THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 302, 22 December 1933, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) . Relief workers in distant camps, and far from the clatter of the. toys in Queen Street, have not been forgotten by city folks, and the lads up North are ART AND digging into the great LITERATURE, deposits of literature sent by thoughtful folks —for New Zealand people are a reading people, and a ; book is welcome as the flowers of May. A sunburnt Northerner pops in to report a conversation with a man who shared a recent hand out of books. He was most grateful. He said the people who sent the books were very thoughtful to send the packs of cards. "We 'got one in our tent," he said. "The cocky we work for came in and took a hand at penny poker. We skinned him for ten bob with those cards —Merry Christmas." Two joyous lads were, with hundreds of others, a'bout to revel in the school break-up —song, music, plays, radio, bazaar and so forth. Dad and the two THE BROADCAST, lads hastened towards the seat of the glad disturbance, dad felt in his pocket and handed Albert a shilling to spend. Benny looked expectantly at clad, too. So dad felt for another shilling. He had no shilling, so he'said to Benny, "Here's threepence, Ben, and I'll give you the rest when we get on the ground." They reached the ground, and the lads were soon in the height of the doings, while father strolled around. Suddenly there came a call from the loud-speaker. "If Mr. X. (the j father of the boys) is in the grounds, will he please come to the announcer's room instantly?" Mr. X., with a mental spectacle of accidents in the family, hearing the call, rushed immediately towards the room. As he neared it Benny ran towards him, shouting, "Oh, here you are, dad! Where's my change 1" Dear M.A.T., —In a recent par on leaky taps you mentioned scarcity of water and an Australian's abhorrance of wasting it. Well, if you knew the barrels THE LEAKY TAP. of water I sledged up from "the swimmin' 'ole" of the old stock dam near the Rowena estate, .Lake Rowan, it would shock a local government inspector who goes round shops to tell you to use straws, etc., to drink with'. We never used straws on the Rowena estate; and when that milky water from the swimmin' 'ole settled in the tank you would never know where it came from. Yet we newr heard tell of any of the family contracting fluke hydatids or any kindred diseases. It is more than 40 years since we carted that water, and I never see a leaky tap but I think What a waste, and my mind goes back to the days when wa carted water from the stock dam for household drinking purposes. —Lake Rowan. There lias been an unexpected local renaissance this glad season, and the streets of city and the roads of" the hinterland have taken on an aspect reminding THE OLD CAR. one of crusted vintages and Queen Elizabeth. In short, hoary motor cars, many of them with grey bins in the rear and dates reminiscent of Noah or the Stone Age, chug cheerfully about with peeled countenances gleaming through the wind screens. Many people who for lack of means or other reasons have stored their cars presumably for ever, have, in short, decided to "give it a go"-for Christmas —hence the incredible antiquity of much of the .wheel traffic and the extraordinary prevalence of owner-drivers lying in the dust playing, tunes on the entrails of their old machines. Of course, in the laying up'of old cars by people with holes in their pockets, it has naturally followed that licenses have lapsed, and hence the pro-Christmas rush for validating papers at reduced rates. An amazing lot of fun is being got by families out of vehicles tied up with rope and fencing wire It is the glad season. Let 'er go! The last sad remnants of a pair of man's braces lay on the wharf and. were trodden under foot by successive shoes. It occurred to a thoughtful passer-by to PAIR OF BRACES, reconstruct the tragedy of the abandoned suspenders. Had they suddenly parted, necessitating the rapid application of string or handkerchief? Had the erstwhile wearer, sensing immediate dissolution, rushed into a men's wear department, bought a new pair, and, wandering lonely as a cloud, in a by-way removed the remnants, assuming their successors? It occurred to one'that of all garments worn 'by the smart man those unseen by the eye of the public are least frequentlyrestored.. There are braces tied up with bits 3f wire and string that have been doin<* duty for years. Thousands are scarcely hygienic"; liundreds are inelastic, with frayed buttonholes. London fashion writers such as Fontr rill Beck with (or is it Beckhill Fontwith?) liave advised dukes, marquises, earls and other lossessors of more than two pairs of pants :o ibuy a pair of braces for every pair, so that ihe intolerable bore of changing braces from me pant to another should be eliminated. Sock suspenders, and, of course, singlets, are nade to cling for years and years, too. Pcdes;rians picked up from under cars and taken .o the casualty wards have often 'been exceedngly ashamed to wake up and to gaze at the leplorable singlet, awifiul garters and shocking jraces peeled from them by the medical uithorities—who don't care a 'bit. It is a nere matter of "Best side up to London." The light of those pathetic braces on a wharf, ticked from toe to toe 'by men whose braces, ire possibly tied with string or wire, reminded me of the war-time handling of prisoners by ill the armies. To avoid th e necessity of arge, armed guards, prisoners were deprived »f their braces, or, in the alternative, robbed if the suspensory buttons. They h'ad to walk or miles with thoir hands in their pockets. Christmas brings its thirst with it, and hose admirable people who never thirst must xcuse some reference to a su'bject to which reference has been made GLASS OF WINE, since the days that newspapers were' printed on a ock with a hammer and chisel. Christmas hirst is as common among- the ice as in a emperature of 100 degrees. Already we have bad of the hundredweights of frozen wine aten at a Hungarian wedding. It would' be new experience for sub-tropicals to <I>ite their fine or chew their ale, but it is undoubtedly one by people who take their Christmase's n winter. The United States \rill be Christlassing- at this moment. California is mixing ts wine with Australian ditto, not having nongh of its own to go round. A curious oint is that positively pious and obedient 'alifornian wine growers when prohibition ame conscientiously stowed away its vintage ntil it became vinegar—says you! If von erinit Australian wine to doits level darndest ; is stronger than any other wine in existence. , t takes less Australian wine to distil brandy roiu than French wine for French cognac. It lay be this'eau de vie feature the Californian dints are so keen on. Reverting to the sublet of wine that has turned to vinegar, it is lie common practice among Australian grapes. or vignerons and others with wine to° burn, o to speak, to set a bottle or two in a place 'here the temperature will reach the maxiuim necessary to perform the sour miracle of liming wine into vinegar. Looking down a ■ine list as a pure outsider, one had the j appy memory of an Australian wine settlelent where the price was half-a-crown for I sur gallons—and bring your own kerosene j in. One mentioned this to an exiled Austra- I an. "Ah, them was the days!" he moaned, iping Ms parched lips.