THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 191, 15 August 1933, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

Barry has been celebrating his fourth birthday. He has been made happy with ffifts, ambiiff which the mechanical one has ° cheered him most, espeTHE CHILD MIND, dally as it is too small for dad to ride. Thus Barry, on the great day: "Daddy's got a new pair of socks, Barry's got a new t icicle— and mummie's got ME."

Dear M.A.T.,-rYour paragraph of the 7th inst. re poor old Bathing Towel, making him founder of all assorted Shirts. Fascist, Hitlerist, etc., ignores the MORE SHIRTS, fact that Anglo-Saxons had the word, and presumably the article, in days before the Conquest. " In more modern times, Dr. Johnson called for a clean shirt to dine with WiUes before Captain Cook was pakani-ed at the Sandwich group. My mother, before she left •ftiSie, assisted to lionise Garibaldi, whose litW adventure with a thousand forlornhopers uniformed in a shirt and gun faced the 'two Sicilies of the House of Bourbon about the time B.P. was cuddling a feeding bottle. But do not be discouraged. —J.H.H.

Mentioned herein the other, evening that many of the dynamic leaders of the ancient and modern world were sick men. Most of them probably "gave it A SICK MAN. a go" for the upper strata, intuitively knowing that time whs short. Intriguing to learn that a screen story of tlie life of Cecil Rhodes is t6 be entitled "The Man Who Was Africa," an alluring line, especially to those who remember, or have seen, the man who crammed so much into a short and unhealthy life, dying at a time when commonplace men have a long way to go to superannuation. Rhodes was never well, but he "went like a scalded cat," to use. the vernacular. One's memories of -the great man who was Africa include his sudden appearance from his house in Kimberley from •behind the thousands of sandbags which c6mpletely covered it —haggard, flabby, untidy, but dynamic, ready to run the first thing that wanted running. Himself on a fagged Boer pony racing round the diamond city with_ a dozen generals and others galloping after him like little children after a school teacher. Commanding under-strappers to slay mules and horses to make soup for tired and starving troops, and seeing personally that they had it. Rushing down the long diamond tables at De Beers, showing visitors enough rough stones to smash the market if they were released, or barking out orders apparently to the winds of heaven, knowing that somebody would obey them. By the way, when the Man Who Was Africa was young he went to Australia, presumably intending to be the Man Who Was Australia. The great spaces appealed to him, but the opportunities did not at the time attract him —and so he became Africa.

Everybody who follows tile Imperial trail of notable men will be sorry to hear of the illness of Sir James O'Grady, Governor of the Falkland Isles; if you BLUE BLOOD know where they are. It AND RED. would be interesting to know if the Falkland Islanders know where Tasmania is, Sir James having previously been Governor of that charming spot. The fact is notable merely because Captain O'Grady was a "Labour" Governor, the first of the brand to be -made by Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald, who nowadays is hardly to be distinguished from the eon of a ducal house and who is so closely associated with true and undoubted blue bloods, although he certainly has had a bit of a spat with Lord Snowden, retired some time since to his ancestfal halls. Captain O'Grady, according to a wandering "Tassje," was hailed with joy in the Apple Island—and he went very well as a new fashion, because he was so much like the old-fashioned type, and seemed as blueblooded as the habitual rulers of British Dominions, with family trees as tall as Domesday Book. It has been incorrectly stated that th.e precedent of appointing "one of the proletariat" to the chief position in Tasmania was the germ that suggested to the people of the mainland the appointment of a true Australian to the Governor-Generalship. At any rate, such an appointment was made, and Sir Isaac Isaacs has the highest post in the gift of the British Government in Oceania.

Mr. Justice Blair, at Napier, lately praised the accuracy and value of evidence given by illiterate witnesses, referring to such a one as "a deadly witness." THE THREE R'S. The reason, of course, is that the man who can neither read nor write has not his mind cluttered up with the conclusions'of a thousand writers, is ignorant of statute law, remembers with the utmost accuracy what he has seen, and gives the simplest description of it. In innumerable cases the man who has not been educated remembers word by word the statements of others. Tell an illiterate man a story, and almost invariably he has it for keeps. He is a grown-up child in this matter, and, like the child, is a much more valuable witness as to matters of simple observation than a mathematician who speaks by the book —somebody else's book. The illiterate or partially untutored person is almost invariably the best spinner of a among the marvels is the man who, never having passed jthe second standard, can. yet roll off the J pedigree of the notable horses in thd "Turf Guide" without faltering and with impeqcable accuracy. On this basis, an illiterate jury might decide matters of fact with perfect judgment, and there is no doubt whatever that the gravest possible matters of common justice have been decided by our forefathers who did not know "A" from a bull'? foot. The illiterate's mind has not been invaded by the thousand written thoughts of a myriad of opinionists—and the illiterate is good to meet —in court.

Dear M.A.T., —A sporting gentleman this week visited a hairdresser's saloon, and the m;fn with the shears being also of the- sport'ng persuasion — quite EXPERTS. apart from the fact that in his profession they must be able to talk authoritatively upon any subject from Hamlet to marbles—the conversation turned on horse racing. Wielding a free hand over the scalp (back and sides short, please, and nothing off the top), the barber remarked upon the number of people who went to races and yet could not tell one horse or the jockeys' colours from another, excepting, of course, the animal they were financially interested in. "I can certainly tell my own horse, and I can also tell where every' horse in a race is at any time. The wireless broadcaster does not give manv horses durino- the running, and the chap that speaks through those funnel affairs on the course doesn't do so bad, but I could do better than him, for I would talk quicker." A polite interjection that it might be advisable for the announcers to speak deliberately so as not to have the horses' names running into one another appeared to make little impression, but rather drew more comments on the r.bility of the tonsorial artist as to his racing knowledge and confidence in disseminating same to a" bewildered crowd of speculators. Finally, the "speaker, through the funnels" slunk out of the chair a muchchastened "expert," with whatever conceit he might have entertained reduced 95 per cent.— Z. '

A THOUGHT FOR TO-DAY. When the intellect is separated from the soul there is only cleverness left.. —Anon.