THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 180, 1 August 1935, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) Here comes a man who has seen the lone pedestrian with --Matilda" on the back, Ins tucker bags hitched and his billy ("J**** j.up in), hiking for sun THE HIKE. down. And he has observed the modern ma infestation of the spare-time pedwtHwi with the ruosack and the big boots who has taken to man's finest and most intellectual exercise With Nature for his companion. He *aa admired the revived hike as being a sort o pastime for husky men and stalwart women L alul ho went to see about forty amalgamated knights and dames of the ruesack without the big boots and the crammed haversack— and lo! thev were admirable. The girls at that charming evening affair required no chemical slimming, for they were slim and svelte with the slimness of good health and joie de vivre. He said that if you had offered these young people cocktails they would have shied with consternation, for they needed no artificial aids to stir the cockles of thenhearts. Said, too, that you have merely to o-ather such a band of mixed people together —and" they will know what to do—all full or "■o, vim, verve, ideas, clear-eyed, alert, handsome with the beauty of poise, light of step, enjoying health equally in charming clothes as in shorts, big boots and haversacks. There he saw the woman who has toiled cheerfully up the lon-r road to the commanding hill in hiking .raiments, a poetic picture "in the lovely liquefaction of her clothes," her dancing feet clothed in the latest masterpiece of the shoemaker's art. He came away with the belief that the newly-revived art of walking is allied with health of mind and body, sweec thoughts and nice manners—and since then he has even walked to town when he might have taken a bus.

A Minister of the Crown recently remarked (with a twinkle) that the man who stole a pi" deserved to keep it— and there will lie no increase in pig stealing TWO GERMAN because of the jest. You PIGS. have already learned that Chicago cans everything about a pi"- barring the squeal—which latter seems to be the point of the Ministerial reference. In the war years New Zealand troops of the Army of Occupation in German v were quartered near Cologne. Headquarters were in a splendid old castle standing in its very large grounds. The owner—a German count—was a noted breeder of prize pigs, prize horses, prize cattle. They were the apple of his eye. The prize pigs were enclosed in fine buildings—nothing go-as-you-please about them. The place was alive with troops, but every animal on that great estate was perfectly safe from soldiers of the occupation, who necessarily had to show German Michel how to behave himself. Local Fritz, for his part, was on short rations, fed on scrape, so to speak, and drank burned-corn coffee and envied the soldiers. One evening there was squealing as usual in the piggeries and later the furious count found that two of his fattest and most priceless pigs had gone. He, of course, suspected soldiers, and German detectives were put on to find the culprits. These sleuths had little difficulty in tracing the deed to two German thieves who had merely climbed into the well-guarded piggery, stuck the two pigs, and carried them to the market in Cologne, where they sold them for good marks and for the beer and wurst the marks would buy. The New Zealand soldier who was on the headquarters staff says that pigs may be stolen amidst the most penetrating squeals if the thief knows his business and does not weaken.

Nobody knows where a sum of seven hundred and ten thousand odd pounds, represented ; by banknotes which have been superseded by Reserve Bank SPECTACULAR paper, has gone to. It is CONFLAGRATION, presumed that many thrifty savers have stuffed them into old mattresses, in cracked jugs, in ancient stockings and in other hiding places that will be discovered in years to come by the deserving rich and duly redeemed at any place where redemption is possible. But there are some people who remember where some of the pre-Reserve Bank paper wealth has pone. There is the well-remembered case of the man with whom it was Friday. He was handed his weekly envelo]>e in his oflice as usual. There was a lire in that office and it had been the gentleman's invariable custom on receipt of his wages to remove them from the envelope and to east the envelope in the fire. So habituated had he become to this weekly gesture that oh this occasion he removed the silver from the envelope and threw the remainder—envelope and notes—into the fire. Realising the frightful nature of his mistake, himself and those present snatched what remained of the wealth from the flames. The fluff and incinerated scraps were carefully gathered and placed in a cigarette carton and taken to the paymaster. He took them to the bank of issue," where, although officials carefully searched for missing numbers, it was ex-plained that fluff in a cigarette box was not negotiable and that if a gentleman cared to throw his wages into the fire the bank could not prevent him. Since which the loser has never failed to cut every discarded envelope, loaded with wealth or not, into two halves. He has never found any linking fivers in any of these bisected envelopes.

It is undoubtedly true that if tea-tree seed was so rare as to sell for a guinea an ounce the exquisite common scrub with the spicy aroma and the most beauA STAR TURN, tiful blossom would be a marvel and not a "menace." Recently "discovered" that teatree makes a good hedge. It was, of course, known in the 'forties that the natural nursery plant of the New Zealand bush made the best possible hedge—and among the most beautiful of all hedges. It is so rare as a hedge that people wander past a specimen and wonder what it is, and when told are surprised that anything natural to the soil should make so good a show. Wandering New Zealanders having been shown manuka growing in Torquay or other warm spots in Devon "(or thereaway) have been puzzled to know what plant it is, and, of course, when told would feel the scorn of the properly-constituted person for the transplanting of "rubbish" (the Maoriland term for priceless and unique native plants of any kind). Tea-tree will not only transplant readily from the s-crub to the hedgerow, but when transplanted will "trim" to a bushy form from top to ground, impervious to winds, hardy, and, being the natural shelter of the country, the most obvious thing to grow. Those quaint people who indulge in topiary masterpieces may be interested to know that a common tea-tree bush can bv repeated clippings be made to look like an egg in a cup, a statesman, an eagle, a hen, a prize cow, a dining table or a nightmare. People who have confined their topiary arts to English yew as a basis for their carving might use taa-tree with equally excellent results, thus astonishing passing Xew Zealanders and defying them to name the "rubbish" from which the masterpieces sprang. Dig up a sod of young tea-tree plants, transplant them to your formal garden of foreign herbage, and watch the incredulous astonishment of people born in the tea-tree at the marvels of this new stranger.

A THOUGHT FOR TO-DAY. Do not act as if you ]ia<l ton thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.—Marcus Aurelius.