THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 25, 31 January 1933, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE WATT ABOUT TOWN.) THE BAYSWATER WHARFINGER. Small boy to writer at Bayswater: "That's a cat and a. half, that one. Half kills every dog on the wharf and swims like a fish." Dear M.A.T., —I wonder if you've met This funny little oat of tan and mole. Whose tail proves Persian ancestry :no less. Whose task Is self-imposed as wharf patrol. She has boats to meet and boats see away. To travellers she seems incurious. But let a dog within the precincts stroll, And she's a raging fiend and furious. Sometimes she takes a ("Buckshee," of course—the ferry being her Meets no "acquaintances upon the way, , And comes home, always, as she went —alone. Responsive to all kindness, yet a cat That can scratch and spit and swear and even swim, , . A humble wharfinger, unkempt, A thing of spirit, pedigree and V ™^ UTHY N. Dear M.A.T.,— "Poverty makes strange bedfellows." The depression is responsible for the following. In a South Island freezing works there was a frail NO BRAINS. man with spectacles whose "only" occupation was the wiping down of carcases. He was apparently an amateur, for the foreman, observing his clumsiness at his work, went up to him and said: "You are the most awkward wiper 1 have ever seen. You haven't as much brains as a schoolboy!" "Probably not," said the bespectacled man. "You see, Mr., for many years I did nothing else but impart knowledge to schoolboys and students, and have given away all my brains!" (The wiper was a master of science of a New Zealand University, an ex-schoolmaster.) —H.M.

It was publicly announced come -weeks ago that a kind little girl had presented a pair of cats to the borough in which she lives, the only condition of the A VOICE THAT gift being that he and IS STILL. she should be named after the Mayor and Mayoress —a romantic notion that touched the ratepayers and delighted the governing body, including its head. Almost every romance has its darker side. The municipal cats apparently lived in amity for some time, and the municipal rate and mice suffered a pleasing diminution. One recent day it was announced that . George had gone away, the other gift being now a grass widow. Municipal search parties combing the local roofs and listening to midnight concerts hoping to recognise the voice of ■ George, have returned catless and sorrowful. . It is feared that some proletarian Tom has waylaid this aristocrat and that perhaps he will rever return. Other little girls may confer . gift cats on the borough, but there can be only ( one George in the broken hearts of the sorrow- . ing ratepayers. , Every decade or so intrepid travellers in "

the bush return without having seen a huia and report that they don't think all the huias are dead. The huias that HUIA. are not dead have not been seen by man since long before the late Mr. A. Hamilton, curator of Wellington Museum, went out, came back, and said he hadn't seen any. With a party of Maoris the curator, who was then quite aged, stayed, in the bush for several weeks, returning to report as stated. It is being suggested that as huias have not been seen in ■the Kaimanawa Ranges, parties should go out and seek them. One wonders, supposing the bird is not extinct and the party sights it, whether the party will just come back and say, "Yes, there are huias," or, in the fashion of the born naturalist, return to civilisation bearing the proof—the dead huia for the taxidermist. We already posses® museum specimens of the departed bird, and there are numbers of feathers in carved Maori boxes in various museums. One can hardly imagine a true naturalist spending a soggy month or two in the back o' beyond spotting a huia and leaving him alive, merely returning to shout, "Eureka, I have found him! I) ! ou don't believe it, go into the Kaimanawa Ranges." During the days when grandpa "had his picture took" and the photographer clamped grandpa's head in an iron frame for fear he should move during the THE five minutes' ordeal, it ROYAL TOUCH. was declared that "photography cannot lie," and exceedingly ingenious detective stories have been based on this fantastic belief. Since grandpa ihad his picture, taken photography has moved at the double, and if you look at the picture of a foot/ball match or a horse race you will note that the crowd in the background is merely a series of white blobs, while the principals in focus are often almost human in appearance. Indeed they are frequently recognisable both in British and Continental papers. Here, then, is a photograph of the Chelsea football team. H.R.H. is seen wearing a hard hitter moving up to be presented to the team. Gallacher, captain of Chelsea, is seen with his arm round the Prince's waist! Although the impression, is undoubted, there lis no sign of riot at so terrible a faux pas. If there is any explanation, it is that the captain was shooing the Prince forward in a most respectful manner and that the photography was so rapid that what was really a movement seemed an embrace. Still, one noted, when H.R.H. was with us, that Sir Lionel Halsey practically held the Prince up as the Prince, standing up, surged round in a motor car amid the plaudits of the crowd— and how mere sailors manhandled the Heir to the Throne in the Neptune festivities crossing the line—is it not history?

Throughout Christendom since gold lias reached so high a price thousands of pieces of family jewellery have been boiled down and exchanged for currency— THE GOLD RING, and my lady nowadays as, wears equally beautiful ornaments (as far as eyesight goes) that cost as mucli_ as three and sixpence a yard. In old colonial days the idea of boiling clown one of those enormons greenstone brooches to obtain seven and sixpence worth, of gold "Mizpah" would have been anathema. On© remembers travelling jewellers—that is to say, stockmen, bush men, swagmen and others with spare time —who, having a few sovereigns, used to sit patiently under a tree and make finger rings of them. The tools of trade of these craftsmen were simply a round steel punch and a hammer. The craftsman would punch a holo through St. George's horse—or the bust of the reigning monarch—and beat the gold round the punch until it bore the semblance of a wedding ring of bulbous proportions. These were saleable to gentlemen who loved to gallop after cattle with a ring shining amid the scrub. Many of these rings made irom sovereigns were -undoubtedly genuine, but one regrets to record that a backblocks bush "jeweller" accidentally found a bag of copper washers one day and set to work to make several dozen "sovereign" rings, disposing of them readily at thirty shillings per washer. Encouraged by his success, this tradesman one day offered a ring at an advanced price to an opulent squatter who owned a bit of country about the size of the North Island.- It is sad to recall that this squatter who had been reared among real jewellery smelt a rat, and, indeed, caused the amateur goldsmith to retire from business. The last one heard of him he was cook for other gentlemen, who also wore broad-<yrxow -<«£%, 'Vr"~"