THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 69, 22 March 1934, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) - i The two young men talked of poetry. "Lot of jolly rot," said the younger. "Oh, I don't know," said, the elder. "Some of it is not too had. Didn't you DANCING learn verses when you DAFFODILS, were at school? "Ye ■mariners of England that guard'—you know the thing." "No! But we uster have something about 'dancing with the daffodils.' Only the other day I was talking to a feller who had never heard of Robert Lewie Stevenson." "But what's Robert Louis Stevenson got to do with the daffodils?" "Well, lie wrote the ruddy thing, didn't he?" Dear M.A.T., —Your par of the 14th inst. incited me to make my memory work. Considering that the expression dates back to 1720, it may interest your ORL KRECT. readers to know its origin. The South Sea Bubble followed a series of nefarious schemes which make Hatry, Bottomley and others of later date, including Stavisky, look like a last year's bird's nest. What happened was this: Many companies were floated in England for the development of the Islands —now so well known to us as our neighbours —in the Pacific Ocean. Actually the islands were mostly mythical as far as the promoters knew or cared. Altogether scores of companies were formed, and some of the shareholders began to wake up, so they employed an accountant of fame named Oriando King to investigate the affairs of those companies in which they were interested. He sorted out the oats from the chaff, and, having done so, he wrote on those lie approved of, his initials "0.K." His reputation was such that no one would have any dealings in any company unless it could be shown that the hallmark of "0.K." was there. I am not bucking the Yanks for their claim to the use of this O.K. lingo as a slang expression, but your three cheers for Uncle Sam as its inventor —no. chancel It's a John Bull.—A.L,D. Waitomo Caves are not only unique, hut incomparable, and "G. 8.5.," who agrees that this is so, says that New Zealanders who stay away from them in such CRYING SHAME, large numbers ought to be ashamed of themselves. What they really ought to be ashamed of is that they have so often to keep on tramping the common round and doing the daily task that there is no time to spare and no money to pay the fare. What is wanted is free passes to all hands on the railways and to the caves. Proletariat parties could be personally conducted by politicians, who would take an oath not to make speeches in the glow-worm grotto. The caves, Mr. Shaw will readily agree, provide merely a class spectacle —a most unsoeialistic idea. By the way, about ninety-eight per cent of the world's inhabitants ought to be ashamed of themselves. There are Londoners who spot the Tower in the offing every day for ninety years and have never been in the Bloody Tower, although they know the word. Confirmed and incurable Aucklanders who have worn grooves in Queen Street for six decades ask, "Where the blazes is Birkdale?" A New Zealander goes to London with a note to a whole-time Cockney which says, "Show dear old Bill round London, will you, Jim ?" and Jim writes back to say he had never really seen London before Bill went Home, although he had lived in the Hub all his life —'fifty-nine years. There are born To Aroha people who have never plunged into No. 10 bath or drunk sulphurous water, Devonport people to whom Ponsonby is terra incognita, and Grey Lynn relief workers who have never taken a trip on an American luxury liner in their lives. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. Give 'em all a fat roll of new Reserve Bank notes and they'll wipe out the Shavian stigma.

A lady with a good many daughters of her own, discussing the modern army of semiindependent young women, noted that there had been an imNICE LITTLE mense improvement in HOME, the housing offered by

boardinghouse-kcepers and flat-owners since the days when she was herself a girl seeking a home near the job. She mentioned the relatively hopeless, footsore tramps of her young business years in a strange city where everybody seemed to think that any fuggy little hole with an eigliteeninch window near the tin roof and rats peering through tho scrim and wallpaper was the sort of thing every young typist, clerk, amanuensis and civil service girl longed for. She had, in the long ago, spent weary hours gazing hopelessly at a score or two of bedrooms. At last she came to a house with "Apartments" in the window, and tho lady of the house received her gladly. Had she a nice little bedroom ? Yes, slie had a nice little bedroom —step this way. She led the young lady to a weatherboard wart stuck on the side of the house. It was nearly six feet by eight in its floor space, with a nice, sloping roof, a green blind without cords, a bed noticeably higher in the centre than at the sides, the flock oozing uncannily from the mattress, and everything to match. "There's a nice little room!" she cooed. "Yes," said tho young lady, "but what a funny smell!" "I don't notice no funny smell," haughtily countered the landlady. "What's the bit of wire-netting over the window for?" asked the young lady. "Oh, me son nster keep liis prize birds in 'ere—he uster call it liis avarv." "And doesn't your son need it for an aviary now?"

"Oh, no—he's dead—'c died in this very bod. Don't ye like it? Well, some people's 'ard to please. I'm afraid you won't get sooted in this town."

Potential bungalow dwellers (£2O dep., the remaining pur. mon. on mtge. at ump. p.c. for 99 yr.) will be glad to hear that men are nicking down a few IT SEEMS hearty young kauris in A SHAME, the winterless and road-

less North, thus providing some weatherboards for the proletariat. An owner driver from the South, never having seen a wllacking big tree before, lately pulled up his vehicle at a. spot where an execution was taking place. lie noted that when the kauri fell it fell with such a terrific thump that all the branches broke not only with the earth i-ipact but apparently in sympathy with the tree itself—sort of exploded. The stranger stepped off his car and asked the chief slayer how old lie thought the big tree was. "Search me," he said, "I'm too busy; eonnt the rings yourself," advising him to throw water over the fresh stump to bring the rings into clear view. So several strangers, sat down for half a day and carefully counted the rings by pricking each with a pocket- knife. They found that it had begun its! career something over fourteen hundred years ago—some time before the Forbes era, and anterior to the starlike appearance of Gordon. The little fellow had been there when liardly anything English of a civilised tendency had taken place. And, sentimentally inclined, the stranger said it seemed a pity that such a corker tree couldn't be kept for posterity. The tree slayer, asking the old question, "What lias posterity done for me?" pointed out that as there was about a thousand pounds' worth of timber in the tree lie couldn't afford to make posterity a present, and that all anybody had to do to preserve such a tree for a spectacle was to put down a thousand pounds for the tree and a reasonable price for the land it occupied. As tree lovers never did a thing like that—bungalows. Then the strangers danced a few polkas on the bleeding stump and tootled off.