence of deep affection between the breeders and the bred, and you have only to stroll to the Art Gallery to note that even in the most exalted Egyptian circles in ancient days the cat was sacred, its life protected, and its death mourned. The obsequies of an Egyptian eat born in the purple were apparently of more importance than the birth of an Egyptian baby, and it is meet that these forms of ancient worship should persist. Egypt is literally kr.ee deep in cat mummies. Even modern cats die, some in battle, some of old age. Have we no cat embalmer? Said the town man to the country person, "Sharp frost this morning! Lovely, Isn't it?" And the man of the land said coarsely, "Yell! Give the blanky pests a THE FROST. devil of) a shock, won't it?" Across a sun-swept bit of road there streaked two liappy girls, their furry collars up around their ears, their knees twinkling in the crisp air, a nimbus of condensed breath round their heads, dainty as a rainbow. Even the busman finds it take's more than a couple of twirls to warm the old engine up. People blow on their fingers or violently smack their hands under opposite armpits. Exiles from colder lands, observing the white grass, talk about ice an old sailor ma n mentions that he has passed icebergs about twenty times as big as Kangitoto; another talks about pack ice, igloos, fishing through a bole in the ice, making the.' local manifestation of chill seem exceedingly feeble. Some there be who talk about snow"in Auckland years and years ago; one tells of the white carpet 011 Punga Flat at the Thames; and another mentions that once there were foot warmers in good going order on. the Main 111111k line 111 winter! Ice appeals to the imagination of people who know it merely by ti adition. 111 older and colder climates every bit of frozen water has its devotees, and the I', 1 ' 1 " hp l ° n Ca '' T 'S urc eights on the surface VH +1 n, 1 A ho . feat of M >'- Pickwick, who iotio ,1 +1 10(3 at Din S le y Well, is unfoio ten, and the more or less sun-tanned Auekof £ ,Z* K,erS , y We (,on,t have a » area of ice huge enou.h to skate on. Sydney had uii'with't'r"' ! tather y Australians'dried anon SU ", ''T iml in an ai 'tificial winter EHnS „ Sk f tG ' l 0n real ice - »oller- ; katin a warm substitute for the real thin-* sk-ffio„ C T Igh i but tho about rJ oh ,i thiU one falls ° ' and not a s '»g)c soul is ever drowned.

A THOUGHT FOR TO-DAY. °m tl,e stru =8 , 0 nought availeth, Ihe labour ? „d the wounds are vain Ihe enemy. faints not, ])or faileth) - as t ' m, B' s have been tliev remain, hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; may be, in yon smoke concealed, ui comrades chase e'en now the flyers, nd, but for you, possess the field. —Arthur H. Clough.