THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 7, 9 January 1935, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

Dear M.A.T.,—Your "Symbol" yarn relating to fly specks calls to mind the writing of a, former New Zealand Supreme Court judge. His writing was atrocious THE JUDGE'S —and, oddly enough, lie WRITING, knew it. His associate

could, with the aid of microscopes, theodolites, sextants and other such gadgets, translate—it is the only word the hieroglyphics made by his Honor in taking his notes of evidence. (This was before the typewriter took them.) Said associate fell ill, and a brother associate volunteered to take on the extra job. He didn't have the experience nor the aforementioned gadgets, but he valiantly struggled to type a copy of some notes of evidence, The best he could do was to get an average of three out of live words, and, of course, left blanks. Presenting the patchy document to his Honor, he respectfully requested his help in filling in the blanks. After many efforts with the first two or three blanks, the judge sighed long and deep, and, referring to his associate, said: "I don't know how helloes it; I can't make any sense of it. It looks just as if I had dipped a fly in ink iind it had wandered across the- paper." — A.L.D. Lord Baden-Powell presented "boomerangs of friendship" to scout leaders at the close of the Victorian Centenary jamboree. The boomerang is not really XHE a friendly weapon, but it BOOMERANG, will serve. Reminds ono that to most white men the boomerang is merely a symbol of return and that only one man in a myriad can throw one properly. The black fellow, when he releases his "boonicyang, croons to it until it comes back. Very likely the white man hasn't learned the right croon. The most celebrated white-fellow boomerangist one remembers was Major-Genoral Sir jGranville de Laune Eyrie, the Australian squatter who became a great soldier and who was later Australian High Commissioner in London. General Ryric introduced the boomerang at English garden parties and the boomerang trade flourished quite well in the Old Land, although nobody ever learned to throw a factory-made weapon of this class. The blackfellow may make a dozen boomerangs and not get one that will return when thrown. He will spend a month fashioning a single boomerang. During its manufacture blackfellow kicks it about with his toe to see how it hops. He talks to it lovingly. If it hops properly he is pretty sure that when thrown it will be a good one. If it does not hop properly he simply chucks it in the fire, goes and cuts another stick of gidyea, and starts all over again. Not a single New Zealand High Commissioner can throw a boomerang—but they themselves return. Funny, isn't it?

Dear M.A.T.,—The old salt wae recounting some of his experiences on the 6ea, and someone casually mentioned seasickness —mal-de-mer. This inspired a MAL-DE-MER. new vein of conversation.

"Being sea'siek, is it?" he snorted. "No one can say when he might lose liie dinner once he goes to sea. I've seen commanders of ocean liners 'go to the side' more than once, and hardened old sailors after years at sea are not immune to the effects of a joggle. I've sailed every sea in the world —furled sail at midnight going round Cape Horn; ridden out a typhoon in the China Sea; crossed the Bay of Biscay hundreds of timee; I never missed a meal "in twenty years at sea. And then, after a spell ashore, Igo down to Kawau on New Year's Day with a lady friend. We ran into a northerly roll past Tiri, the stern of the packet began to heave a bit, and I happened to get a sniff of the cook's galley—darn me if I don't lose niy breakfast overboard." "There's no accounting for seasickness,'" lie concluded mournfully, "unless perhaps that Jersey cream they've been feeding me with on the farm is too rich for my blood. Pork fried in whale oil is just about* my limit. Too much butter and dairy produce are no good on the sea. Anyway, next time I go to Kawau I'm going in the Mariposa." —Blue Water.

One of the problems of the flat dweller, who betomes more namerous as the city populations increase and the rural population

diminishes, is the dis BELOW THERE! posal of household gar

bage. On a recent morning a gentleman passing a iiat-faccd flat noted a tablecloth fluttering from a high storey, and there fell almost at hie feet a piece of rejected toast and an equally rejected and dejected tote ticket. There is nothing inherently horrid in a bit of toast and a tote ticket, but he wondered whether the flattite, disappointed at the performance of a horse, had been unable to eat his breakfast. Toyed also with the possibilities of other fluttering morsels, including egg shells and bacon rind, teaspoons and tea slops, even silver forks with hotel monograms on, eofl'co grounds and sausage casings. It occurred to him as he dodged into the street while passing another lot of aerial fkts that the- modern pedestrian is far, far luckier than a citizen of those spacious days when there werel neither flats nor garbage" carts, and decided that bits of toast and tote tickets are hardly as unpleasant as the disjecta hurled from ancient windows. Hogarth has immortalised in picture the housewife at the window and the foot passenger below. In fchoec days it was "Below there!" "By your leave!' , " "Look out!" "Prenez garde!"—and people cared not what they threw. In many Old World cities of Europe the street and" the passenger are s«ill the depositories for the household garbage and the cry is still "Stand from under!"

The stuffiest day of the current summer was Tuesday, January 8. Queensland could do no better and Simla would be arctic in

comparison. So weary THE DRESSING souls, perspiring after a SHED. day of toil and four

stupendous meals per lip, sought solace in the sea. Three hundred motor cars containing, one supposes, three swimmers per car —thus giving a natatorial floating population of nine hundred souls, bowled along to Mission Bay, where, as you are aware, there is an elaborate and costly series of public dressing eheds. It was eight o'clock, evening, the ideal hour for marine ablution after a grilling day—and at no other moment during the day could so many people spare the time to swim—but the sheds were carefully closed so that no undresser might disrobe in any of them. It naturally occurred that these eager swimmers used that long park of cars for disrobing in, and in the twilight they might have been seen dodging hither and thither with garments held in their hands seeking to hide from the passer-by if possible and from their fellow motorists anyhow. People mixing their cars might inadvertently come upon family groups in deshabilo illuminated by car lamps and hear little screams and protest* accompanying the crooning of Old o?ean. There arc, of course, swimmers and others who believe that dressing sheds were made to drer*s (or undress) in, but others again—especially official pietists —appear to disagree. THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as foole, but as the wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.—St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. But we'll no gic ower jist yet a bittie. We've seen waur . . . and it's my belief that we'll see better.—R. L. Stevenson.

Will some Labour M.P. tell us, for instance, what is the policy of that party concern ing the exchange, i.e.,'if it has a policy? This i.< an economic question of real importance, and tho present Government, with all its faults, and they are many, has a policv, much as some of us dislike jt. ' HAROLD M. DAYS*.