THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 134, 8 June 1934, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

Post-mortem honours are sometimes bestowed on British sailors or soldieis, out Japan awards the distinction of two deaths to' its eminent people. It THE DOUBLE is explained that the late DEATH. Marquis tho Admiral logo was raised to his Marquisite after he was dead. An eminent Japan eso scholar says that a distinguished Japanese may die on Monday, receive visitors on Tuesday be promoted to higher rank on Wednesday, make a railway journey on Thursday, and receive royal permission to die OR l exactly at 11.30 p.m. The scholar explains that this system is eminently practical. A higher official rank brings a larger pension to the dependents wlio are left behind. It is. therefore a gracious act on the part Government to permit the postponement the day of death until higher honours have been conferred.

Share milkers who infer that magarine was deliberately invented to destroy the New Zealand dairv business will remember that all overseas attempts to subjdEG'S stitute tihis edible for butMONUMENT. ter on the breakfast tables of New Zealand dairy farmers has failed, and that they still buy best fresh at the township store. Those who continue to believe that margarine is practically a new menace will be disappointed to learn that Napoleon 111. was the rascal who heaved a brick at the New Zealand butter trade. During the Franco-Prussian War this Napoleon person offered a prize of several francs for the discovery of a food "as nutritious, as stable and as palatable as butter." One forgets the name of the inventor of this iniquitous interference with the rights of Jerseys, but very likely her name was. Margot, Margaret, Mariorie or Alad«e, and one understands that at Oss (in Holland) there still obtrudes a horrid reminder in the shape of a statue to the memory of Margarine Margaret. Perhaps Meg Mowrias was the lass who scooped the Napoleonic francs, because Meg it was who opened the first margarine factory in a country pledged to make cow butter and to get better prices (drat 'em!) than New Zealand.

The old soldier stood gazing thoughtfully at the old scribbler, "rolling his own" at the same time. The old scribbler, thoughtlessly noting the action, felt for THE NUDE his own packet. "All SOLDIER, right, don't mind if I do have a tailor-made," said the 0.5., carefully returning his tobacco to his pouch. He took a tailor-made and asked for a match. In consideration of the courteous act he told the yarn of the dug-out general who had been wished on to a New Zealand division and who conscientiously believed that a man who lost a pair of socks ought to have pack drill from Monday to Saturday and be shot on Sunday morning. He paraded the mob twice a week for kit inspection. He barked his ruddy way up one line and down another till he came to the lad from Ivaukopanui. The lad's total display was a battered razor, a knife, a spoon and the top half of a tin canteen. The ruddy officer screamed, "Where i.s your holdall, your 'hussif,' your haversack, 'your—;ah—:four by two, pullthrough, your socks, your singlet, your spare shirt?" And the inno'cent youth replied, "Oh, these'll do me, boss!" and scratched himself thoughtfully. Then came the roar of the dugout,, ""''Moke him a prisnar, sergeant-major, make him a prisnar—the Awmay is goin to the ruddy dogs!"

An eminent clergyman.-himself 110 longer in his teens, has, like millions of the greyheaded of all earthly generations, called attention to youth, the youth AGE OLD that lives at such a rate WARNING, that "many of them will never scratch a grey head." Ageing people, with every right to wear dressing gowns and pile their slippers on the home fender, have always deprecated the habits of young people "who are rushing about from one excitement to another" —Moils to Messines, Kut to Klondyke, and so forth. A thoroughly universal aged outlook would have prevented the dangerous exploits of Raleigh and Drake, Captain Cook and other excitable people who have rushed about shortening their lives, so that the dear old fireside corps may sit and toast their toes and thank Providence that they were never like their naughty grandchildren, little wretches that went to parties —and wars, drank an occasional cocktail (or a noggin of ration rum) and handed over perfectly good heads to the stretcher bearers, heads that should have been kept to grow grey hair on. One finds so many ancient heads whose owners have lived a life so full as to be overflowing, grey heads like those of the late lamented Foeli, Ypres, Haig, Jellicoe and others who were unable to indulge in "the greatest thrill in the world —peace." Tens of millions of naughty boys and girls throughout the ages have been unable to "scratch grey heads" and have aided in assisting in the protection of heads that grew grey in front of peaceful home fires. One wonders why anyone should still believe that the young of New Zealand live a raucous, terrible life of excitement. From an Old World point of view the life of young and old in New Zealand is far more Victorian than the Victorian age was. .

In a' possible series of instances, showing auriferous specks among other cardiac symptoms, there recurs the case of the two fos-s-ickers, known intimately HEARTS OF to this amateur patlioloGOLD.' gist. Jim and Joe were panning pretty pocr dirt at Chinaman's Creek (on the Speewah)—about a pennyweight to the thousand dishes. Times, as Jim said, "was 'ard," and Joe agreed, although in far finer language. Times were so hard, indeed, that tobacco was scarcer than mercy in a tax gatherer, and at last these two soul mates snapped at each other daily, and at last gave up even snapping, and the rest was (so to speak) silence. So one day Jim (the chap who said "is" for "are") rolled up his swag without a word, until he stood in the door of the stringybark hut ready for the road, when he turned and hissed, "Yer a cranky cow, to hell with yer!" and struck out for the skyline. Joe sat on his bag bunk and thought hard. In fact his prevailing idea was to roll his swag also and paddle off another way. He dug into his pillow, made up of an old coat, a shirt or so and a copy of "Samson Agonistes" (or words to that effect), and there i:i all its pristine beauty lay a fig of black tobacco uncut and splendid. Ife picked up the plug. His mate had a two hours' start, and .Toe went out to track him. He ran him down at sundown camped under an apple-tree gum, and thus lie spoke: "I found your plug of weed under my pillow. I don't know how it came there—l never pinched it." "No," said Jim, "I left it there. I thought p'r'aps you might want a smoke, yer silly cow." They both smoked without a word. Next N morning Joe said to Jim, "What about goin' back to the hut?" "Right!" said Jim to Joe.' It was three weeks after that they washed seventeen ounces from Chinaman's. Four scventeens are sixty-eight.

THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. Tradition loses its inspiration when it is used as a leaning post.—Andrew Soutar. Denials rarely do any good. The thing that tells is the thing I believe. —Rev. Thos. Nightingale. To mourn a mischief which is past and gone is the .next way to draw new mischief on.—.Shakespeare.