THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 244, 15 October 1935, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAW ABOUT TOWN.) j Ho was somewhat taller tlian present stalwart and looked down 011 liim, remarking, "My word, you are bald!" "lhe accused, ip toeing, perceived an FERTILITY. equally arid patch 011 the boaster's summit and accused him of the same. He denied balditudc, declaring he had beeii using a mixture or castor oil and cantharides, hence the new growth seen. To which the older one asked, "What growth?" and told the perfectly true story of the old butcher who always rubbed his greasy hands in his hair, thus preserving a lovely head of hair up to the age of eigity five. People who eagerly experiment with hair-growing mixture may be interested to know 'that shearers swear by wool-yolk as a cure for baldness or a preventive of the same. Hand shearers especially are prone to lianyness of the arm from contact with greasy wool. Many people treat arid areas by rubbing them hard night and morning with lambs wool with the yolk still in. Many people keep 011 rubbing when the seed has died nothing doing.

The current story or tiic man, who, finding a nice watch, after much trouble, restored it "to the owner, who received it with, "Yes, that's mine," and nothing

INCIPIENT more, will cause many CONFLAGRATION, men to remember acts of kindness that have been accepted with even inferior rewards. One man remembers his own heroism with pride and sorrow. He was a suburbanite near a distant city. Passing the sweet little all-sorts store at the corner of his street, he was alarmed to note that there was an "incipient conflagration" (see newspapers) within. He rushed into find that a large kerosene lamp in the shopkeeper's dining room had fallen 011 the table—and the conflagration was 011. The family, complete with two children, escapcd, and the hero dashed alternately from flour bin to salt bin with a scoop, throwing them on the fire, working like ten men for ten minutes and perspiring freely, quelling the blaze and left all safe. He hung around adjusting his scorched garments, waiting for the family to return full of gratitude. The family, except for the proprietor, had already escaped to a near relative's home, but the proprietor arrived with a black brow and 110 smile for the interloper. In short, he made it patent that he objected to outsider* bursting into his premises putting out fires that might have heen an asset to liim. As it happened, the small damage that had been done was nobly met by an insurance company—a few miserable pounds —whereas if the heroic blighter had not poured salt and flour on the dining room it would have been a gorgeous burn with hundreds of pounds in it for him. The amateur fireman and the unhappy storekeeper never spoke to each other again.

It is possible tliat many of the world's most dreadful wars may have been caused by a bit of undigested cheese hastily consumed by an emperor, a cucumNIGHT ATTACK, -ber with an overdose of vinegar taken by a bloodthirsty marshal, or a crayfish and ale, consumed by a dyspeptic dictator. Which great thought reminds one of the local small boy who was left unguarded for a space. In his domiciliary wanderings he discovered a bag of Brazil nuts bereft of their hard shells and ready to be eaten. He consumed a large quantity of tliis excellent if indigestible provender —and so to bed. In the night loud noises came from the boy's bedroom and ail anxio'.'s mother rushed to the affected area, smoothed his brow and his pillow and asked tenderly, "What's the matter, darling?" And darling, between waking and sleeping, said, "The Abvssinians are attacking—the Abyssinia ns are attacking!" Undoubtedly the little lad had mistaken the Brazilians for the Ethiopians.

A story comes from Central Australia, of a prospector who was attacked by his own camels and wounded, was subsequently torn about by vultures and GO TO THE afterwards found on an ANT . anthill covered with ants. This unfortunate man was i then knocked unconscious in a collision between | gig and tree and crawled eight miles for {assistance. The almost incredible vitality in a backblocker serves to remind one of the myriad hosts of every kind of ant with every kind of lighting apparatus in the Australian waybacks, It is. a common practice when a snake has been killed to throw the body on an ant nest, the whole army at once beginning its incredible exertions in getting rid of the snake. According to the number of the ants, so will the snake disappear, the shining skeleton only being.left. Bushmen have a notion that a snake alleged to be dead is not really dead until sundown—hence the ant treatment. Ants will not only skeletonise anything in the animal kingdom, but will fight each other with remarkable skill, led by generals, preceded by advance guards and with screens of scouts. Soldier ants, either of the large black » variety—an inch in length—or the red-coated battalions of like h'ngth, will fight each other even when beheaded—the head part scrapping violently. A true history of the bad old corn vict days contains the story of the escaping prisoners who, seizing a hated official, pegged j him down alive near an ant colony and laid a train of sugar from ant nest to man. The ants /lid their work. The pegged skeleton was I discovered later.

| In days of old when knights were bold |and barons held ladles of boiling lead to pour I upon their besieging relatives below as they I tried to climb the walls j TIT FOR TAT. in armour, revenge was as dear to the man who I got a splash of hot lead through his morion as it is to-day. Revenge often consisted in chaining a lead-swinger (or thrower) to the wall in a dark, damp dungeon below the moat with rats for companions and the rest of a life to think it over. If the barons had possessed poison gas they'd have used it. It was recently said that the Its had used modern poison gas on the Abs and it revived the ] story of the Spaniards and the Riffs. Ad El ! Krim was a tough customer and a great general whom General Primo de Rivera found hard to quell. The Spaniards, knowing that , Krim had no gas, gave him some waves of the same. The Riffs stood it as well as they 'could, but next day Krim dispatched a messenger under a white flag to the Spaniard chief with this message: "Every time you attack with poison gas we will boil a hundred Spanish prisoners alive." The Spanish gas attacks were not continued. Some discreet international cookery, one feels, would greatly disturb those sacred scientists who sit in laboratories inventing hell. A selected battalion of shepherded scientists thinking out diabolical chemical torture for others might be anfong the first to be admitted to the loyal order of the trypot. It would save a lot'of future international agony.

THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. The more gross the fraud the more glibly will it go down, and the more greedily will | it be swallowed; since folly will always find faith wherever impostors will find impudence. —Colton. Man in himself a little world doth bear, His soul the monarch ever ruiit?" Micro, Wherever then his body do remain, He is a king that i:i i,i>i:si-li . reign, j And never fcareth fortune's hut\ i ahu n:* | That bears against her patience for his arms. —Drydoih j