THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 285, 1 December 1932, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) Mr. Hovell of Thames has found a Maori flute" made of stone only four inches long, and is asked to accept thanks for reminding M.A.I. of a Maori trumpet about TIMBER eight feet long and made TRUMPET, of wood. It leapt into fame at a musical social in Wellington, a man named Warren (up to then never accused of lnusicality) consenting to give "a trumpet solo." The assembled vivants inferred that Mr. Warren was about to either tickle their ears with an orchestral instrument of brass or with the common, cavalry trumpet capable of violent shrieks, blasts and groan*. However, Mr. Warren was seen to drag a log of wood several yards in length from the anteroom. Sustaining it with difficulty, he produced all the bugle calls used in military affairs amid much applause, it was all the more notable as the Maoris—who are distinctly musical—produced with tins instrument only a few stirring notes, preferring on warlike occasions the trumpet fashioned from a largo sea shell. Years afterwards a musical fanatic reminded Mr Warren of his feat, asking him if he ever blew the timber trumpet nowadays. He answered sadly, "Nay, laddie, I haven't got the lip. Neither Mr. Montagu Norman nor the passenger in the bus knows what has happened to the poor old world, which has too much money, too much JUST DUES. food and too much starvation. Happily this universal inability to find panaceas does not deter anv of us from suggesting them. We ourselves so far from the Great World where financial diabolism begins are apt to view the world in terms of Wellington and the gentlemen who arrange our affairs. Instancing this insular view, a recent little duologue between two intelligent men is apropos. The gentleman witli the speckled tie and the hard hat was obviously peeved. Turning a sheet of his newspaper, he said, in effect, "There's Parliament. Sat for weeks and weeks in Wellington Eighty of 'em. Paid by me and you. World in a devil of a state. What have they done to clear up the mesA? Nothing, nothing! ' —and he turned anxiously to the real news in his paper, exclaiming gladly, "My word— Tigerism won the Feilding Cup!" His friend in the brown shoes and the only boater visible very calmly retorted, "You are wrong, Jim, about Parliament. They've been working day and night for you and me—all eighty of them. What did they do, my dear fellow, for you and me? They arranged for the dehorning of cattle and the registration of poultry. Have a heart, old chap—give 'em their due." ' One of the modern medical methode of dealing with the wonky heart of which there are so many middle-aged specimens about is to send the patient to FIVE YEARS' bed for a week or two, REST, which leads to the usual speculation as to what on earth the world would do if you yourself knocked off work for a whole fortnight and let the bally cosmos do what it liked. One wonders if when there is a new world, capitalism is dead, and all those fairy tales, everybody will be able to do what a fellow London columnist says his pal does. The columnist is one of those superior chaps who dines with ambassadors and walks across Fleet Street with Egyptian princes. You will understand the man who said the following is no relief worker: "I feel thundering well to-day. Why? Well, yesterday morning when my man came, in and said it was raining hard and was going to keep on all day, I said, 'Right. Bring me a jug of hot drinking water and don't come near me until I ring.' And I stayed in bed all day, had nothing to eat, did not read, did not move until breakfast time this morning. I feel to-day ae if I have had a five years' muchneeded rest." One merely wonders if the valet referred to above gets his five years' muchneeded rest every fortnight or so. News comes from the Commonwealth mentioning that blackfellows are to be executed for murdering a gin and eating a portion of her. It is possible that STONE AGE. this cannibalism was not for the reason of hunger, but from some inexplicable belief buried in the age-old traditions of these Stone Ago people, whom all competent scientists aver are the only people left on earth linking that period with our own. Scientists try their darndest to understand the mind of the real warrigal blackfellow, but their job as hard because" the modern blackfellow wants to please the white man and lies to him with a smile. It ie never understood why the blackfellow has remained ignorant of the great natural matter of reproduction, believing merely, as he does, that some spirit or other enters into the being and thus reproduces the kind. He is ignorant that a seed grows, and in his wild state has never been known to plant anything. Hβ merely digs seeds to eat. His laws of consanguinity are exceedingly complex, and he remembers every relationship (or supposed relationship) with the greatest exactness. His whole world is one of magic. Hβ believes that the kidney fat of an enemy taken from him and twined in the hair will give him strength, and he will assuredly die if some powerful enemy with a magic bit of bone or other rubbish points it at him. Hβ has a more powerful imagination than any white author now filling books—and the white man who can find out why some of Ihim. ate a part of a lady will be a wonder. The cabled intimation that Tommy Atkine (in a deerstalker hat) will no longer be forced to carry a haversack or a water bottle sets one a-wonder-HARD LABOUR, ing what the many young Auckland hikers carry in their stupendous packs on week-end walks. One Jias lately seen an excellent photograph of a Malay gentleman "fully equipped" for a three montJis' sojourn in the forest, where he hoped to gather camphor and do a little headhunting as a pastime. He wears a belt, a largo knife-, some beads and a headdress, and if you asked him to carry a half-hundred-weight pack he would collect your head to add to his drawing-room treasures. Recalls, too, the case of Ellis, a Wellington district murderer, who, having elain a man (sitting down eating his lunch) escaped into the bush. He was away with the best bushmen and the cleverest police after him for many weeks. Barring a rifle, his whole pack weighed about six pounds. A detective found him in a hut — and although the light traveller had a magazine rifle the "D." fell across a table and pinned him before he could shoot. Ellis was in firstclass nick, although he didn't carry a hundredweight of pack. Then there is the case of the large dark hikers of Africa, clothed in two ounces of suit and a smile. They, however, reeemble in a minor degree the Auckland hikers, for if you employ one to carry a note in the notched end of a stick over a hundred or two miles, he hates to come back without something, and usually chooses a etone weighing anything up to a hundredweight. Professional burden bearers like these ancient Whiskerandoes, who are still a pathetic feature of Commonwealth life, increase the size of their swags the older they get. It is inexplicable. The passion for hard work is really a malady. A few miles from Auckland there* is a nonagenarian who loves to wheel a barrow for miles and miles. He is equally delighted whether the barrow is piled or empty, and hills are his luxury.