THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 57, 8 March 1935, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

Dear M.A.T.y—I have been going through the South African War relics box, and I found a hymn sheet that was issued to the troops in the early days of the HYMNS AND .303. war. We used to have a Sunday morning service when convenient. Sometimes we would have a fair march to get to the appointed spot. We used, of course, to turn out ready equipped ior a fight, rifle, bayonet and ammunition, etc. The thought that ueed to strike me very strongly was the fact that we were there, and for all we knew the enemy were over the other side of the hill, and we were both offering up our prayers and thanksgiving to the same God. I think I had better do what I did in those far-away days, leave it at that, eh? I was serving with the regular army at the time, and it was during the attempts to relieve Ladysmith.—Late Sapper, R.E.

It looks as if the codlin moth was rolling up its sleeves and moistening its palms to settle our apple trade, drat it. Cheerful entomologists have said AN- APPLE A DAY. that the final bout on

earth, will be between men and insects, and that insects will win. Personally one won't believe it, but will go on digging out the codlin and eating what he has left. Anyhow, what one wante to do is to repeat what an old-timer came in to say last year. He eaid he was one of t';!ie lads in the dear, dead days, who used to beachcuinb where the Ferry Building rears its handsome face. A shipment of apples from overseas arrived in this port. It was full of codlin moth. The authorities, instead jf burning or burying this shipment, tried to drown it and pitched it in the sea o'ose to Queen Street. Dear'little boys naturally gle : ''W this fruit, eating it gladly, and, of course, discarded the codlinny bits here, there and in Poiisonby or even further. Hence this threat to the New Zealand apple trade. One, of course, does not guarantee the accuracy of the story as to the arrival of 'his pestilent immig.a , /—but ihe old Auckland boy was very earnest about it.

Colonial people lucky enough to be able to have a look-see of the Old Land plan to reach London in April or the beginning of May, so that they can ENGLISH take a trip to Upper WELCOME. Slaughter, or Wobley on the Wold to see the spring doing what it does better in Blighty than anywhere elisc. An Auckland lady, however, reached London in February, shivering somewhat—until the snow came! She sat quite comfortably in her London flat with the window wide open gazing at the snow-covered garden and feeling quite comfy. English relatives and friends, welcoming her gladly, strewed her way with English spring flowers in bleak, sunny,; snowy February—which is to say tha-t you can get everything in London at any season. London itself, a notably floral spot—there are some marvellous windowboxes about and hundreds of acres of parks— is enormously sentimental about spring flowers—and don't the Devon and Cornish people know it! Nowadays, too, the Scilly Isles are not a bit silly. The people there reason that there are about eight million folk all in one bunch in London singing out in winter for spring flowers —and there are seventy-mile an hour trains and fast lorries and crackajack 'planes—so Fan got her spring flowers in February. Very nice, too!

Bookworms, or even scanners of evanescent "best sellers" (Wallaces and Goulds), insensibly conjure up in the mind's eye the

■heroes or the villains they PRINT AND are reading about. Many PICTURES, authors know that the

artist "made" the book. You can never read Dickens' books without seeing the artist's idea of Sam Weller or Mr. Pickwick and the glorious host of people thronging the pages. Even if you have never read a Captain Kettle etory you know that Kettle was a fierce little chap with a pointed beard, an undershot jaw and a cigar—and you can't read a Sherlock Holmes tale without seeing a tall, thin, aesthetic-looking man in a deerstalker cap. Walter Paget died quite recently. He was the original of Sherlock Holmes. His brother, Sidney, sketched him for the part and so helped very much indeed to popularise the writing. It occurs to one in thinking how one visualises fictional characters that the everyday, popular book is too little illustrated. A book, for instance, seems incomplete without a photograph of the man /who wrote it. It should be »s usual as finger-prints in a watohhouse. And don't you think that less writing and more pictures would improve all modern books? Even Galsworthy might be heavily sub-edited and an artist called in to fill the blanks.

It needs but Pan with his pipes or Amaryllis in the shade to perfect a scene of matchless sylvan loveliness. You are to imagine

the long super-suburban SYLVAN SCENE, road, its grass borders

stretching apparently into infinity, the nestling bungalows with the warbling (but imprisoned) canaries, twittering to the sunlight and the mortgagor inside thanking Providence for bacon and eggs. As far as the eye can reach the grass borders have been scythed by the leisured classes, forerunners of a permanent leisured clas3 the State has so kindly contemplated. In short, as one says, the scene was one of matchless modernity. It needed but one idyllic touch to complete a sylvan tout ensemble, searching the hearts of the aesthetic. It was provided by a motherly State, already aware that man cannot live by bread alone. On a sylvan corner there lias dwelt for many moone a tumulus of stone setts in order that when municipal aesthetes think in terms of footpath they shall be rushed to the selected pavement. Sprouting from the interstices of this tumulus were the grasses of the field, beautified here and there with a blossom. An artist attired in the costume of his temporary calling leaned lovingly over this expression of Nature's ruthless perseverance. His. longhandled shovel and his mattock were piled in perfect order nearby; hie coat was disposed in artistic array with his lunch bag on a white paling. He was hand picking the weeds from between the stones. All's well, the work of the country proceeds apace, the unemployment fund swells—there are other heaps of metal to be hand picked, and Amaryllis shall sit in the shade for the next decade watching this progress of art combined with refreshing toil. THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. Sow and look onward, upward. Where the starry light appears, Where in spite of the coward's doubting, Or your own heart's trembling fears, You shall reap in joy the harvest You have sown to-day in tears. —Adelaide A. Procter. What really goes on. in this world No man can truly know, And, what's more, since time was, there'n none Would really like to know. So use the knowledge that you've got And be content with your daily lot! Remember: the world has gone till now; It will go on still, though the Lord knows how. —Anon. "I can't, does nothing; I'll try, does something; but I will, works wonders!"— Anon. I