THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 29, 4 February 1935, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

There has been only one New Zealand if.P. who addressed the House as "My dear friends," and that was mere habit and fetched a laugh. Hβ was a cIergy"LADIES AND man. It is somewhat GENTLEMEN." difficult on occasion for

a man to use "le mot juste." For instance, there was an American State Governor who found himself before the assembled prisoners in the State gaol. He began, "Fellow citizens." Delighted laughter rose from the audience. The speaker was confused. "Fellow convicts," he stammered. The laughter grew louder. "Oh, I know what you mean," he continued. "I'm g*ad to' see so many of you here." Thp gaolbirds roared, with laughter. The Governor of the gaol led the wilting Governor into the open air—the prisoners did not follow him.

The national habit of signing on the dotted line, leaving the country burning while the Department 0 of Infernal"Affairs has a good, long think, induces similar CANDLELIGHT, methods of procedure in many honest citizens. Once upon a time there was a person who looked out of a window. While doing it the electrical transformer within his vision burst into fireworks —and the lights in that section all went out. There was no telephone in that house, so one of its inmates bustled off down the road to the nearest one. The subscriber to the telephone was sitting in the dim light of a candle. Might the caller uee the telephone to tell the Power Board that the transformer wouldn't transform? —or words to that effect. The gentleman with the candle and the 'phone remarked that the- boy might use the machine if he first handed over fourpence for the bureau call. As the lad had rushed out in a hurry, he was, of couree, fourpenceless, and presumably the subscriber with the telephone resumed his vigil with the candle. Ultimately somebody either found a foilrpence, rang up buekshee, or connected in eome manner with the board. Quite a number of candles were burnt during the ensuing four hours. If a thing like that happened in Auckland Province somebody would be bound to laugh.

Tho Waitemata sparkled as per schedule, and the launch party, putting the honoured guest, the water jar and the medical comforts aboard, proceeded on its A TOOTHSOME holiday occasions. All TALE, went merry as a marriage bell. The party, complete with guest, went ashore at an exceedingly nice spot, were regaled with luscious peaches, returning as the sun sank in the usual direction, and spent the evening prior to grateful rest in modest refreshment and story-telling. The guest and his hosts retired to rest., In the still watches of the night a host who was athirst (owing to the meal of peaches he had eaten during the afternoon) went into the cabin, switched on a little dimmer , light, and saw a cup on the table. He naturally inferred that one of his associates had refreshed himself and had left the half-empty cup there. So he took the cup and heaved the contents over the side, rinsed, filled, and drank. The voieo of the guest was heard. "Get me a drink, too, will you V The host got the drink and handed it over. "Where did you get this cup?" asked the guest. The host told him. "Did you throw the contents overboard?" faltered the guest. "I did," said the host; "why?" "My teeth!" moaned the guest. "Uppers and lowers, too." At early morn in fourteen feet of water the hosts dived and dived—but never a bite got they.

Heavy showers of gold fell from an air liner while it was flying over France—and didn't hit a soul. Not a single bar of the

specie fell through a roof, TINY TARGETS, upset <a town or did any damage, showing that there ie still space between the houses of a populous country, thus cheering communities that practise breathing through gasmasks, preparing for the time when the air refuses to rain gold. Of course, the eform-driven 'plane that dropped the gold wasn't trying to hit anything, while the men who showered hell pills on tho earth during the last war were trying all they knew. Which is to say that the merest fraction of the earth hae anything on it —that even experts found London a small target and that more bombs fell in open spaces than on enclosed ones,'suggesting that hiving together in times of stress is the easiest way out of the world. Up to now one has never heard of a "thunderbolt" falling on a man, a dog or a house, Nature selecting bare spots for this exhibition of nastiness. London, you will notice, is not only not overcrowded, but is surrounding herself with far larger open spaces. Dominion populations, with a million times more open space than that covered by the works of man, tend to gather together in large so that airmen dropping bars of gold, bags of poison, series of bombs and cylinders of gas, shall havo a better target to hit. Some day the tendency will be to spread out. We shall all be harder to hit then, and the Christianising influences of the nations will become even more difficult. Somebody has pointed out that the whole population of the world could bo buried in one portion of the Colorado Canyon, a point that might be studied by the birth-controlling public.

The world-wide civic effort to eliminate urban noise may possibly reduce it so much that people born and bred in noise will havo

their nerves shattered by SELECTED tho new silence. Still, one NOISES, feels there will be longer

and nicer slumbers at Auckland Hospital now that fewer noises pass by. It is new noise, unusual noise, unaccustomed noise, that irritates the human being. Everybody either knows or doesn't know that if the clatter of a mine stamper battery ceases the townspeople who havo thrived on the row oannot sleep. But slam a door in one of their houses, and see the people jump! There is the remembered case of an old fellow who worked on a largo and exceedingly rowdy irrigation pumping plant. He slept for years in the engine room, the engines clattering all night and every night. The plant closed down. The old man still occupied a possie in tho enginchouse. He had no noise to lull him to sleep and was about to die of insomnia when a doctor obtained leave for him to sleep in the corner of an all-night boiler shop. At the age of ecventy-eight he was still snoozing

like a baby every night in that hideous din. One knows a person who is immune to the noise of forty-eight typewriters clicking all

day. Outside the office this person nearly faints at the sound of a machine, the T>ang of a slamming door is anathema to him, the shriek of a child torture, the raised voice of Uncle Bam on the radio a punishment unendurable. Once there was a "retired artillery officer who had lived among the din of guns from his He went to live in a quiet suburb. Several mobikes went past. He complained to the local authorities—and after a nervous breakdown shifted to Central Australia. He couldn't bear it.

A THOUGHT FOR TO-DAY. Science and art may invent splendid modes of illuminating the apartments of the opulent; but these are all poor ami worthless compared with the light which the sun sends into our windows—which he pours freely, impartially, over hill and valley, which kindles daily the eastern and western sky; and so the common lights of reason, and conscience, and love, arc of more worth and dignity than the rare endowments, which give celebrity to a few.— Dr. Channiug.