THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 138, 13 June 1934, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

Cricket fanatics (a race to ?**<* gladly belong) will remember that m I» 3 °«£ Phenomenal «W *-«» £» A MODEST SPOT, ghjj-jl £**£$& plank in the prevailing 1034 platfor m.. lt has been shown that of the illustnous fifteen on the vovao-e to Britain only four were teetotal ers. Woodfull, who, as you will note m*de two in the second innings against England, at a cocktail party in which most throats join.con tents himself with orange juice A con tern porarv L°» don scribe > mentlomn ° .*£ 6< £ a + Kte of the present Australians, infers that aithouoh most of the lads "take a spot" now and then, all are as sober as All Blacks, and a splendid example to British sportsmen, who also are not universally total abstainers. Mother bought Minnie a corker pair of shoes. Mother, while in the shop, cast her eves to the heavens through the window and J bought Minnie a pair of OBEDIENCE. goloshes, too. And the very next day the goloshes were justified. "Now, Minnie" said mother, "you'mustn't go walking in the gutters just because you have &I°^\™>J OT . &*?*}?? will rot if you do." "No, mother," said Mmnie kissed her mother and the twins and went to school. Minnie came home from school m the afternoon, and it was still raining. Minnie Had walked all the way in the gutters, but was carefullv carrying her goloshes. Good gracious!" said mother. "Why ever didn t you wear your goloshes?" "You told me they would rot if I walked along in the gutters in them, mother," said Minnie. Solemn newspaper students, chattily referring to the Dalai Lama or his successor, Mussolini, the Yellow Peril, the German Menace, 'the Conquest of the HimaUNIVERSAL layas, Japanese Commerce, SUBJECT, the Iniquity of Taxation, the Disappearance of a Millionaire's Baby, the latest Divorce of a Star, Dr. Dolfuss or Riza Khan, are hurt, astounded and horrified to receive in reply some thoughtless remark on Empire cricket. One finds it absolutely impossible to interest a man in the massing of troops at Irkutsk while he is muttering about Sutcliffe or Brown, or to pin the thought of young Brown to Arthur Henderson and German rifles when he is sizzling with joy at Hendren's 79 or MeCabe's 88. And the solemn student is obliged to conclude that even if cricket is not a solvent of woe it is a dashed good palliative and prevents people from thinking too painfully on bombs in Austria, boulders on railway lines in Japan, tragedies in the Catskill Mountains, or smuggling in Ireland.

Dear M.A.T., —Big John had Just returned from a perambulation of the East Coast, where he had been listening to plenty korero from friend Hone in the flesh PONG! and en masse. "Have a good time?" he was asked. "Well," he drawled, "so-so, but my outstanding recollection is the aroma of the tribe." The varying scents of different breeds of humanity fills the air. Memories of a Maori tangi recall the whiff of roast pork, koura and dried shark in overwhelming waves. Anyone who has ever loistered in a Police Court will remember copious sniffs of the Great Unwashed. No pomade, scent sachet or Whitebo.y soap can destroy the characteristic 8.0. of the immemorial East, while as for the inhabitants of the Dark Continent) a returned explorer narrated it as one of the marvels of his African experiences that whereas he could smell a company of naked buck niggers a mile away, they likewise were olfactorily conscious of the proximity of a white man. Please pass me the powder puff and the cau de Cologne.—E.A.

Mentioned here the other day that much work is done in the great world outside New Zealand on small rations. In confirmation of this there is the story of JONKER'S Jacobus Jonker, the AfriMISHAP. kandcr. Jonker mentions casually that, he lived for eighteen years on mealie pap, which everybody knows is a more or less harsh and diabolical porridge made of ground maize. Jacobus toiled all those years like a slave at the diggings, and Mrs. Jonker must have toiled, too, for she bore six children and with them also lived on mealie pap. The Union authorities are asking Mr. Jonker to pay twenty-nine thousand nine hundred pounds in taxes.. You see, Jacobus, scratching around in the blue clay, found the- fourth largest diamond ever uncovered, and sold it to Ernest Oppenheimer for sixty-one thousand pounds. Although Sir, Jonker says he doesn't care two boots for money, he first asked Ernest for seventy-two thousand—but Ernest is a business man. All Jacobus wants is about three hundred a year to live on and plenty of mealie pap. His idea is to buy a bit of land and let it out to poor whites and scoop a" bit of rent. All acounts of Jonker seem to agree that now ho has found a big diamond he's pretty miserable, thank heavens, and is still refraining from chops, steaks and sausages, sticking like glue to pap. • Optimists who write Koine every December telling freezing and envious cousins that we eat lamb and green peas for Christmas and live in perpetual summer BR-R-R-R! are the same people who exist in weatherboard houses in June attired in overcoats and sitting close to the far too expensive fire. Some nefarious relative opening a backdoor renders the atmosphere of the dear young homo far, far bleaker than Admiral Byrd's quarters, while a visiting Canadian would wither on his stalk and rush back to Our Lady of the Snows as soon as he had thawed. Linoleum, carpet or mere flour bags spiked to the floorboards prevent the same billowing like permanent waves, but unsecured, the effect is distinctly Atlantic. People shivering in a fifteeil-hundred-pound bungalow pine for a fifteen-pound Nissen hut to keep the weather out, and pray fervently that some day the art of making dwellings will come this way. Visitors from less favoured, countries than this are the chief complainants of our too, too breezy dwellings, living when at home in houses in which the wall spaces are filled, the cost being lighter than of our own hollowwalled houses. Americans and Canadians particularly, squirm helplessly in our winters, and Eskimos never come at all because they hate the lack of snow ijrloos. An architect friend explains that ventilation can be secured without blowing a family through the tin roof.

Minor Mussolinis are relatively common. For instance, one never hears of a doctor requesting, desiring, begging, beseeching or asking. He orders. MusGOOD DICTATION, solini himself could do no more, except, of course, to see that his orders are carried out. An Irish lady went to Rome. While there some son of the sunny South inveigled her into purchasing a jewelled watch. She bought it and paid an equivalent of fourteen guineas for it. When she got back to Dublin the Italian watch wouldn*t go. She took it to a jeweller. "It is not worth repairing," said ho. So the lady complained to the Italian Consul-General. "Write to Mussolini," said he. She did. Mussolini replied, thanking her for her information about a swindling rascal, who was now in gaol. Ho begged to enclose herewith a draft lor fourteen guineas.