THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 143, 19 June 1934, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) It is sorrowfully admitted that the people of Missouri do not know in what latitude Waitanoi lies and that a paper in that State has informed its reader* WAXABACHIE. that this country is at . the equator. When the sobbing has ceased at this phenomenal, this egregious, this abysmal ignorance,*it would be useful to demonstrate our own intimacy _witfi the geography, the latitude and the longitude of Missouri. It is an insult to ourselves thai New Zealand is represented by the cartographers as a speck in the Pacific Ocean liable to escape Missourian editors when seeking, with a pin for Waitaiigi. The grievous hurt to our finer feelings could be soothed and ultimately eliminated by a new system of map "making, which would be agreeable tc us and to the All Blacks. If, for instance, the map of the world was drawn to a scale of one inch to a thousand miles, we could apply to Mr. Mercator or whoever makes the maps ; to draw New Zealand the same size as Australia with a view to correcting the Missourian idea that we live in a small group of small islands and not on a continent. Now, all you young geographers —where'® Waxabacliie? Dear M.A.T., —From time to time yon have mentioned bush surgery, and primitive and often effective means for closing a wound 4 that might "let out loveel BUSH SURGERY, life." All African native people have their own methods, and especially the Masai and other fightable souls; either mend 'em or end 'em, Assegai wounds are often pretty dee]) affairs, The surgeon gets a couple of hefty gentlemen to liold the wounded man down. With an awl —wooden or metal, as the case may be —he bores a series of holes round the outside edges of the wound and .sticks green thorns in—the first he can reap from the surrounding scenery. This gives him a kind of a little fence. _ He then winds any available vegetable fibre in a figure of eight' manner from thorn to thorn, pulling the edges of the wound together. With a little rest the wounded warrior is'soon able to carry on his nefarious occupation of smell l out the enemy. I have mentioned this method to surgeons, who are meticulously antiseptic, and they tell me it used to be common among white men—barring, of course, the green thorns reaped from the bush.—Scalpel. You may laugh at the passion of your pal the local tradesman for wearing his gilt-edged collar and apron as Supreme Ruler of the Prehistoric Brotherhood, but A BRACE you will not cackle at the OF BEDELLS, regalia of a general, a P.C. in full fig or one of the King's judges in wig and gown. You will admit that everybody but yourself loves dressing up and that a graduate in his first gown and square is as entranced as a swell in his first court suit —complete with sword. A graduate of the University of London has received the current order of business of the ordinary general meeting ,of Convocation" at South Kensington, with the report of the Bedells of Convocations, who seem" as suitably arrayed as Oelelfellows, Foresters, Elks or Prehistoric Brethren. The Esquire Bedell and the Bedells of Convocation shall wear the following natty garb: "A gown of black silk of the same shape as that worn by Masters of Arts, but with square-ended sleeves and a flap collar across the yoke and decorated with gimp and a round black velvet cap, the cord and tassels in the case of the Esquire Bedell to be of gold to match the Chancellor's mace, and of silver in the case of the Bedells of Convocation to match the Chairman's mace." The instructions to Bedells, supreme or subordinate, to look like a Chancellor's or the Chairman's mace might lead to confusion at Convocation, especially if the Chancellor, mislaying his staff of office, mistook a Bedell for a staff and carried him round instead." Dear M.A.T.,—Your paragraph anerit the "sweet uses of advertising" recalls to my memory a dear x>ld reprobate of Fleet Street who used to scratch a "SWAN very fair living by writPURSUIVANT." ing ads. in which he made use of Shakespearean quotations. "Ah'm full of ale an' inspeeration," he would declare, in his ftroadest Doric, and, sure enough, the "inspeeration" would appear, a elay or two later, in a neatly-turneel phrase wherein he would announce to a waiting world that a certain adhesive was: ' Constant as the Northern Star, Ot whose true-fixed and resting qtiality There is no fellow in the firmament, or that "this too solid flesh would melt," by the judicious use of a well-known medicine for the reduction of adipose tissue." He was tremendously pleased when a learned professor wrote to "The Times" denouncing what he elcscribcd as this harnessing of the Swan of Avon. "Mon, it's a grrand advairtisement for a wee advertiserr," lie declared. One of his brightest efforts achieved more than transient publicity, for he induced the makers of a wellfinished shaving implement to engrave on their blades an apt quotation from "Love's Labour Lost," which ran: "Keen as is this razor's edge invisible." Such mundane use of noble lines was a source of anguish to the highbrows, but Old Mac made a good thing out of it, even though his pecuniary rewards quickly found their way over the- bar counter. Peace to his ashes! Had he lived until the era of Americanese, he woulel probably have made full use of the pungent modern phrases which now add force, if not erudition, to our mother tongue. Incidentally, it was Old Mac who inspired a fellow nib to declare in print that "a now thought is worth more than a million sovereigns, and the Spring's first crocus does more for mankind than the Koliinoor diamond." So perhaps he did not live in vain. —Bow Bells. _ Many a man on this Tuesday morning arrived at work in two pairs of trousers; presumably also with snug underwear, socks and suspenders, ending in NOR'-EAST. more or less waterproof footwear. Many a hundied eclioolboys with careful mothers, and fathers with oiled coats and sou'-wester caps went barefooted and barelegged to school, tlieir nether limbs clothed in Nature's own waterproof. Any "Come Down New Zealand" morning serves to illustrate the more or less futilitarian notion of trying to keep the wet out. Still, men who have invented anti-pluvian garments hav© our grateful thanks. It occurred to one as one watched intensely clothed people staggering under the top hamper of an umbrella (heaven knows whose umbrella), that primitive people whom the name of the late Mr. Macintosh is unknown and who have no shares in rubber companies dislike getting wet, too. In tropical storms, black, brown anel khaki brothers rush for shelter, even though a yearly bath would elo none of them any harm. Back-country people who have gazed at the hard, blue firmament for years, seeing at last the promise of rain, have been kno\\*n to disrobe so as to feel the grateful benefice from heaven. Logically, mankind faced with a Come Down New Zealand should at once "-o back to Nature and step forth from their matutinal baths into the nor'-easter. One imagines _ a modern nudist clothed for the weather in nothing but his skin arriving at , daily desk—and feeling in his waistcoat pocket for a fountain pen. As it is, if he has his storm coat on, with the rest of his raindefving garments, he merely searches in seventeen pockets and then finds he has left it at home.