THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 219, 16 September 1935, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

se *«. was— tf&jse ■R-nWHAI FOR cklcnt niigM bo of equal KOWHAI JUK be ;nteregfc you A lad from a northern suburb took a lar-rc basket of yellow kowhai to the Japanese training ship, and in a note bearing her compliments gave the name oi the flower and a few particulars concerning it. She was rewarded by genuine appreciation.—G.A.

It was All Blacks Sunday for listeners— and they listened. The young master of the house heard the glad news first. He expected the news to be glad, oi AT THE RADIO, course. The young fellow immediately told his mother: "New Zealand won—licked the combined Devonshire and Cornwall team 3o to «! Mother was unperturbed. "Yes, my dear, but you must remember that it was only a test match."

Dear M-A.T.,—-This Auckland-Wellington rivalry keeps evergreen, doesn't it—it's a sort of subterranean disturbance that blowe upat irregular intervals. The OUR CITY. writer's relations, for instance, fresh from Wellington, had barely exchanged fraternal greetings before a careless word led to the usual decrying of the respective merits of the two cities: ° "Take Auckland's summer island resorts." "All right; what about Seatoun, Day's Bay, etc.?" "The Tamaki Drive" — "Queen's Drive*'—"The Memorial Museum" — "The Carillon," etc. This could go on for weeks, but here's a possible solution. All we have to do these days ie to mention our sewage problems. Wellington can have nothing to compare with this cherished local feature.— J.D.'

Recently mentioned that dictators (there are no dictatricee) are served up to the public per photograph ae men with the commanding jaw and the typical handTHE HERO'S someness so desirable and FACE, inevitable in the books

of "Onida." The squarejawed Creek god or Roman centurion type of hero has boon created for public consumption by generations of writers who, far from the terrors of war, exist in safety undisturbed, making heroes by the dozen, giving them facial characteristics suitable to supermen. Yat in real life the V.C. (who has actually been physically courageous) is often a small, retiring person without any noticeable jaw or clenched teeth or Mussolini lips or flashing eyes. Small women without any noticeable chin and weighing six stone have been heroines on a million occasions. In short, courage and leadership and self-sacrifice are not necessarily indicated in a-nyone's face. Fall-in a thousand mon sprinkled with heroes or leaders, and the V.C.'s will be indistinguishable among them. Which leads one to remark that the jutting jaw and the firm linefi about the temples and the lips are often caused by an excellent appetite and a good digestion. The incessant and enjoyable mastication of food will so develop the jaw muscles that the gentleman whom you accuse of possible heroism on the facial evidence is merely a heroic trencherman.

It hafi been currently mentioned that medical people using hypnosis have been able to either create or destroy warts. That seems

to say that if you are SUGGESTION, induced to believe that

you cannot see the wart that is there it will disappear. Old-fashioned folk seem to have had faith in suggestion—and realism. There is the case of the woman who declared that while eating vegetables she had swallowVd a small frog. She maintained that it grew, and it is certain that her relief made her very ill. Her attendant physician, .agreeing with her that the frog was certainly there, induced vomiting. The frog was there all right—but the physician had taken it with him. The woman was r-estored to perfect health. Here before one in an old tome is the ea«c of the woman who in lOCS in England was suiTering from external malignant disease. Living frogs were introduced by the physician and the recorder in -'The Gentleman's "Magazine" declares that the cancer disappeared.

It was Sunday night. The elder olive branches were out and the younger were tucked beneath the sheets. ■ So dad said mildly, "Oh,

well, mum, let's have a NICE CUP OF TEA. cup of tea." In the words

of dad, mum '"hit the roof," '"went crook," and replied, "Tea. tea. everlasting tea! I've made tea seven times to-day. I'll chuck the kettle away and the tea caddy after it—nothing but tea/tea ." And so mum brewed the eighth lot, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Tea taking is as harmless a religion as football and much more universal. Ninety-nine per cent of people drink tea, while ninety-nine per cent of people merely listen or watch football. Tea used to be about a guinea a pound and people didn't make it eight times a day. People at the beginning of the seventeenth century, buying their first pound of bohea, hyson, twankey or gunpowder, boiled it, threw the water away, and ate the leaves between bread. People of the Empire have swilled congou, souchong and pekoe in thousands of millions of potfuls. Here and there a hollow-eyed crank has bese-eched the myriads of tea drinkers to refrain from tanning their insides with tannin and to spare their nerves. Tens of millions of people have swilled away and taken no notice. Tea is the teetotaller's stimulant, the bushman's boon, mother's cordial, father's joy. One doesn't care whether a lady —like the immortal dame in "Pickwick" —drinks nine cups and "swells wisibly" or not if the tea is properly brewed. A restaurant that not only knows tea but knows how to brew it is the sanctuary of the blessed —and pilgrims flock thereto with their fourpencee.

News is wafted from Oputama, in Hawke's Bay, of the latest of the menaces, of which wo aTo so justly proud. One man's menace is another man's breakfast. SPLENDID Hence the twenty whales MENACE, blown by the gales on to Oputama Beach are chops, steaks and sausages to Hone, but merely a source of fragrance to John. Many of the leviathans have blown up the creek nearest to the point of population, which is not large, but the olfactory nerves of which (or whom) are in perfect order. It is presumed that a protracted season of blubbering by Hone, and his numerous breakfasts of whale cutlet, will bo of local interest. It would be also interesting to compute the number of whale steaks that could be cut from twenty whales to be distributed among from thirty to forty Maoris —and how many days it would, take for this community to eat the lot. H. G. Wells tells of his boj'hood, during which he and a mate, attracted by a eiriell, rowed out to a wrecked ship full of rotting wheat and how, immensely intrigued with the fragrance, they sat down and gloriously ate their lunch. Now these fragrant menaces are only one hundred and eleven miles from Napier, and there is also a jolly good road from whales to Gisbornc. Motorists could easily enjoy the fragrance by bowling along there", share whale breakfast with Hone, and bowl back home exhaling some of the romance. The nearest doctor is twentyseven miles from the fragrance —and the nearest scent factory is probably in France. The best thing to do with a menace is to eat it. Jonah did not think of this. It was the whale that breakfasted. |