THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 213, 9 September 1935, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) THREE'S A CROWD. Three men met without designi at the don't block the pavement," said an official. "Crowds are not allowed.'

Enthusiastic local linguists, who, of course, epeak no language bq* their own, have bee\> keenly interested in Japanese saUor visitors who wrestle more EAST AND WEST. "^Tg^^ landers wishing to make it easy for the Japanese reduce their word output to the simplicity of "A cat sat on the mat," and so on. Recently a visitor to the Japanese ship desired to see a sailor whom he had met before. He was not sure of his man in a group that wae pointed out to him, and a kindly sailor, pointinn- successively at several in a line, asked, "That one? That one?" "No! Not that one or that one or that one," said the visitor. "Ah, the day after to-morrow!" gleefully exclaimed the conductor, pointing to the next but one. An Auckland citizen wfco wished to entertain some of the young visitors invited them to his home. He aeked a Japanese sailor how many of his friends would come.- "Ten o'clock!" said the sailor.

Funny thing that Black Monday nowadays is White Monday—a red-letter day, if one may be so Irish. This morning, for instance, the kitchens of SCHOOL'S IN. the province were clamant with the voices of early young breakfasters and a thousand mothers and helpers were steep to the eyebrows in lunch, greaseproof paper, satchels, cases, school books, boot polish, brushes, combs and tram tickets. One noted the note of a schoolgirl to her fellow schoolgirl: "The hols, are nearly over. I have had such a good time —but I'll be so glad to get back to school." Little humbug! Not at all. It is quite true. The modern sc&oolchild is as unlike his parents (as school children) as an arbutus is unlike a kauri. School is more like a rather nice club with scholastic trimmings than the grim place some of us knew, garnished with the tawse, the supplejack, the bit of trace leather, the old bad method of driving .silly facts home with a hammer. Anyone with a seeing eye this Monday morning, letting it reat on masses of exuberant kiddies hiking for the school, wouldn't have seen much wrong with any of them—although most of us grizzle a bit because the whole turnout isn't physically perfect and every lad si potential All Black, Prime Minister, or member of a board. (Had to go back? Heavens! Why, in 1888— Gracious, there's the bell—Hooray.

Massed battalions of English school children of -"The Potteries" districts have recently been heard to shout with one accord, "Xew Zealand!" It seems A FAR CRY. that the London manager of the Xew Zealand Meat Producer's Board asked huge aggregations of infantile meat eatere, "What is the beet lamb in the world?" the unanimous voice of the assembled little Britons being as stated. When asked now they could distinguish New Zealand lamb, the united voice roared, "By the Brand" —and they were right. One wonders if they had been told. Very likely all these youngsters will become meat missionaries in their own homes. One even supposes the case of the ardent Potteries proKew Zealand lad beseeching his father the butcher to desist from killing Welsh lamb or any local brand, and pater's enthusiastic obedience to the mandate. All the same time telling myriads of our small relatives in the Old Land about the beet lamb in the world will induce very necessary thought in the potteries, the cottoneries, the woolleries and other centres of dense population. And more than that, a few other excellent truths distributed broadcast among the kiddies of Britain may bring them later to the land of the best lamb—for we need .men even more than sleep. More lads' more lamb—more men, more mutton!

Very likely you have noticed that New Zealand people have discovered milk—cow milk, that is—the fluid so bountifully supplied to calves. Eminent medi-MILK-O! cal visitors, no less eminent medical residents. •philanthropists and educational people, have suddenly noted that not only i<s cow milk a jolly good thing to make into butter for London, but that it is a drinkable food for Xew Zealand children. Lord Bledisloe has been telling Knglaud that, everything imported grows larger in New Zealand than elsewhere, including the people. It can't be because of milk-drinking, because the fashion is comparatively new. The Maoris, large, fat and with real teeth, had no cows —and didn't drink milk after they were weaned, and sweet old Mother Nature seems to look after tens of millions of people to whom cow milk is strange. One of the quaint things noticeable in the excellent campaign of "Drink More Milk" is that it is difficult to implant the habit in large numbers of children. Ardent mothers longing for permanent teeth for their bairns have to teach Johnny to drink milk as if milk were medicine (as indeed it is). It would be interesting to learn if the excellent advocates of free milk for every child drink much milk themselves. There should bo publicmilk drinks by adult advocates, especially in dairy farm districts, where so many children shy like a startled faun at the foaming bucket and where teeth are just as sick as if the young dairy people were young city people. Missionaries working in milkless foreign fields and who wish to save the lives of tjieir dark brethren are bound to teach them the benefits of milk. Let them tako the Good Word and the good cow at the same time. Let them tell the world about cow milk. Good stuff—and good biz.

Very likely you have never heard of Dr. ■ScliitTli.'uiser, but lie is the German professor who says that the average 'human beinw can •do very well with only SLEEP. five hours' sleep in twenty-

four. The average waster of oight or nine hours' shut-eye would be interested to know how the average pedant gets his averages. You can imagine how very tired Herr Schiffhauser would Le after going to the doorsteps of, sny, ten or twelve or fourteen million people to find out how long each slept. The average scientist in his computations appears to miss the millions and to see the Personages. He finds, for instance, that Napoleon and Lord Roberts and two or three others could drop oft , to eleep at any place and at any time, and strike-s an average for the billions. Lord Reading and dear old Clemeneeau each did with five hours' sleep a day, but neither of these carried sacks of wheat for eight hours, or dug trenches or humped corrugated iron out of a ship's hold. And tihen, again, Lord Reading was making so many thousand's a' year at the law that sleep was a waste of money, and Clemeiieeau used to sit for hours with his gloved hand folded, feeling too ill to sleep. Xapoleon was always near coma when he "dropped off." Very ill indeed. These sweet old scientists iit striking their averages are far t<lo mathematical to see a fireman coining off shift lying in a dark coiner and going to sleep in a tick—or a wharf labourer who will not only take his eight hours' shut-eye at the correct time, but will fall asleep on a seat or lie in a corner or snooze in the lee of a wall. To prove what is the correct dose of sleep a house-to-house canvass of several billion people is needed— far too sleepless a job for present waker. J