THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 231, 30 September 1935, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

All Blacks fans (and who isn't one?) found Monday morning hard to bear. (Enthusiastic barrackers for tho "Manchester A. . in several cases found in LILIES OF HOPE. Mcmoriam" wreaths on their work tables, their counters or their desks. The inappropriatenese of these symbols of course gave them their charm. For instance, an lllc " ra ] blc | >a J racker arrived at his work place to find a larfe wreath of somewhat- faded arum lilies on which a card was tied having the woi s Deepest Sympathy." As lie observed, ever, "They're not dead yet." There are new thoughts on an old menace up North where the floods always are. Willows were apparcntly^nted WEEPING into the rivers and choked WILLOWS, tho same —to stop the top soil that was washed from bush-denuded hills; burnt to make a cocky's holiday. People who believed that willows Stopped floods and river erosions now know tliey cause floods and so to work the menace introduced to prevent a nienac , and so on. There will be work for piesent day third standard schoolboys when these boys have qualified under a fatherly Government to become life relief workers in the_ willow department. Willows not only promise permanent work for future unemployed, but are so persistent that a willow fence poet carelessly stuck in the ground will soon grow into a tree—a menace and a job for Bill. Cows and other herbivorous eaters that are long enough in the neck to reach willows eat them gladly. Cricket bat makers welcome some sorts of willows with joy—and cows sometimes roost in the branches. There is the case of the Manawatu cow which, when a flood subsided, was found stuck in a willow —in this case the tree was no menace, for the owner laid sacks of chaff on the ground, felled the willow, and i Jersey Gal fell out on to the sacks, hungry but uninjured. One musn't forget that willow bark is used for human medicine and for the making of an adhesive "bird lime" for catching tomtits and moas. Interesting to learn that the Dionne quintuplets, tho world-famed five, are already all swimmers. Medical watchers, acting on the knowledge that swimART OR NATURE? mirig is instinctive, apparently just throw them into their bath, and tlie'y paddle round like young puppies, or ducks, or new-born black people. Thousands of new-born black kiddies are at this moment being thrown into the sea, while pa or ma just swim around and give them an occasional finger. J\ew Zealand has perhaps but one pakelia case the instinct in a new white baby. It was in a coach accident in Nelson. A coach overturned crossing a river and a very gallant man (long since gathered to his fathers) saved the lives of many passengers. A few weeks old baby saved itself by paddling to the bank, whore it was picked up unhurt. E. H. Temme, the only man who ever swam the English Channel both ways, couldn't swim till he was eleven —and like most white children, was scared to death at the water. His parents spent years inducing him to enter a swimming bath. If he had been a black kiddy his pa and ma would simply have thrown him in. Weis6inuller, the record smasher, was a frail kiddie wlio did not learn to swim till he was ten. One knows an Auckland lady aged eighty-five who forgets whether she learned to swim or not. She not only swims like a fish but performs acrobatic antics like a porpoise. Her alarmed children (or grandchildren or grcat-grand-ehildrcn), seeing an empty Pacific yawning before them, scream, "Oh, wherever is Grannie?" But Grannie always bobs up in time. Sabbatarians who were awake at nine on a glorious Sunday morning may have heard a reluctant voice about to mention that the All Blacks—oh, heavens! THE SPLENDID one dare not put it down, GAME. it is too poignant. Every listener knew what was coming by the tone of the announcer's voice. Moving among men oil a specially nice Monday morning one found few who said anything about the Swansca-A.B. match, but those who commented appeared to believe that something was wrong and that such things ought not to be. A little mob of men uttered a few words of comment, when one of them exclaimed in an artificially impassioned voice, "Thank God for League football!" and was glared at by his fellow debaters. But to bo quite honest, the general impression really seems to be that as far as our splendid boys are concerned a little spot of defeat won't do 'em any harm. A tour of the shelling-peas pattern must be monotonous to watch. Any bit of football discussion starts up stories of'old football and old footballers, and this morning one heard one of the Bcdell-Sivright stories. When the team arrived in 1004 they were invited into the lobby of Parliament to partake of welcome by Mr. Seddon and of champagne by the Minister of Lands, Mr. Tarn Duncan. * After Mr. Seddon had cordially shaken hands with the newspaper men and asked them what sort of a voyage they liad had—mistaking them for the footballers, the Minister of Lands went round with the charjpagne. To each one he said, "Are ve a footballer?" If a man said "Yes" ho got a spot. If lio said "No" it was a miss. Still, after all. King Dick adjusted J this incongruity and all hands observed the beaded bubble winking at the brim. J

A new streamline train at Home has done 112 m.p.h., thus exceeding in speed that of the Cheltenham Flyer, the' Plying Scotsman—

and the Helcnsville ExTHE FAST TRAIN, press. The latest phenomenon of speed serves to remind one that even forty odd years ago trains in England proceeded on occasion with speed. Old Chcltonians who lived in "The Garden Town" before the Cheltenham Flyer was invented remember when it used to be one of the amusements to line up on the platform of tho Great Western Railway station to see a train flying through at sixty miles an hour. It was the general idea among the boys that if one wont too close to tho train as it flew through that one would get "sucked in,but as few ever got sucked in, it is believed officials drove the youngsters back— for no one in those days thought of keeping the public off railway platforms. Young devils of boys were in the habit of going to lee the fast train pass armed with old newspapers. As tho train ran past the boys would release their papers for the joy of watching the train suck them in. Passengers gazing out of train windows were often the recipients of yesterday's news. In those days "The Times" a bulky threepenny worth—-was sold on the day after publication for three halfpence. Three halfpence worth of "Times" complete with a thunder leader of colossal weight suddenly smiting a passenger in the face led to tho corrcction of the boys and subsequent closin" of gates against the young workers of iniquity. THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. The vain-glory of this world is a deceitful sweetness, a fruitless labour, a perpetual fear, a dangerous honour. Her beginning is without Providence, and her end no°t without ropentauce.—Quarles. To make one's fortune is so fine a phrase and signifies such an excellent thing, that it is in universal use. Wo find it in all languages; it pleases foreigners and barbarians, reigns at court and in the city; it has "-ot within cloisters, Insinuated itself into abbeys of both sexes; there is no place, however sacred, into which it has not penetrated, no desert or solitude where it is unknown.—La Bruycre.