THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 145, 21 June 1934, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

William Ralph Inge, among tlic greatest of' the Empire's sons-, and habitual Dean o St. Paul's, in London, is retiring because ne is seventy-five. It prooLINE UPON ably amuses ".The Gloomy LINE. Dean" to be called names like that, as he is sitting with a pen in his hand, his tongue in his cheek, and a radiant smile in his soul, .bite surely tickles the great scholar and g origiiialist, especially when the cheques in front a world that he puts through^a sicvo and sets down in colours few can mutate. The Gloomy One of the mordant and often bitin-or pen, although he may dislike you, does not hate himself, and recently complained at the absurdity of the habit that makes it necessary for deans and others to quit the deaneiy or other places at seventy-five when I leei as fit and young as a man twenty years my junior," a form of conceit known the world over in ancient vessels. Like 'G. 8.5., _no loves to shock 'cm—has ago at the Dominions, the United States and the physical degeneracy of his own race, many of whom wont live to be seventy-five. He says things that few others say so plainly. Take a few samples: "Contraception is right if the offspring is likely to be diseased in body or miml." "The idle rich and idle tramps should be obliged to wear a badge of infamy." "Politics are class bribery and tlie pillage of minorities." "A general election is an auction of the worldly . goods of the taxpayer." You can't deny they are worth live shillings a line. >

The current excessive liquidity of the North, where a land agent has declared lie is prepared to sell dairy farms by the gallon, will remind the webFEMALE footed that further south ROOSTER, floods also occur. Particu-

larly in Manawatu, oil country that seems to have all been a vast primeval river bed, have farmers become expert boatmen, and remarkable dinghy races have been held in flood, time over hurdles. Fields in the place one has. in the mind's eye. are bisected by willows—many willows—and traversed bv large drains. On the remembered occasion a farmer, looking across the wide expanse of waters, discovered that one of his very beet cows was roosting in a willow tree. It was impossible to rescue her until the flood went down, and, as a matter of fact, cows eat willow leaves —and this was a cow. Well, then, when the. flood subsided, owner and neighbours set about rescuing Jersey Princess, who had eaten every leaf within reach. Nowadays they might have got a breakdown service lorry with a crane to lift her clear, but in those days •there was no such thing about. So one bright lad suggested stacking bags of cliafl' 011 the wet ground and felling the tree. Which was done. Tree and cow fell on the chaff all right, the Princess was chopped clear, helped to her legs, and, apart from being staggcry, seemed Al. The owner in the gumboots and the sou'-wester went to the cow, massaged her, and began milking. "Struth!" he said; "the flamin' cow's gorn dry!"

Before one is a brown letter enclosed in an equally brown envelope addressed from the Bay of Islands on June 10, 1932. It is in unsullied condition—not a THE BROWN 1 thumb mark, speck or LETTER, stain—looks shop new, in

fact. It was delivered to the Auckland address in the superscription on a recent day. The matter with which it dealt has long since ceased to be of interest either to sender or receiver—such a lot of matters cease to be of interest in two years. That uncannily efficient organisation, the Post Office, coming on such a letter, delivers it, and would deliver it if it had. been snuggling out of sight since 1884. It stirs the imagination as to where such a letter hides, how it is found, who finds it, if the addressee is dead, raised to the Legislative Council or has become a City Councillor. It reminds one that when posting boxes were young, unused persons frequently posted letters in-the town pump, in any hole in the wall in any town, in orifices of iron shop shutters, and elsewhere. There may be still in the world thousands of letters still undelivered. They may contain cheques, bank drafts, messages of life, death, tragedy. Novelists have frequently toyed with the idea. Dickens particularly deals with the poor clerk who is supposed to have pinched money. While others climbed the steep ascent of promotion, ho sat at his inky little desk on about twentyfive shillings a week —suspected, tolerated, scorned. Then, of course, somebody shifts the old desk, and there at the back is the thirty years old missive containing the hoot the poor old scout didn't pinch. Thank heaven the little brown letter in a little brown envelope—containing, too, an infantile pen sketch of a lady carrying two buckets of milk—veils no tragedy.

Jack Seeley (to shorten his name) was recently amused in the House of Lords at the spectacle of his august peers deploring the sin of dog racing among the ROMANCE poor when half the peers OF PEERAGE, were absent at the horse races. Jack—that is to say, Major-General J. E. B. Seeley—'Lord Mottistone—is interesting to New Zealanders because he all but became a pakelia-Maori. In his book, "Adventure" (326 pages of appreciation of "J.E.8."), General Seeley tells the story himself, the point being that he jolly nearly missed being a barrister, a great Minister of the Crown, a general and a peer for the sake of a Maori "princess." He must be well out of his teens at the present moment, because when he and Tom Connolly and Lord Burford headed for New Zealand in the Kaikoura (3000 tons) they obtained the open sesame of a letter from Sir George Grey. The plan was to ride on horses through the North Island. Seeley narrowly escaped drowning crossing the Mangawliero River, remained unslain in the presence of Te Kooti, and escaped a marriage which would have prevented the House of Lords from acquiring him. It was in the Taupo Country, and the young potential lord went for a swim attired in the "altogether." He heard a rustling in the "teashrub" —thought it was a kiwi—heard silvery laughter—swam out of the hole—ran up the bank. With screams of pretended fright twelve little girls fled from the bushes. The thirteenth girl was larger, taller, older. "The

tall girl suddenly turned and stood erect, with Tier head held high. It was the most beautiful thing animate or inanimate I had ever seen. As I looked she gave me an indescribable smile." The future Mottistone was introduced to a young Maori chief, "extraordinarily handsome." The chief introduced him to his sister—the princess of ■ the swimming pool. Thereafter they wandered together in the great forest. She gave up her kiwi mat and strolled with him attired in flowers and greenery. "But for Tom we should have been married, and I should h-.ve become a pakehaMaori." At their parting she burst into tears. So did young Seeley. THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. They dared beyond their strength, hazarded beyond their judgment, in extremities were of excellent hope.—Thucydides. Love is an unerring light.—Wordsworth. It is better to bend the knee to Wisdom than march in the chorusing ranks of the partisans. —George Meredith. To-morrow is often the busiest day of the week. —Old Spanish proverb. Trusting to luck is only another name for trusting to laziness. —Anon.