THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 126, 30 May 1934, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

Dear M.A.T., —I gather from a 'Varsity friend of mine at Home that Cambridge undergrads, except the Americans, -speak of going ° to the flicks," but tliat PALE -SLANG. was pos&ibly before the introduction of the klangfilm. The Americans stick to "movies." lam not amongst those who object to American slang. It is lively, virile rand forceful, compared to English slang, which is feeble, pathetic and schoolboyish. Think of footer, "Soccer," "Rugger"—a parrot would evolve better terms for activities which are all dash and courage. Here comes a i?ian all bluggy, with half his car torn off, his clothing in shreds and breathing fire through his nostrils. What has ho been doing? Playing Rugger. Oh, strengthen me, enlighten me, I faint—a word that sounds of wool and rugs and. chickens emerging from their shells. And there is no wit in it, either, whereas there is wit in the American description of the pilule that was lost in the midst of a tangled mass of heaving rumps. —S.J.

Millions of mental eyes are on the heroic figure of Roosevelt the Second, one of the most powerful controllers of mankind on earth. He is noted for his tremenMIND AND dons endurance. Yet he is MATTER, a paralytic. His legs are so weak that* they cannot sustain him for more than a few moments. He uses a brace strapped round his waist and clamped to the heels of his boots. He never refers to his weakness, and no one else would speak of it before him. Once addressing an audience he moved away from the table on which he always leans when talking. He lost his balance, toppled over, and disappeared. Friends rushed to rescue him. Without the loss of a word Roosevelt resumed his. address at the point where ho had broken off when ho fell. Before his illness Roosevelt was a noted athlete. Now he has to do his exercises in bed to keep his upper works fit. This mastering of grievous physical defects is of interest to" those who remember that Lord Snowden (once Chancellor of the Exchequer) was similarly handicapped and that our own alert Downie Stewart has been equally brave under the most trying handicap.

Dear M.A.T., —Nearly all agree that the well-clipped margin and tidy streets are pleasant to the eye, and great credit is due to the 'householder, owner GRASS MARGINS, or tenant, who cusses, but does the job. Some, however, do not agree, and allow the> grass and noxious weeds to grow unchecked, until the annual clean up by tlie various councils, who send a man with a scythe to struggle with the unkempt mass, concealed in which are bones, "dead marines," old junk and assorted bric-a-brac. Some properties have small frontages and corner sections with a much greater area of grass, while properties on main roads have none at all. Rented houses can be easily picked out by the length of the grass in front of them. An "owner" stated that he was a conscientious objector to wearing out a good mowing machine on work that should be done by the authorities who owned the grass planted by Nature. A further suggestion was that in view of the increased price of milk, local bodies should purchase dairy herds and utilise the grass margins (free grazing), and so on to free milk. —M.KJv.M.

An earnest young man looks in to implore prevailing blot to castigate that small body of excellent people who do not play games on Sunday, but who have GRAINS OF other hobbies. Present WHEAT, scribe prefers to state that

Providence furnished the world—itself a speck in the universe—with people of varying temperament, who cannot help their temperaments and who more or less follow their instincts. Excusably enough, some folks deplore the habits of others, who deplore the habits of other people. In every age neighbourly wars of opinion have taken place in between the international wars, during which objectors to one's theories might be legally slain by every diabolical device any Christian or heathen could invent. The man who objects to the objectors who deplore Sunday games might with the scribe try to imagine this world and the people who are in it as a mere bit of cheese with a few bites in it—-here to-day and gone to-morrow. The whole boiling of folk at present on the earth will be underneath it within a space during which a kauri tree puts, on a few inches in girth and a few feet in height, and these perpetual wars of opinion are in reality as important as the fallen leaf or the faded flower. And what a dull, drab old ball the earth would be if nil the Sabbath "keepers" agreed with all the Sabbath "breakers." One seems to remember the story of a few young fishermen strolling through a Sunday wheat field plucking the corn and eating it in contravention of local opinion. We shall go on plucking corn and objecting to plucking corn as long as the cosmos holds together.

Dear M.A.T., —Talking about exchange, | this is taken from an old book by Charles, Earl of Liverpool, entitled "A Treatise on the Coins of the Realm, being NOTHING NEW. a Concise Account of all the Facts relating to the Currency, which bear upon the Exchanges of Europe and the Principles of Political Science." On September 12, 1G95, Mr. Lowndes, the Secretary of the Treasury, presented a report to the Lords Commissioner of His Majesty's Treasury. He informs their lordships: "That the exchange with the Low Countries was fallen so very low that the English public lost four shillings in the pound upon all moneys remitted thither; that the exchange to Hamburg and the East Countries for all naval and marine stores and other goods was still lower; and that to all places in the Mediterranean the exchange was yet more to the prejudice of England; and that there were very great losses on that account in remitting money to the aforementioned places; and that tlic price of silver in bullion was risen to 6/5 per ounce; and that the Guinea having risen to thirty 1 shillings, it passed in currency at a much higher value than the price of silver in bullion would then justify; and that the receipt and collection of the public taxes, revenues and debts were extremely retarded, to the damage of His Majesty William 111., and to the prejudice of a vigorous prosecution of the war: So that there were never in his remembrance so many bonds given and lying unsatisfied at the Customhouse, or so vast an arrear of excises." Among the various political factions there was not one that did not put forward some absolute remedy. Many suggestions were'offered to Mr. Charles Montague, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it is interesting to note such names as Mr. John Locke and Sir Isaac Newton, although no mention is made of the names of Major Douglas or Mr. Coates. Mr. Lowndes placed the blame to a larger extent on the public who handled the coinage, clipping little souvenirs off each coin, so much so that much of the current coinage had lost one-half its weight. Although the clipping of coins is not so fashionable nowadays, nearly everything else in this neck of the woods seems to suffer from pruning.— W.A. THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. Life is what we make it. Our to-days are the outcome of our yesterdays. We reap as we sow. From the same materials we build hovels or palaces.—'Silas I\. Hocking. Blessed is the man who has found his work. Let him. seek no othex blessedness. — Carlyle.