THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 206, 1 September 1933, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) This is the time of year when Nature "stars every covert".or chooses selected spots to hang the clematis on. It is the exact moment, too, for the CLEMATIS. romantic city dweller, hurtling along the roads looking at the gadgets in the car and breathing fi"g, to look up accidentally, spot the clematis, drag the work of a couple of decades down wholesale, and hang it on his car. It is as dead as need be by the time the charioteer gets to Number Thirteen, and mother rushes out to say, "Oh, how perfectly lovely!"— chucking the same iu the ash can on the succeeding morning. One hesitates to become soulful about this natural instinct to keep the other fellow from gazing at clematis, because Nature herself doesn't give a dash whether anyone sees it or not. An incurable botanist says there are forty-four or even forty-five different breeds of clematis, and any of them may be dragged from their moorings almost in 'one piece by any fairly hefty motorist. The fiorescent exuberance of this starry crawler has reminded a wanderer that when he was a boy there used to be in the home of the race a hedge plant, related or imitative, of our clematis—the hollow sticks of which were smoked by the youths as cigarettes. The plant was more esteemed for its incinerant qualities than its fiorescent perfections, and lads used to make themselves splendidly ill with this pernicious substitute for rolled tobacco dust. By the -way, the clematis exuberating in the bush, on trellises and old logs in or near Auckland, is superior as a spectacle to many kinds wrenched from the scenery by less fortunate Southern folks.

Browsing among ncar-literaturo recently, one stumbled on about ten pounds' worth of contribution illustrated with artistic mistakes. The querulous person illuLIDS. minating the subject, pointed out that a statue of the Prince Consort, dressed as a fieldmarshal, showed the dear, good roan raising his cocked hat—a thing no soldier man would do. Oliver Cromwell with his spurs upside down and one of the Georges riding without stirrups and other trappings were other complaints. But this hat business —and the arbitrary rules governing the lifting, the wearing and the style of the potae, lid, gybus,_ tile, knocker, derby or the aristocrat or all tiles— is apt to be tricky. The average hat wearer among ourselves, courteous as he most assuredly is, usually merely fondles the brim in the presence of iadies, rarely removing the masterpiece, and rarely accompanying the incomplete gesture with a smile. Whereas at Royal garden parties the King himself does the only hat raising present, the dukes and others personally accompanying him remaining hatted. All the rear ranks—admirals, generals, baronets and so on—move among masses of femininity unmoved —every white hat covering a brain. Mind you, if there was a colonial Premier having a day out at a Royal garden party, the great heart of England would be so charmed with the spectacle --and the white gloves—that they would clamour for an exhibition of hat raising and would practically insist on .the statesman uncovering, and, unlike his brethren in Canberra —or Wellington— he would complete the act by baring the whole illustrious brow and not merely pinching the brim.

It is all very well for immensely earnest medical rebels to discountenance the common germ theory and to combine against the potent B.M.A. The quarWHEN DOCTORS vol of doctor with doctor DISAGREE. is age old—"When doctors disagree " is a universal commonplace. One school flouts the opinion that any micro-organism is the reason for any specific" disease, while another nurses the microbe and rears him on broth with loving cal'e, blaming him for everything that happens to sick humanity. One point seems to be that a man has to be ill before a microbe grabs him to make him iller. Doctors, you have noted in the revolt literature, have often swallowed relative bushels of micro-organisms which have apparently died in the doctors without killing them. The bio-chemical theory shows this with the usual clarity—you can't get germicidally done for unless the germ has a jolly good illness to start on. With the utmost respect for two, three or nineteen schools Of medical thought, one is entitled to ask any of them what they are going to do about a common cold. Here's a chap sitting with the stump of a pencil trying to be bright with a throat like sandpaper, making nasty noises in the epiglottis and as hoarse as a crow chortling over a dead rabbit. Does it matter to him, say you, whether he has achieved this sniff, this bark, this sandpaper throat, these weeping eyes, this cracked voice. I because he has been "emotionally disturbed," becoming metabolic, or because some germs entering a normal throat, have done this diabolic thine? Seventy-five million sniffers will hail with loud Hosannas the physician (be he B.M.A. or Anti-8.M.A.), germ fan or mctabolitian if he can tell us what to do to cure a common cold. One knows so many physicians with common colds of their own.

Old Camellias from the sands of the desert have detected the odour of the oont in this column and have recaptured the first fine transports of the transON THE SANDS, port in Egypt, West Australia and elsewhere. But it was the old artilleryman, addicted to horses, who put M-A.T. wise about the change of camel mastership in the Allenby campaigns. It was imperatively necessary for Mr. Bull to become camel wise, and he did it with tremendous thoroughness. He collected at Zeitoun and other sandy spots the greatest aggregation of camels in all history. He combed north, south, east and west for camels, and ho got seas of odorous ships of the desert where they were most useful. There were more camels than men who knew all about camels. The general opinion was that only the dark races who had been wrangling camels since Moses was a boy could do anything with camels. Then the army called for white men I who wore camel wise—and Aussies from the waybacks descended from their equine perches and volunteered —and showed that they were masters of all the dark howlers who ever cursed the oont. There was an old Billjim from Westralia clothed in torn-off shorts, a dreadful hat and fearful boots, who taught camels everything but writing, who had a bunch of camels almost kissing him i" a few weeks. When he hitched up six camels with' extra traces between each pair and began driving them with a bullock whip the dark Camellias called on Allah and wouldn't believe. But old Billjim was the man who first used six camels for a • howitzer gun team. He obtained sets of Royal Artillery harness—the best on earth—adapted it so that the camel pulled on the gear with the hump, cracked his whip, said a few kind Australian words (!) and initiated the service. When Billjim had his team ready to start he turned to his colonel and said, "What do you want me to do with 'em, boss?" THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. God first, Friends next, Self last.—Old motto. Polities is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary. —Stevenson. Cultivate the power to make a. decision for yourself and to stand to it. Or —to reverse it with equal firmness' when you see it was the wrong decision and to stand to that .reversal. —Grace S. Richmond.