THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 22, 26 January 1934, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) From Denver, in California, comes the atory of the- group of lawyers who mre Wcussing a point of law in the chambers of a judge, the judge bein 0 SHEER MADNESS, present. The debate was about the extremely narrow lino between eccentricity and legal insanity, and one of the . wigs recalled the case of the crook who had been certified as insane and who had been sent to the mental hospital, where he became the chief saxophone player in the hospital band. If he played a saxophone," chipped in another attorney, h sure was mad." The judge intervened quietly, 'I'm a pretty good saxophone player myself, he said. • Dear M.A.T., —Apropos your "Magistrate's Mistake" par, there is a story told>in England of the late Lord Justice Grantham, who was a very absent-minded old A TUDGE'S GAMP, gentleman. On one occasion he was leaving a restaurant and picked up an umbrella from the stand where he had left his own. -The learned judge, being a regular customer, a door porter knew his brolly, and pointed out the mistake. A search was made, but his gamp had gone. "Well," said his Lordship, "when the owner of this umbrella conies for it tell Mm he can have it when he finds mine. History doesn't relate the sequel.—A.L.D. Dear M.A.T., —Joliorc again: I'll bet Georgie hasn't been up the Sungei sewer to Ulu Mabok. More people survive blackwater there than ever died of SIX SOLES. niaJaria in Pontian Kechil. A tyro was on his rounds at Kampong Lalang estate when he saw three pairs of feet sticking out of a hut. _ He gave an almighty wallop, bastinado fashion, with his rotan, but he had only found the mortuary —which was pretty full that morning. One day they went to get an old lady from the mortuary, but she sat up on the slab and said she was hungry. The dresser who had signed the death certificate was last heard of cycling through Rangoon and going well. I could tell you about the burial gang, but am at the moment being shown out on to the stfeet. —Cold Stengali. „ 1 ' Feminine ingenuity may yet defeat the sneak thief, and the bag-snatcher. A little exhibition of "safety first" was given recently in a public vehicle. The A SECRET PURSE, lady asked for a ticket to Waiwai Road, the collector, punching the same and saying, "Fourpence, please." The lady had hoped it was a threepenny faro, holding the coin between her fingers. However, with a sigh she delicately raised the hem of her garment, and, searching momentarily in the top of her stocking, produced a sixpence, handing the same up, receiving twopence change, which, together with the threepenny bit, she restored hidden treasury. The point that occurred to an observer was that only the recent fashion of wearing longer skirts has made this secrecy possible. Mariners very justly mourn that in this seagirt country there is no State means of training boys for a life on the ocean wave, a home on the rolling deep. BLUE WATER. The safety of the seagirt isles may some day lie in the hands of the sailor man whether he is trained in the fighting Navy or the mercantile marine. Earlier in our career this point was recognised. Mr. Seddon, if you] remember, bought a little gunboat—the Sparrow, rechristened Amokura —on which lads were trained, presumably for the Navy, into which, of course, they could have gone if the Amokura had never existed or had been sunk. Many of .the boys later refrained from going to sea in any capacity. Then there was the "smart, spick and span vessel on which for some years a maritime company trained potential officers. Presumably lack of interest ended this useful service, and the smart, spick and span vessel lies among the marine flotsam &nd jetsam in the local ocean boneyard. Mind you, one feels that in a country which absolutely depends for its life and sustenance on the sea—you may prove it by telling oversea ships to sheer off and stop coming—nothing will prevent boys who want to go to sea from going. In the year 1931 Mr. and Mrs. -Exe and' their family, all of Auckland, decided to take a holiday. It was arranged that one part of the family should go THE HANDBAG, to Wellington and the other part to Rotorua. Mrs. Exe volunteered to purchase the tickets in good time. She came to town, bought all the tickets, stowed them carefully in her handbag—and went to a telephone box to ring a friend. Having done so, sbe left the box. She discovered a few minutes later that she had also left her bag containing all those tickets and several bank notes in the box. She hastened back, but someone had been too quick —the bag with its precious tickets and cash had gone—and for years simply stayed gone. Of course the authorities were advised, but it is extremely difficult to trace lost bags. The Exes bought new tickets and spent new money and tried to forget the loss. In this month of January, 1934, the lift operator of a large Queen Street commercial house approached one of the office staff asking if he knew Mr. A. Exe. "Yes," replied Mr. B. Exe, "he is my cousin—why?" The operator produced Mrs. Exe's long-lost bag containing the complete range of 1031 tickets, bearing the names of those who had hoped to travel on them. The snatcher who had purloined the bag had merely taken the banknotes from it and dropped it, still containing the tickets, down the street grating of the commercial firm. It is a coincidence that Mr. B. Exe, of that firm, is the only other person in this district bearing the same name as the losers. The lordly ram is of more importance in a land of grass at the moment than for some time. In a world that talks, writes, thinks, and curses in currency, he is GUINEA GOLD, never represented by pounds sterling. He is far above that. Southdown Bill or Merino Horace, kings of the ewe paddock, remain stable when the whole of the commercial world is moaning about pounds, shillings and pence. Bill sells for guineas, and so does Horace. Horace and William, potential fathers of future fat lambs and lords of the Golden Fleece, are regarded with the reverence known on racecourses, or in swell clubs. Does the member of the Aristo Club pay his sub. in pounds? Nevah! His club life is spoken of with bated breath in terms of guineas, although the guinea coin has disappeared from the currency, and plebeian pounds—often extremely unsavoury—take its place. There must be something fascinating about guineas. Not long since there was a firantie hunting in old top drawers for spade guineas of a past mintage. Not that any of these hunters wanted to buy rams or join swell clubs or put guineas on the Great Northern Guineas (of six hundred common sovs). People with old brass counters frantically rushed about romantically shouting about guineas. The great international financial world talks in francs, dollars, yen, pounds, marks, taels, laks of rupees, and does its sums in any of these terms. The ram takes no notice, his breeder doesn't bother, his buyer is contemptuous. It is anathema to sell a swell ram for pounds. If you were to offer Horace at the yards for ten thousand pence or Bill for six hundred shillings, the ram buyers would refuse to purchase. No ram could be an aristocrat whose value was not expressed in guineas.