THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 284, 30 November 1932, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

The following liavo been selected by a public school teacher from a mass of documcntarv evidence proving that pupils still perpetrate howlers: What i» STILL HOWLING! the terminal port of the trans-Siberian railway! — Gladys Foxtrot, mo is the President of the Irish Free State?— Mr. Balltmore. The Hindus out of one cask are not allowed to marry the Hindus out of another cask. -tie split the log with a sharp and serious facc.

Wellington is rearranging the perquisites of those municipal officials whose duties require private motor cars, and intends to save a bagful of money by tightenFRESH AIR. ing up the regulations. But according to a man who has lately braved Poneke there is no immediate intention of rearranging the electric car services. He mentions (being an Auclnlander) the preliminary groans common to the street cars there as they are about to gather force but most of all calls attention to the fact that Wellington with a temperature much lower than that of Auckland still clings to t'he open car, which in the diurnal gale of wind "iveft passengers such an overdose of air, and which, by the way, may aid in enhancing the reputation of the hub as having the lowest death rate in the world. He mentions as an instance of "Eaffcrty rule" that when the car is about to start for Newtown or to climb the steep a seen t of Karori (where there is a cemetery) the conductor hits the car on the stern with a spanner or other iron implement, and she is away. A man who had the felicity to see the first sod turned and to ride on the first electric car to run in Wellington, on the other hand, rejoices that occasionally he is able to take a breath of fresh air in a Wellington vehicle. He remarks that he doesn t care a hang whether the conductor hits the back of the car with a spanner or a sledge hammer, as he has never yet reached his destination with a nasty taste in his mouth from swallowing foetid air. 'In fact a little openness in a fairer northern city would be all to the good.

It is cabled from Calcutta that a monkey entered a dwelling at Delhi, stole, a two-month-old baby from its cot, and ascended a tree with it, being only persuaded TWO MONKEYS, by the offer of fruit to descend. A man who has tarried awhile in St. Malo, "the ancient city of the corsairs," says there is nothing new under "the sun and brings the'printed story of the monkey of St. Malo. When people in the St. Malo fish market barge about prices the loud-voiced fishwife exclaims, "Tell it to the monkey!" The monkey in stone has looked down upon the market for one hundred and fifty years. The story is that a sea captain who lived in a large etone house (now a hotel) brought home a pet monkey in 1774. The monkey marvelled daily at a woman crossing the market place with a baby in iher arms. One day the woman was horrified to see the monkey sitting on a high eaves-trough giving an imitation of the lullaby with the captain's baby in its arms. Afraid for the baby-j the people in the street kept absolute silence. The resourceful mother, unversed in the theories o£ evolution, but understanding that monkeys are mimics, picked up her own baby, swung it back and forth, and laid it in its 'bed. The monkey coiled its tail round a rain pipe, slid down, and '.aid the baby in the cradle. The monkey's portrait was cut in stone and remains on the spot. Up to a hundred years ago a man named Toussaint Thomas was pointed out as the original baby. The strategy of Delhi is merely a variant of the strategy of St. Malo.

One of the marvels of the normal human eye (and every other animal eve, for that matter) is its uncanny ability to alter its

focus many times in a BIRD'SrEYE VIEW, second. It would seem

incredible and impossible if one stopped to think about it for the eye of Campbell or any other phenomenally fast motorist or airman to see detail. To-day it is a commonplace although a remarkable thing for the camera to focus and record one single instant of event—to "catch" horses, for instance, for 'a single instant of their gallop. But the artificial eye of the camera cannot focus the onlookers at the rear, and the great British public looks merely like a slightly demented field of oversize mushrooms. All this preliminary to mentioning that the new road sign on the Great South Road and Market Road is written so that It means little to the man alongside, but is read easily by the oncoming motorist, whose eye changes focus at every revolution of his wheels—an artificial aid to the most wonderful of Nature's handiwork, the eye. -And talking about artificial aids, ifc occurs to one that an immense proportion of the world's workers would be on the shelf but for the artificial aid of glasses (see our new specs, at one and ninepence). On a recent d<"fy a man who uses spectacles for near things eat at lunch and felt for his glasses. He had left them behind, and, seizing the menu, he tried without success to read it. He mentioned to a waitress that he couldn't read without glasses, and handed the menu to her. "Even I," said she, taking the card, "can't read it upside down."

The King, -who wears a beard and who is moreover Colonel-in-Chief of the Lifeguards, has promulgated a desire that officers of the Household Cavalry—that WHISKERS. is to ,say the First and Second Lifeguards and tho Royal Horse Guards (Blues) shall grow moustaches. Presumably the rest of the British Army may go barefaced, as usual. Military face hair is of some interest, as so many civilians have sub-edited their own after the pattern of the soldier. For generations the uniformed swashbuckler was permitted to wear the most ferocious of whiskers, and the value of a fighting man was often assessed in hair. Thereafter, when the ambrosial Whiskers had been shorn, the moustache was universal, and, indeed, a regulation. Then tho High Command, noted that soldiers were tired of hair, and probably jealous of the clean-sliaved Navy, so it became the fashion to denude the whole countenance of herbage. Li short, its universality induced the Army to withdraw the issue of blade razors (spares being purchasable at the canteen for sevenpence) and to permit the issue of the lawnmower pattern of "safety." In previous moustache days the only men permitted to go tlie whole hog and carry a beard were the "pioneers"—the gentlemen with the axes, picks and so forth. Since those whiskered days, of course, all hands have helped with the picks and shovels, and there has been no need for whiskers. During the Great War the High Command issued an order that newlyfledged subalterns should give over being barefaced and cultivate the eyebrow (or elevenhaired) "mo," the reason being perfectly good. So many officers were necessarily so young that tlicy appeared to be boys to their men, and a manly lip was supposed to give them added years. At the same time, those wonderful little midshipmen whom every Anzac still respects went about their onerous duties with their baby lips clean of offence.

THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. Success is growing to our 1 full spiritual stature, under God's sky. —Carl vie. A bad compromise is better than a good lawsuit. —Spanish proverb. No one is useless in the world who lightens the burden of it for someone else. — diaries Dickens. -■ ~ -