THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 136, 12 June 1933, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

The Chinese, as everybody is aware, are frequently superb cooks, and the foolislin of believing that our Eastern brethren 0 to live on the smell of a EAST AND WEST, oil rag is evident. There is the story of the wmte 'man who had lived East and who «me down to Australia, where he naturally sou 0 h , restaurants where the chef had been trained elsewhere. In such a place he could enj y delicious flavour of chicken stewed wit vvater chestnuts, bamboo shoots and mushrooms rice nronerly prepared, antl tea treated with the loviii" kindness no white landlady undeisuin . A young Chinese waiter stood at the end of the room. Were his thoughts perchance tui ne to the old village in the East where his S™"" father sat flying his kite and the sun on the river where the sampans ,ob 'l e d their moorings? There came from the kiwiipn in purest Cantonese a sing-song lip The dreamer awoke. "0.K., baby!" replied the waiter-and dashed to the kitchen for the chicken.

Good-naturedly enough, the Salvation \rmy has asked the State to please reduce the duty on concertinas as the concertina is practically the official or NOTE 01 MUSIC, gan of the organisation. (Laughter.) The mouth-oro-an could never b e a success as the official organ of the organisation, because you cant sin"- (or talk) and play a mouth-organ at tae same time —and, besides, the mouth-organ a terrible kick in the war because the Germans knocked off making it—and other people couldn't make this poor mans music, ine Salvation Army has stuck to the English concertina as a personal and individual lnstrument of music, because it isn't a foieigner, because in a master hand it can make excellent —even exquisite—music, because it is small and takes up less space than the accordion or melodeon, beloved of the bacKblocks bloke and played dreadfully by a myriad gents, of the far-back, bringing solace to the Empire-makers who stick up fences, dig holes and slog busb. Maybe, of couise, nowadays the backblocker does not mouth organ, accord, mclode or concertina, depending perhaps for his musical sustenance oil ladio. Personally one would rather listen to an execrably-played melodeon in the knotted hand? of a tone-deaf busliman than screams, hoots and atmospherics from among the cherry blossoms of old Nippon. In attacking the concertina the taxing State seems to have forgotten some other musical instruments. Up to the moment the motor horns which play the first bar of a hymn seem to have escaped.

It is not of the least significance that the World Economic Conference is to be held in the GeologicS.l Museum at Kensington, for undoubtedly the debates A WORD OR SO. will not take place with the fossils for an audience. Prehistoric pachyderms will be covered up. What is of interest to us, as a Dominion of public talkers, is that the King will set an example of brevity in his-opening remarks, for it is but meet that those who discuss economics should be economical of speech. The unutterable weariness inflicted on the King's lieges by public men with nothing to say and hour after hour to say it in has been recognised through the centuries, but only rarely has the intolerable nuisance of oceans of meaningless words been stemmed by rude audiences. The public speaker has "the average audience in a cleft stick, for the units of audiences are generally too well behaved to stem the torrent. We have had notable cases of interminable talks in our own country. There was once a statesman who talked faster than anyone else. His method was to make a statement of from a dozen to twenty words and to go into parentheses for three or four columns —say, five thousand words—coming back as a final bonpe bouchc to his original kick-off. Reporters loved him as a man, but as a flood of English ? No effective legislation has ever been planned to prevent this universal spate of words. One wonders if the King's example of brevity will really cure this world complaint.

Obviously not all the family old gold has been dredged from the pockets of the people and the top right-hand drawer of the old chest. Men in excellent THE suits and clean collars WEDDING RING, have been observed on their long tramps round suburban streets—tho only stock-in-trade needed being a pocket full of money, a small (and presumably accurate) balance, and enough qualitative acid tj ascertain whether grandpa's glittering watch has a gold case—or otherwise. In tho absence of any gold to sell one has had the advantage of a word or two with a 011 the gold quest. His feeling was that he was out to do all the good he could. The writer, for instance, might possess a drawer full of old gold and a pocket empty of either gold, notes 01- silver. The philanthropist would come to his aid, take his unwanted gold and give him much-needed silver—see? He really did tell a pathetic tale or two about customers, their extreme reluctance to part with the old trinkets, and their ultimate sorrowful parting with tho same. Told the story of the woman who tearfully ofl'ered him her wedding ring, for a price. At first lie refused to trade, feeling that later she would regret its loss. He left her and proceeded down the road, but she ran after him and bcseeched him to buy the ring. "As a humanitarian," he told the scribe, "I had to reluctantly buy the ring. I gave her as much for it as would have been paid for it in the far-ofl" days when her future husband shyly entered the jeweller's shop to purchase the circle of love," Here the scribe sobbed softly, and almost wished he had a few wedding rings to gTve freely to the philanthropist.

Apropos the price of milk; the question of the fate of milk from bucket to breakfast table has interested humanity for .quite a while, the chief objective MILK-OH! having been to get it from Jersey Lass to the tum_ of the infant pure and undefiled. Presuming its present-day purity and undefilement, one recalls the days of long ago when a "commissioner" with a notebook and a pcncil was turned on in AVellington to track the morning ration to tho jug on the doorstep, to poke about suburban cowsheds, to prowl round railway stations, to follow milk floats, to interview the stalwarts with the earlymorning buckets—and to write down the same for public perusal. A man remembers making long, weary rounds of dairies which sold bacon and cheese, toys, toffee and kindling wood and which kept an open dish of rniik under the counter, in case customers were thirsty. Recollects the old-time habit of leaving miik cans in public places, apparently for the edification of dogs. Does not forget that cans, standing on railway platforms, were often regarded as common property, the tops removed and the toiler's billy (and hand) thrust deep down into the milk to achieve early-morning sustenance. While humanity elejit the comimissioner sneaked round miles of suburban dwelling places, noting the trustful way of the customer, who unhygienically left the j uncovered jug on the step and wondered why I the good old quart diminished to a pint—forigetting that dogs have noses, etc. He sedulously wrote of cows standing up to the hair in slush, or milkers with grubby hands, of [American systems where the milk was bottled at cowside, of scientific methods of handling, and so forth—remarking after much weariness that what he scribbled had no effect whatever on the ingrained habits of supermen and supcr- , women. It is organised commercialism and not domestic hygiene that has dispelled the ; horrors of a decade or two ago.