THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 103, 3 May 1934, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) Dear M.A.T., —The popularity of a certain plaintive and melodious ditty, which seems to be the pride of gramophone at present, discloses an alTHE ROUND UP. most general error as to what is a,"dogie." In the song the cowboy adjures his dogies to "git along," and most people gather the impression tl)at he is talking to doggies, with two "g's," so to speak. A "dogie," as any Westerner will tell you, is a motherless calf. They travel slowly, on their pathetically uncertain legs, and herding them along is a tedious job. Your readers will probably be interested to read the words of a genuine cowboy song. (I'm afraid your column will hardly run to the music!) —The Brigadier. GIT ALONG, LITTLE DOGIES. As I walked along one morning for pleasure, I spied a cowpnneher a-riding along; His hilt was tlirowed buck and liis spurs was a-jingling, As lie approached me a-singin this song: CHORUS: Whoopee ti yi yo, git along, little dogies, It's your misfortune, none of my own. Whoopee ti yi yo, git along, little dogies, Ifor you know Wyoming will be your home. Early in spring we round up the dogies, ... Mark 'em and brand 'em and bob off their tails, Round up our horses, and load the chuck wu o on, Then throw the (logics out 011 the trail. ♦ * ♦ * Their mothers was left away down in : Where tlie jinison weed and the band burrs All that they eait was mesquite andl cliolla. But now they are trailin to lu<aho. They'll all be soup for Uncle Sam's Injuns; "it's beef, heap beef. I hear them cr >* Git along, git along, git along, little dogies. The Injuns'll get you by and by. Noted with joy that new banknotes are inevitable. It will charm the spender to know that a new one-pound banknote will be negotiable for eight new NEW WEALTH, half-crowns, ten florins or twenty new shillings. You may do your own sums about tlie slx P^ es ' thrums and browns. Paying the new State rate for milk and other edibles, drinkables and what not, the housewife will be iinmenrcy intrigued to have nice, new Central Bank notes to do it with. They will make her feel ever so much richer, and rent day will be one "-rand, sweet song. This crackling new ness serves to remind one of a long series of old and dog-eared banknotes negotiable tor cash even when in two halves or with holer, in 'em. Once upon a time a clever young burglar of the gelignite school blew a State safe and was richly rewarded with rolls of banknotes. He foumfto his horror that ever} one of these dirty old things had a large circular piece punched out, rendering all of them not negotiable. The gifted youth sat hnn down with a bottle of paste and a pan- of scissors and carefully cut pieces from some notes to mend the holes in the others. He did the job very neatly, and, in fact, before he went to H.M. Refuge for Burglars, passed large numbers. Those lie did not pass lie threw into the Manawatu River, together with a perfectly good handbag and a splendid revolver. The moral whereof is that people don't care whether a banknote is in swaddling clothes or in long trousers frayed at the cuffs as long as tho other fellow takes it as currency.

It will be news, look you, to Evan ap Evans and his fellow Welshmen to learn that a revolt is proceeding in the Principality of' Wales, although it is not WORD TO the football season there BARBERS, and the Eistedfodd is not meeting at the moment. It is the Cymrian barbers, the haircutting Men of Harlech, who are up in the stirrups, and the reason is that about ninety per cent of Welshmen imitate to perfection the long, flowing locks of that most famous man, David Lloyd °George—so that Welsh barbers among a population the men of which now only have their hair cut twice a year, have to go 011 relief work, explaining twenty-syllable Welsh words to visiting Englishmen or singing Welsh folk songs with one hundred and ninety-nine verses to everv song. Happily, however, there k no female Llovd George they care to imitate, and so Welsh girls still go clipped, banged, shingled and bingled. The news reminds a man who served four years in the Business Men's Battalion back in 1914, et sec., that in the ranks was every kind of swell — ! musicians, artists, actors, commercial giants, organists and others —many of them with prize crops of hair and loving their long and lustrous locks fervently. One day at the celebrated Bull Ring of Eta pies a special parade of the battalion was ordered by the Hats. Instantly 011 the fall-in parties of these hairy celebrities were made to fall out and were marched to the barbers' tents, where many a head whose locks had flowed over the notes of the church organ, waved above a conductor's baton, adorned the brow of a captain of commerce, or waved luxuriously above the face of an actor, were ruthlessly machined, the gentlemen returning to the ranks with polls bare as a political party platform. As the much-shorn man who tells the story says, "War is hell."

It is interesting to note at a moment when the State is beseeching young fellows to fall in and grab a rifle, sidearrns and

ammunition boots, and SAID THE V,.C. when politicians are care-

fully learning the difference between a corporal and a colonel or bombardiers and brigadiers, that the State pursues the civic possessor of a fivearm, and very rightly makes him register the same. Come to think of it, everything that is capable of "letting out loved life" might feasibly be registered, and constables could be turned on making lists of "blunt instruments," butchers' knives, knobby sticks, lengths of gaspipe and other favourite implements of the civilian slayer who docs not join up or become authorised to carry a magazine rifle. Pondering 011 this peculiarity of lethal distribution, one recalls having met a few days ago a famous V.C.—one of the most modest and retiring persons in a country containing three or four other modest and retiring persons. Questioned as to the probability of any war in the future, the V.C. smiled amiably, and Avas silent. "If there was another war," pursued the questioner, "would you go to it?" And the V.C. replied, "Oh, I don't know. Perhaps I'd go if everybody was armed with sticks and stones, shillelaghs and blackthorns." "But a cliap could get a nasty crack with a tea-tree stick," said the scribe. "Yes, and a scoria rock in the neck wouldn't be too good." said the V.C. "I don't think I'll join."

THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY.

It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But, above all,, try something.— President Roosevelt.

Christmas, is a good time to cast out our fears to make room fior our joys.—Rev. S \ Eliot.

Blame rot before thou hast examined the truth: understand first, and then rebuke.— Ecclesiasticus.

Ordinary people think merely how they shall spend their time; a man of intellect tries I ±a-U6ai.t.—Sah.opeiih.auer.