THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 238, 9 October 1933, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

Lord Bledisloe recently told the story of the English lady about to undertake commercial fanning and who desired information as to pig rearing. The future THE PLUMBER. Governor-General met the

lady, and she greeted him: "Oh, you're the pig man 1" Rather reminiscent of the lady and the doctor. Desiring medical oversight, she rang a physician and made an appointment. To her maid she said, "When the doctor calls ask him to come straight to me." "Yessum," said the maid. Later a man with a bag stepped out of his motor car ftnd rang the bell. The maid answered the bell. "Oh," said she, "you have to go straight up to Mrs. Q." —and pointed to the stairs. Mrs. Q. was walking wistfully on the landing as the gentleman trudged up the stairs. "Good morning, doctor," she said. "Excuse me, lady," said the man with the bag, "I'm the plumber."

l'he sturdy suburban citizen sat with wife j.nd family at the open window listening to the voices of the night—the distant call of the. mopoke to his mate, THE TRAGEDY, the disturbed feathered sleepers in the tall pines, even the roar of the passing mobike. Suddenly there was borne on the air the sound of a woman's shriek, the curse of a strong man, followed by heart-broken sobs that suggested only too plainly that a domestic tragedy of a poignant nature was desolating a near-by home. Indignantly the citizen rose, seized a nobby walking stick, and, despite the pleadings of wife and family, sallied forth. On the way ho met other disturbed citizens, all obviously travelling towards the shrieks, the moans, the sobs, the tragedy. The little force, grim lipped, arrived at the street hedge of the affected bungalow. There in the pale moonlight stood what seemed to be a well-cared-for house —in the day apparently the home of peaceful people, the sanctuary oi a kind mother, a loving father, a little group of chubby bairns. There came the sound of a woman's shriek, the diapason of a manly curse. The little band of citizens stole up the garden path and as they neared the open

front door tlio voice of a man shouted, "We'll have that bit all over again—take your cue, Miss X—," and gave it. In fact the amateur dramatic club was having an excellent evening. The citizen with the knobby stick and his fellow rescuers with the grim set faces went home. Nothing was heard in the pale moonlight but the song of the inopoke calling to his mate.

Seventy-five years ago the London "Daily Telegraph" printed the following: "Mr. Charles Dickens has made his first appearance in Dublin

in the Round Room of THE ROTUNDA, the Rotunda and has

been received by the Irish public with every demonstration of enthusiasm." This serves to remind one that one has never seen a rotunda in the far-flung cities of the outer Empire. Rotund erections—barring circus tents —are apparently rare except in old countries, and, of course, are modelled on the great circular buildings affording equal facilities to all sightseers of slaughter in the arenus of Old Rome and Ancient Greece. Once a New Plymouth man, feeling a bit rotundish, built a hexagonal dwelling house, the everyday weatherboard not lending itself to circular construction. This hexagon was pathetically uninhabited for years, as nobody wanted to walk angularly. Rotund buildings, crescents and "circuses" are common enough in English town?, which reminds one of the notable rotunda in Cheltenham (Glos.), where the first Salvation Army meeting ever held in "The • Garden Town" took place. One might almost mention it as the first local iight between Salvation Army and Town, tor insensate asses, observing something new and not clearly understood, made hell for Salvationists in the 'eighties—stones, sticks and other comments | being frequently passed. Pittville Circus, in the same sweet town, is a circular avenue of magnificent trees dotted all round with the kind of houses they never build in weatherboard countries. Here live the hoi aristoi— mostly purple admirals and blue-faced generals.

The only notable tiling about the inauguration of 1933 summer time is. that nobody in the hearing of H.A.T. mentioned the matter at all. Presumably everyTHE body put American, TIME METER. Czecho-Slovakian or Ger-

man clocks on tho requisite half-hour, and that was all there was to it. Time was when time wasn't, as far as clocks were concerned. In these days of a surfeit of time meters tho measurement of the hours is probably as difficult as it used to be when it was done per burning candle, per sundial, per dripping water or per sandglass. You'd be surprised how very cloeklese great areas of the world remain and yet how rare it is for the clockless one to be late for k.ii. To-day when manufacturers stamp out millions of watches per machine, and give them away with cups and saucers, there is no excuse for not possessing a watch. It is not so many years ago that a watch was a rarity in the backblocks. Haughty bushmen in either Australia or Maoriland might occasionally carry a watch in a leather pocket on the waist belt, but in the majority of cases backblooks people wore sunwise and just cocked an eye to the heavens and were remarkably accurate as to the time of day. As in Australia, the usual backblocks working hours were from "jackass to jackass," or from "sparrow chirp to jackass"—chronographical measurement didn't bother anybody. Even the larger measurements didn't matter much. One has gazed on a man who never had a watch in his life and who passed three Christmases in the bush without knowing they had passed. If you had told old Hughio that the Government was telling the sun to keep out thirty minutes longer he'd have laughed.

Very likely you read "The Eight Music" in the "Star's" Saturday Magazine Section, wherein "Cyrano" is critical of brass bands? "Appropriate music is a LULLABY. delicate flavour complet-

ing a dish, a. soft hand touching memories." At a restaurant he was violently assaulted by a roar from a loudspeaker, and left for upstairs, saying, "I am going where it is quiet." He is lucky to find any place where it is quiet. One lives nowadays in groves of aerials. People chop kauri rikas down to make aerial posts of. In remote suburbs where one might expect to hear the tui tootling undisturbed as one rushes homewards, the first kauri rika blares out violently. ■Kemembcr that anything from six to twelve violent rikas, iron pipes or tops of trees, are screeching the same unmitigated phonographic record, all in different tones—according to the quality of the machine, as one- rushes for some house not containing- a radio. One may hear a basso boom as ono passes No. 1. As one hurtles past No. 3 the same speech is being carried on in a fruity baritone. At No. 5 a continuation of the speech is in a spiritual tenor, and at No. 7 it is probably mixed with soprano screeches—for varied machines often don't care a hang what they do to a fellow's voice. Suburbaniy large families love loud radios tlie most. ]t is commonplace for a family of thirteen to continue an animated conversation on football, while the radio is continuing an even more animated roar about vrcstling or politics. Ono night all the children were in bed. The lorn , speaker was doing its level awfullest. The children were asleep in a trice. The radio was switched off. All the children woke up. ''Better turn the radio on again, dad," said mum, "or the children will never get any sleep." Lullaby