THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 252, 24 October 1932, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) Mr. Coates is quite right! If New Zealand is likely to overfeed tlie fifty ocld. millions of peonle in Great Britain or if the producing portion of our one and a IN TERMS half million people should OF send Mr. Bull so much PEOPLE. wool he will have to burn it, by all means send the overplus to Japan, the Malay States, India and China. When we have sold a blanket eaen to five hundred million Chinese and find that our industrious people have a few to spare, the three hundred and fifty millions of people in India could have them. And suppose there were'woollies to burn cr butter to quit that John Bull couldn't use there would still be sixty-five million Japanese hungering for supplies. One wonders if it is worth while lookin.' for a sillv little market in the Malay States, under British rule, seeing that there are only about a million and a half people there—a mere handfiul from a New Zealand oratorical point of view.

In a country passionately addicted to speech-making, it is being claimed that the two shortest speeches on record were made at the Christchurch Synod. BRIEF MENTION. The one was "Gentlemen, College House." The other "Gentlemen, Canon Wilford." These remarks, beautiful as they are in brevity, exceed in length the universal Empire toast, "Gentlemen, the° King!" Even in this toast you may always find some enthusiastic person with a bass voice who quite unnecessarily adds "God bless him." a remark that no clergyman a.t Synod thought it necessary to add, the wish being understood. Brevity in business communications, which so often follow age-old formula, is as attractive as platform brevity. There is the aged story of the y two firms which had undertaken a long and acrimonious discussion by post. At last one firm was extra long and extra rude. The attacked firm wrote what was claimed to be the shortest business letter in its record. Here is the letter: "Gentlemen. you are no gentlemen." Clergy at the Christchurch Diocesan Synod discussed the price of benzine, tyres, upkeep of cars, and so on, desiring the travelling allowance to be increased.

THE Clergymen who are relics PARSON'S PONY, of the horseback days will recall the times when one of the best assets for a young parson was" an athletic training which enabled him to fall off a horse after a fifty or sixty milei. ride, hold a service, attentively listened to by six or seven people, and then canter along to some other place with the glad tidings. Motor cars have at least quartered the time spent by the clergy in' travelling, and more than likely halved the fatigue. One wonders it mileage was paid in the earlier days to the devoted men of the cloth, who spent more time in the saddle than anywhere else. There were often difficulties in obtaining a mount for Sunday work, and one seems to remember those more or less kindly people, who, having worked a horse for six days between the shafts, lent it willingly to the parson to ride his round on Sunday. In the backblocks the comic curate of picture literature was absent, and one lias seen even a bishop riding a buckjumper nefariously supplied by a more or less humorous stockman for his lordship's use. In the wider spaces of Australia, where the intrepid parson might arrive unexpectedly at a woolshed in shearing time and hang up his horse in the stockyard, many a shed full of cosmopolitan rougliies has sat round on wool bales listening reverently enough to the Good Word of the parson, who has thereafter "mixed lit" with the gloves with the best boxer, or I showed the lads a trick or two at riding, and who has been known on rare occasions to uphold the honour of his cloth with bare fists. Such a lot of parsons who get there either by I car or hack are very human. An Australian scribe mentions the case of the gentleman who was imperfectly sober. A man in uniform walking down Collins Street found him kneeling in the THE LOST COIN, gutter anxiously searching for something. Desiring to be of help, the kind Melbournian asked the kneeler what he had lost. "I losh two bob," he said. "Where did you lose it?" "In Lil' Bourke Street." "But this is Collins Street!" "I know, but there'sh. more light here!" Reminds one of other losses in Melbourne. A kind gentleman found a dear little boy with blue eyes and curly hair crying bitterly, his flushed face over a street drain, peering into the horrid depths. The boy was so upset that he could hardly sob out the little story that he had dropped a halfsovereign down the drain and that his mother . The crowd gathered, some poking the drain with walking sticks and lending aid, while the poor little chap sobbed. The benevolent policeman who shepherded the crowd saw no reason to deter the nice man from going round with the hat, and in a short time he had collected fifteen and nine, which he handed over to the dear little fellow, who, in speechless gratitude, ran home to his mother. A week later in a far-distant street a kind gentleman found a dear little 'boy weeping bitterly into a drain. The poor little fellow had dropped a half-sovereign down it. Crowd. Policeman. Collection. Policeman, together with plain-clothes officials, took charge of the nice boy and the kind man who was taking the hat round. Same boy. Same man. Father and son. Gaol.

Fortunate folks who laboured on this Labour Day saw the fair city in a guise practically unknown to the hapless souls who sit ' all day surfeited with WET BLANKET, food and stare out of the dripping windows. A man, soaking but happy because he had somewhere to go and something to do, mentions with absurd pride that he was the only passenger on his ferry boat, having travelled from the interior in what appeared to be his private bus. The busman, gazing through the dripping panes, hailed him as a life saver, as he .had made so many trips empty. Queen Street had nearly a dozen people, exclusive of the police, who were only arresting the spots of rain between eight o'clock and nine. A man addicted by fortunate necessity to labour on Labour Day turned up his day book for Labour Days that are gone and pointed out that although the majority of Labour Days are like what this Labour Day was up to mid-day, his diary declares that the next Monday after most Labour Days is fine —a remarkable instance of the cussedness of luck. One of the tragedies of a moist morn on this occasion is that in a thousand houses enormous mounds of picnic foods are prepared overnight for eating beneath the budding pohutukawa next day, necessitating a whole day in the gloom of the dear old home applied to the art of gastronomy. In effect, a wet Labour Day is as stimulating to the drug trade as a fine Christmas. Formerly when the community celebrated the occasion enthusiastic banner bearers staggered through the rain working harder than on any day during the year to make a spectacle. These poor, souls this morning gazed pathetically through the dripping glass, while the happy milkman, the cheery railwayman, the rejoicing ferry operative, the gay policeman and the fortunate M.A.T. carry on as if Labour Day was a day of labour. But the sun came out later. THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY.

Bravery never goes out of fashion.— Thackeray. There are few -ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.—Dr. Johnson.