THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Issue 154, 2 July 1934, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

. (By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

H.M.s. Diomcde las been in dock to get herself painted and otherwise made sweet for her lawful occasions. And a young citizen interested in navies and KUMRIDS. what not went along to see her. Looking over her rudder, lie was momentarily pained to note that in lighter paint on the rudder was depicted the Soviet arms—the crossed sickle and hammer of' Redski, And so contemplating this outrage (said he) ho wandefed back along the wharf, and, meeting the captain of the Diomede, he halted, and these twain talked for a moment. The young man mentioned the sickle and the hammer on the rudder. The captain roared with laughter. ' The British have a sense of humour still. If you remember, Tommy used to sing the German Hymn of Hate" (with variations) during the war and Jack is a cousin of Tommy.

Observing that Admiral of the Fleet Earl Jellicoe recently played a friendly game of golf with Field-Marshal the Earl of Cavan, it struck one that gentleTHE DAY'S men who would loyally WORK, wipe out a nation as a matter of duty and bring woo unutterable as part of the day's work are far prouder of feats with a wee ball and a stick than of feats of arms that alter the face of the world. It occured to one that Nelsons favourite occupation was scrambling round a drawing room with children riding on his back, that Roberts was frightened of nothing except cats, that Allenby collects menu cards, and that the great leaders, who are never great unless somebody suffers hideously, will, if scratched, exhibit all the characteristics common to the tradesman who plays bowls or billiards and swanks round wearing medals for the same. It occurred, too, that the inborn sporting 'proclivities of great leaders are exhibited everywhere but in war, where a man who would scorn to take- an advantage of a foe in the cricket field, the football mud or among the divots of the links, would gleefully wipe out a forlorn group of the enemy, or blow up an unseen townful of folks with dvnamite. You may get kicked out of your club for net playing the game—but all's fair in love and war. He was giving the once-over to the envelopes of his morning mail, deciding from the calligraphy appearing on the external or outward signs the inTHE MORNING -wardness and importance MAIL, of the enclosures. He selected for the perusal of the inquisitive, an address written in the purest copperplate —and passed it 'by for an envelope shewing a diabolical device fondly intended for an address, -which the faithful Post Office had with marvellous deduction delivered to the correct abode. He eagerly tore open the envelope with the dreadful address and prattled that it came from one of the most important men in Oceania, while the copperplate letter didn't matter in the least, as the poor chap who wrote so beautifully was. nobody much, never had been anybody much and never would be anybody much. If you have any old letters of the 'forties, 'fifties or 'thirties in the top drawer you will notice that educated persons were in those days taught to write in the Italian hand—or equally frequently the German fist -was insisted on by teachers, who expected the wretched youth to slope the tip of his pen over the right shoulder and to lean his writing to the east, being careful of loops, dots, flourishes and what nots. Still, it will occur to you that toil ancient writing masters never so Vcre Fostery, no two men or women have ever written to the same formula throughout life and never will. One gazed last evening at a facsimile of' a lovely bit of Anglo-Saxon manuscript written many centuries ago. The gent who wrote those seventy-five words had taken over a month to do them. Gimme a typewriter!

A lady writes from the Garden Town of England to say that 6ho has nothing to say, except that Nip tho dog is sitting by with his tongue hanging out LADY RAMBLE#. waiting for her to finish; that in a weak moment she tried to paper a little room herself', and emerged with a sort of modern fresco adhering to her; that she said things no lady of sixty should bo guilty of; asks if we have radios in New Zealand; declares that "Oh, to be in England now that May is here" isn't all jam, as it has been the coldest May for a generation; says that Terry is a swate timpered bhoy; and that "this is a rambling letter, so may she be excused, please." Any letter that rambles is balm to the troubled soul />f the "recipient" (abhorrent term). The friglitfullest letters of all time have been written by ..intellectuals trained in the calligraphic dissemination of other people's thoughts, dogmatic devils adhering to standard form, abhorring the littlenesses of life and tho wretch who splits infinitives or sticks a comma whore ho didn't oughtor. And this lady, who neglects to discuss the. political situation at Westminster or to touch on the Slav menace or the. Growing Power of the Outer Dominions in Britain, dares to send a copy of a verse that Masefield did not write, but who will grin if he reads it:

I must pro down to the bath again. The long- white bath with the plug, And all that I ask is a cake of soap And a sponge to wash my mug. Slio winds up with a fingerprint done in the material she asks for. A friendly scribe, writing of the uses of empty bottles, reminds one instantly of a river boat loaded with two hundred and fifty thousand empty beer WASTE ' bottles gleaned from an PRODUCTS. Australian prohibition settlement. Tho scribe mentions that in places far, far from any Australian brewery there aro many graves surrounded neatly by fences of "dead marines" —a permanent and relatively indestructible border. Graves of teetotallers have gingerbeer bottle fences. Empty bottles make gardenwalk tiles and, unlike wood, are ant-proof. The dead marine is tho bush rolling pin, candlcstick, globe, garden-plot border and bearings for sw:ng gates —unwearable, indestructible, except for blows. Filled with hot water a beer bottle becomes an iron to smooth the bachelor's shirt. The top removed by a hot wire, it becomes a mouthpiece for a canvas water bag,' the bottom neatly cut with a hot wire, a jam jar for mum. One bushman built a hut for himself with nine thousand empties, Tho story that a fellow bushman partially destroyed the hut looking for a full one ?s not confirmed. Other samples of infinite patience occur. The daughter of a New Zealand postmaster collected so many used stamps that sho papered a room with them, including a complete map of the North Island in blue stamps. One actually knew a dreadful man who wrote the Ten Commandments on a bit of paper the size of a threepenny bit. Apropos empties, one knew a sweet old German settler on the Murrunibidgee River who took abnormal quantities of snuff. He got this snuff in pound tins. Emplv, he carefully painted cach one and set them in the ground as a garden border. The story of this border is perfectly true, but one doubts if the tale that callers always sneezed their way to the front door ic to be relied on.