THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 128, 1 June 1934, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

"Yank" writes : s You appear to believe in a recent par that our Babe Ruth, baseball player, laving run to meat, will naturally be removed from the paySTILL IN roll. 'Say, you've got anBUSINESS, other guess coming. Hβ is at the present moment fingering six hundred'pounds every seven days \ shooting his mouth through the radio. He's '•the highest-paid sport in the world, but ho 'can't spell as well as you. Of course, he's been hit by hard times, so that his yearly income is. only thirty thousand pounds and his side-lines help to keep the wild Alsatian from the home stoop. Ho draws, tidy wads of greenbacks in royalties from Baby Ruth cigarettes, B.R. eaueages, B.R. baby powder, as well as from broadcasting, but if he comes to New Zealand it isn't likely he will sell his autographs, 'cos he isn't keen on the. pen. He euro hates writing, unless it's on a cheque.

Intensive loyalists who kept tho home fires burning in war days with German pianos and Austrian chairs, who called German

sausage "Belgian" and BUY BRITISH. Turkish Delight "Rangi-

toto Joy," may like to hear that aggressive nationalism still survives. "C.V." sends a clipping from the "Patea Press" showing that this is so. Billiard room. Discussion by those present. Topic: Japanese versus British trade. Draper declared that many articles made in Japan were being worn by New Zealanders —mentioning particularly socks. A Maori ex-soldier who had fought on Gallipoli held up a foot and asked, "Japanese?" "Yes," said the draper. "I'd sooner go barefoot," said the wearer, took off his perfectly good socks and heaved them in tho lire. "It is extremely fortunate," said a bystander, "that Hone's trousers happened to have been made in New Zealand."

Dear M.A.T., —Australian kindness to New Zealanders is given some emphasis by the splendid reception to young Jean. Batten,

who has just skipped AMY AND JEAN, across through the clouds

from the Old Dart to the Commonwealth and broken time registered by Amy Johnson, the English girl who was lionised by Aussies, too. A friend from Sydney advises that across the Tasman all social avenues have been thrilled for days at the prospect of welcoming and worshipping theflying New Zealand girl who has dimmed to some extent the glory of Amy's exploit. The Aussies have been making the most of Jean Batten, whom they regard as being own cousin to themselves. The cables show that even the feats of the Australian cricketers have been dimmed by festivities in honour of the Auckland girl, so the average Enzedder over in Sydney these days must feel some reflected glory.—Ben.

They have been having a willy willy in Australia. A willy willy has such a large bit of land and sea to gather strength in

that when it hits tho old WILLY WILLY homestead it is much

nicer to be on a visit elsewhere. So exceedingly orderly are some willy willys that they will chop off half a house and leave father, mother and the bairns eating their tucker in the- other. If a man is in the track of a willy willy and eees and hears it coming, he clings to mother earth with his noee to the ground. He is lucky if he can still keep clinging. On saltbush, emu bush or burry plains the willy willy rolls up the growth into an elongated cylinder and blows it against the first fence. A hundred milee or eo of solid vegetable wall piled against a fence is a. novel spectacle. If for any reason one should drop a match at one end of the wall there is a fire ves a fire! A proper old man blow in the bfo- timber will sometimes cut out an exactly defined track for many miles, pick the giant trees! up like matches and chuck them aside. One of the best places to be while willy willve are tearing across Australia is New Zealand.

A manly pate, denuded of its natural verdure, gives the wearer of the extended forehead an air of wisdom—hence the accumu-

lated apparent thousrhtDOME OF fulness of Upper Houses, THOUGHT. City Councils, Boards and

other masses of leader*. in former times when the jury had been empanelled the assembled jurors invariably selected a bald head as chairman. In a recent of the leadership of an outdoor gang of toilers, a man of intensely youthful appearance had been selected by the board, council or what not to command the division. His boyishness was a source of middle-aged scorn among those who forgot that every admiral has been a midshipman and every general a subaltern. Orders from the ganger were accepted with a "Sez you" attitude, one veteran toiler making facetious references to mother's apron strings. One day the youthful boss paraded his gang and issued short, sharp orders for the day. The men smiled their well-known "Sez you" smile. Instantly the youthful boss removed his hat. Ho was as bald as an egg—prematurely and distinctly hairless on top. He bellowed his- orders with hat in hand. The men were no longer facetious. They turned to like Trojans. The boss remained hatless all day, his shining dome pointing to the skies. It is reported that the heaviest day's work was done that day and that the young master goes hatless habitually.

..,, Q» een Street tradespeople, naturally a little peeved about competition other than from shops, are bound, like customers of ATT nw*»„■*. an ciont vintage, to think ALL CHANGE of days when shops were HERE! stable. Within the past two or three decades the merry game of musical chairs has been so persistent that an old Aucklander, wandering meantime in other but not fairer towns, cornel back and is just as bushed as. a new chum on the Orongorongo Ranges. So frequently Have tenants changed, and old names departed that one can easily excuse the old-timer who rushes into his ancient chemist's shop to find I himself confronting maybe a butcher, asking a picture show commissionaire for sixpenny" worth of ipecacuanha, or a fruit seller for a pair of boots. Maybe you may believe that this constant, flux, this incessant guttin* of shops to fit them for other enterprises' is common only to new cities in new countries. Not at all. Londoners exiled from WhitecJiapel or Mayfair, returning to the Hub, note equally amazing changes. But particularly rn suburbs do the shingles over the shops give signwriters and decorators constant artistic work, and shop fitters wear the tips of their fingers off, rooting out the shelves we know and preparing for new hope tenants. A man who has paid his dratted interest at the top of a set of old stone steps for years and years ! one recent day barged into a forty foot pile, I seventeen tons of concrete, a mechanical shovel ' and other features. Pleading with a constable, to be told where his debtor was perched, he was led hy a new way and a new stair to'the I same old familiar spot where biz was being > carried on as usual while the ceilings rained debris. THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communi- J carted. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared. —Montesquieu. Lot every man be occupied in the highest ■ employment of which his nature is cap°ablc, and die with the consciousness that ho hash done his best.—Sydney Smith. I