THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 16, 20 January 1933, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) The enormous importance of the eye to humanity is brought home to the people when news comes that the British, Prime Minister suffers from glaucoma, or EYES HAVE IT. that Eamonn de Valera (of Ireland) is seriously indisposed with eye strain. Laige numbers.of public men suffer from eye strain, and 111 e\ery case are exceedingly anxious, as is natmal. One recalls the case of a public man who con suited an oculist because his eyes weres not "ood. Si>cctacles were prescribed. _ glas«e helped him, but very soon liis vision was disturbed, and, genuinely frightened, he rushed to a specialist and told him all about it. The specialist gave him the once oyer, and laughed "Throw vour spectacles away, said he, teilin„ the scared man that his sight had so improved with rest and better health that the specs had merely become "too strong" for him.

As everybody knows, dogs are born motorists. In days gone by tne spotted dog trotted under the lee of the family carriage and punted painfully. In THE CYCLIST, these swifter days he ' comes aboard the car, and manv gentlemen, hoping to "convert" a nice machine to their own use, have been handicapped by seeing the intelligent face of an Alsatian peering at them through the glass. Other dogs delight in hanging on by their toenails to the running board, and are as hard to shake off as limpets or Bathurst burrs. The dog as a motor cyclist, however, is a novelty. Oil a recent day a Pomeranian of aristocratic mien was seen riding his bike up Albert Street. To the onlooker it appeared as if the "pom" was actually the controller of the wheel, for his hind paws were resting on the thighs of the man whom he was con-ducting,-and his forepaws were braced against the handle-bar, the man apparently being the passenger. The haughty kuri appeared not only to be in command of the whole outfit, but to sway in a knowing manner round a corner in the most approved' method of the accomplished broadsider. As for his passenger —the man tried hard to look nonchalant, but as a matter of fact he was bursting with pride.

In the matter of exchange and other ghastly questions interesting people who to-day are toilgrs and to-morrow statesmen operating the levers of finance, one HISTORY of the cheering things in REPEATS, a time of gloom is that great ships crammed with stuff out of what Uncle Sam calls "the fertile gumbo" (rhyming "fertile" with "kirtle") still nose their way into port and struggle out again loaded to the plimsoll or thereabouts with the fruits of the earth supplied by about a third of the people of New Zealand by arduous toil and on which all of us subsist whether we massage the land or live in exquisite bungalows far from the scene of bucolic strife. In short, it is the wonder of the country that you can neither prevent the minority of people from toiling or the land from laughing with a harvest tickled by their toil. The point seems to be that if you could induce the majority and not the minority to tickle, the soil instead of tickling the producer the problems that vex us would disappear like the morning dew which disappeared about nine-thirty this morning. Long before the first white man pikaued the first bit of tucker over the ranges and through the fern, our forefathers, recent and remote, prophesied that the race was going to the dogs, and argued precisely .the same questions we argue now. But while growling, they kept on tickling the earth and making it laugh like anything —and here we are, a bit frayed perhaps, but going strong, although a bit curby-hoeked.

Noted, with sympathy that during this year will be celebrated the jubilee in New Zealand of the Salvation Army, and there is no doubt that bouquets. TEMPTATION, will be thrown not, as in 1883, brickbats and ignorant verbiage. It was probably the fighting capacity of its illustrious founder andhis unkillable sense of humour that made the Army live, for the Grand Old Man of the Army loved his joke and invariably prayed volubly for reporters in public, greatly to the amusement of public and Press. Minor executive officers of eminence had a sense of the bizarre, too, in imitation of -their great chief. There was an executive officer in Wellington to whom a newspaper man of pious appearance went regularly to glean the latest news of the organisation. The chief had a cosy little office, an efficient staff and a twinkle in his eye. One day the pious-looking roundsman called, iand, after a preliminary conference, tile Salvation Army eminent leaned over the table and whispered hoarsely, "What about a spot!" Nervoi'ftly the visitor whispered, "Don't mind if I do." The official stepped to the door, crooked a finger at a bonnet, which came forward, and said, "Staff-Captain, I am not to be disturbed," withdrew into the room, locked the door, and said, "About this spot." He selected a key from his bunch, opened a cupboard, and produced a long, black bottle, most assuredly from Scotland, and with a noted Caledonian name on it. Two glasses. "Say when." Amber colour. The host sipped. The guest sipped, and looked puzzled. "Pretty good ginger ale that, isn't it." "said the host. The beauty of the story is that it was genuine ginger ale.

Lake Pit puke, being thirstier at the moment than for many years, anxious authorities are probing the earth here and there on the North Shore trying to DEEP DOWN. ta.p auxiliary supplies, and in one place where pipes were driven many hundred feet there were enough traces of damp to moisten a sheet of blotting paper. The abandonment of this bore reminded an erstwhile wanderer of bores lie has known, both political and artesian—tlie latter in remembered cases spouting in a way to nrake even a Premier envious. The artesian bore in many wild Australian spots lias transformed enormous areas of country—but> of course, there is always a fly in the ointment. Areas that had baked in the blistering sun for millions of years, suddenly" continuously sluiced with "water, respond in queer ways. Maybe first the grass will spring out of the earth amazingly. Man, gratified'at this exuberance, has poured more and more water on the thirsty earth, until the deep-down salts of the old Mother have come to the surface and blighted the vegetation, apparently for keeps—weird transformation scenes. In the initial stages of Australian irrigation areas (opened by Americans) the land, thirsty through the ages, was copiously watered by river pumping, diverted into hundreds of miles of channels cut in the country. All went very well for some seasons, and the way fruit trees leaped cowards the sun amazed even Californians. But constant soakage in unpaved channels, and canals brought what they call "kopi" to the top, which, in hundreds of eases, swept the orchards off the earth. The old Mother keeps a rare stock of poisons deep down below the surface.

A THOUGHT FOR TO-DAY. The most beautiful possession which a country can have is a noble and rich man, who loves virtue and knowledge; who, without being feeble or fanatical, is pious, and who, without being factious, is firm and independent; who, in his political life, is an equitable mediator between king and people; and, in his civil life, a firm promoter of all which can shed a lustre upon his country, or promote the peace and order of the world.—Samuel Smith.