THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 259, 1 November 1932, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) Talking about "Home" (if Parliament will permit), there is a family not a ™* *,°™ inland which ta^^&fSS* HOME. There is a wee bairn of, the family, and naturally his speech is infantile. But there is one sentence he savs with great exactness and with no trace whatever of infantile «P™» B1 °?J J was born in Bonnie Scotland and Im proud of it." ' It is learned from a pink Australian contemporary that there is a recrudescence of temperance activity in the Commonwealth and * that ev<;r y river bank in A CURSE. each capital is at moments decorated with earnest hair fluttering in the wind, saying something like this, "What, my friends, is the curse or the Commonwealth? What saps the energy of the proletariat? What makes the hand of the workman tremble and saps his utility T What makes the husband a fiend and his wife a martyr? Wot is this 'ere that wrecks the 'appy 'ome and brings it a-tumbhn' about the childring?" A small, calm voice from the far flank of the crowd murmured, ' Cross word puzzles, mate."

The occasional presence in London of a New Zealand financier or statesman has undoubtedly induced many people to buy atlases, and several have GEOGRAPHY. located these Fortunate Isles. A clergyman who arrived in Auckland on this very Tuesday mentions meeting a man prior to his departure from Home who declared he had a friend in New Zealand, and if the good man should come across him he would be much obliged if he. would convey greetings and what not IHe cleroyman said, "What part of New Zealand does your friend reside in?" "Tanganyika, replied the other. "But," said the parson, "Tanganyika is not in New Zealand —it is in, Africa." "Oh, no," was. the reply; "I looked it up on the map." "Will you spell it?" asked the parson. "T-a-r-a-n-a-k-i," triumphantly said the Englishman. "Oh!" said the parson.

A casual query, "How do you spell 'Tan"anyika,?" caused the stalwart one to burst Fnto two columns of an adventure in that romantic but torrid spot. A MEAT MEAL. Reverberations of the Universal Crime were heard in Tan.-etc, and the King's African Rifles were amonc those present with rifles, shorts, bully beef and biscuit. A K.A.R. man, who nowadays is shooting his victims with a camera, was in camp when Baviaan the M-ata-bele boy buret into the scenery with "N'yami, baas, n'yami!" pointing a dark, grey finger towards the horizon. The young K.A.R., hearing the dark gentleman's word for "meat, had visions of harmless buck that could be shot without danger, and, seizing his trusty service rifle, he followed the big black lad. The lad led him through the scenery to a bosky dell, where from behind a tree could be seen the "meat"—a terrific bull elephant with a wife and a calf. K.A.R. had never been in the presence of so many chops and steaks before, and, to tell the truth, -lie longed for the peaceful glades of Surrey. He wished to retire, but the boy with so much faith in white , magic and the courage of the -white baas continued to babble for meat, and K.A.R. loosed a round and grazed the cow. The bull elephant, extremely peeved at this interference with his family, trumpeted and charged. K.A.R. took refuge in a hollow tree, and the elephant —an animal whose eyesight is not in proportion to his size, charged. The black boy, noting , the trembling of an otherwise intrepid soldier, held'the barrel tiglrfc against the tree, the K.A.R. drew a bead, and by luck hit the leviathan in the correct place, and he fell dead against the tree. The tusks to*day decorate the K.A.R. photographic studio at home, and the owner is fond of eaying that if it had not been for the necessity of showing the dark races that the "white baas" is invincible he would have taken to his heels in— thanks for telling M.A.T. how to epell Tanganyika, Brigadier!

Dear M.A.T., —It liardly needed your par about Lord Methuen and his enemy pal Delarey to remind-me that I-was an unwilling guest of D.L.R. away THE PRISONER, back—oh, ever so many

years ago. All over a cussed Argentine remount. -The lads were off on a little expedition—me, too. A few milejs from camp—in the vicinity of Tigerkloof—the unspeakable piebald played up. Brass Hat couldn't be bothered with cranky horses —sent me back. Lone New Zealander watering unspeakable horse suddenly heard, "Hands up, Khaki!"—two of Delarey's whiskered friends with a bead on Fernleaf. Laughter, in which Fernleaf did not join.. At the commando's headquarters, General Delarey. Fernleaf interrogated in English—private confab in the Dutch "taal," word "skeet" occurring frequently. "Skeet" means "shoot." Fernleaf, feeling rotten, thought he was for it. Nothing happened bar a terrific blow-out of "Boer brod," baked chicken and hot coffee. Solemn old Delarey seemed merely amused—gave a few guttural orders, and left. I shared blankets that night with a "veld-kornet" (in civil life a Johannesburg schoolmaster). Decent chap —plenty of tobacco. We discussed New Zealand and South African schools lying in the lee of a farm wall. Got up early, wondering when the execution was to take place. Old man Delarey turned up. Schoolmaster, too. General handed over a bag of tobacco. Schoolmaster over his "sjambok" as a keepsake and hoped Fernleaf would be perfectly safe walking back to his lines. He's perfectly safe still, thank you. Decent did chap, Delarey —No. 149, N.Z.M.R.

Recent instructions as to the destruction of snakes emphasised the necessity of slaying' them wherever found. Since then one has come upon a pathetic ART OP LIVING, story of the sick snake ■which had almost broken the hearts of its keepers in a zoo by refusing its food. In Nature the python would have browsed on babies, curled itself fatally round men, have breakfasted on calves or lunched on- sheep. This captive python actually turned white with illness, and, of course, the reason of its sickness and whiteness was its captivity—its kind captivity. This bizarre kindness has led to dental surgery for tigers, expert attention to the toenails of lions, and research into the illnesses of captive hippopotami, and it occurs to one that civilised man needs dental, and surgical care mostly because he is also, so to speak, captive. This pale python which refused food wasn't approached with a gun or a club or a rock to prevent the possibility of its pythoning again, 'but was given eggs beaten up in milk (introduced by a stomach pump), whieh,~after its long fast, made it wake up and frisk madly. The soulful authorities believe that they have saved its valuable life. Reading of the physical salvation of a snake, one is inclined to envy a python that usually takes one meal in several months, lies down in a nice shady corner, and goes_ to sleep until digestion is perfect. Then it- rises, straightens out its hoops, and goes pythoning again. The whole of the life of man is spent in achieving not one meal in three months, but three meals every day, with the feeble compensation of seven or eight hours' sleep, when he goes meal hunting again. It seems a pity that Father Adam didn't have a word or two with that serpent about the art-pfJliving in timaeLoL depression.