THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 2, 3 January 1934, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) A gentleman of important appearance, wearing a copious display of trophies on his excellent watch chain, entered a bus, subsiding into the first available THE PARCEL, seat—in fact, sitting on a newspaper. His elbow mate was. a small, meek-looking lad, who, however, glared with disfavour at the gentleman who appeared to be someone—and then some. The boy pushed the bell before the stop at which he wished to alight. He stood gazing in a frightened way at the important gentleman. "Would you mind getting up off my fish?" he asked. Even the strap-hangers cackled slightly.

The skeleton cablegram mentioning that Colonel Arthur Lynch has fully recovered from his operation may revive memories of Arthur when he was much A BRIGHT younger and may give AUSSIE, hopes that his forthcoming book will have much of the frankness for which he is famous. Arthur, physician and author, is a brilliant Australian. He's an electrical engineer as well, and, of course, a soldier, as you see. He is most celebrated in the memory of oldtimers as the man who commanded the Irish Brigade (for the Boers) in the South African War. At the time Britons generally gnashed their teeth, and there was continued peevishness about it for a long space. However, since that, wc have had the spectacle of the Boer General Botha leading a British Army I against the Germans and another Boer general ! (Smuts) being immensely British, so presumably all is forgiven as far a3 Lynch is concerned. He became $!, colonel in the British Army in 1918, so no doubt all that Boer stuff is quite forgotten. He is a profound scholar, books flow from Lis pen in a continuous stream—'lie can write in English, German and French and talk in. Irish (and Australian) when pushed. He is a philosopher, poet and orator, and one is rather pleased that the old rebel lias got over his operation. He has been worth meeting either as a. frk-nd or an enemy.

Prince Pu-yi, the intensely Westernlooking young fellow with the American spectacles and the butterfly collar, who is to be inducted into the ROYAL SPRINGS, throne of Manehukuo— where the big noise was —is to have a throne with springs. Nothing so Western has been threatened in the East yet. It is being built in Japan for HJH. Yi and will combine ancient grandeur with modern comfort. It looks as if the Emperor elect was about to spend long, luscious hours jigging up and down, a species of amusement that would hardly attract the common man, who would hate to be a king. Talking of springs in royal thrones naturally recalls springs in royal carriages. In her later years the great Queen Victoria found it fatiguing in her public appearances to perpetually bow to her adoring subjects. She was of small statm - e, and it was necessary to devise vehicles for her, carefiully built so that she could be adequately i=een. Special springs were fitted to Her Majesty's carriage so that her merest movement would convince the public that the Queen was' bowing in recognition of the plaudits of the people. In these days, if it was necessary to produce an artificial bowing effect in royalty, no doubt a mere pressure of the button would be sufficient. Many surviving Victorians who boast that in 1870 "the Queen bowed to me" remain ignorant of the spring seat that did Her Majesty's gracious acknowledgments for her.

Since the. war nothing has been known against Bulgaria except that it is the place where the Bulgars come from.—and they don't come from it much. The THE MATCH. Bulgarian Government

keeps the little Bulgars busy with regulations that even in New Zealand might seem a little overstretched. As in France and other excitable spots, matches in Bulgaria are a Government monopoly. Therefore automatic lighters are illegal. Benzine drippers and miniature bowsers are unknown. More than that—it is illegal for one man to light his cigarette at the fag of the other one. A gentleman getting-a light from the coffin nail of his fiancee ■is for it, too. A few comic opera police break in and arrest him for ruining the Government. It is the thin end of the wedge. Shortly we shall have top-lino cablegrams of the new Bulgarian atrocities, in which clubmen . and police clash owing to a gent, lighting his pipe with a spill at the club fire, thus defrauding the revenue. There is no reason why Bulgarian Bug and Bulgarian Rock should not become State monopolies. In the Bulgarian mountains there ara still primitive beings who light their pipits by rubbing sticks together, use magnifying glasses to obtain a smoke or get a spark from steel, flint and tinder. The police Match Squad will be ; after them. In the German Army during the war it was a crime to throw away a dead match stick. Fritz Pickelhaube kept his sticks and ' got 'em dipped again—both ends. Jt is inex- j plicable that our own Government has not seen the possibilities of the Bulgarian device. In Wellington, for instance, where it takes half a box of British matches and a whole box of foreigners to light a gasper, the return would be incalculable.

Mention was made herein the other evening of the rough-rider sergeant of Hussars who with others dug his wav-out of a South

African war prison—a rcCOOL HANDS, markable escape. At a

London dinner not long since the name of Lieutenant Medlicott, of the British Army, cropped up. Medlicott succeeded by steel nerve and genius in timing ibis escapes in getting out of fourteen enemy camps and fortresses. He was killed by the guards, who caught him during his last escape. Still, the most fascinating escape of all is a civil one —that of Harvey Logan, a ivally-truly American bad man, gunman, murderer, cowboy. After a terriite career of crime and luck he was caught and confined behind iron bars. Ho was guarded night and day by armed men. He became friendly with one. He used to talk to this man and interest him in his career of crime. One day Logan noted that the head of his corn broom was lashed on with strong wire. He undid the wire, thinking it might be useful. He told the guard it was a rotten broom, and had fallen to pieces. Could he have another? He | could. Logan, using the wire of both brooms, being a cowboy, amused himself by making a "lasso''—all .in fun, but it occurred to him later that it was a useful thing. One day ■he interested the guard by drawing a plan of a previous crime—locality and so forth. The guard moved up to the "bars and leaned against them. With incredible quickness and skill Logan thrust the wire noose through the bars over the head of the guard, pulled it tight with his whole weight, made the end | fast, and ordered the man to drop his keys [ through the bars. The man obeyed. Logan i opened the gate, took the man's two revolvers, loosened the wire slightly, and with the two revolvers in his hands walked past everybody to freedom. This amazingly cool gaolbird, ultimately chased by the authorities, killed a. few, and then, .seeing he had no further , chance, blew his own brains out. j