THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 261, 4 November 1935, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) A friend -writes: Fred "Foley lias taken the last curtain call. To thousands of £e\v Zealandere, even in pre-picture days, ined gave much, entertainment* FRED FOLEY. —he was, writer considers, one of the greatest singlehanded entertainers south of the line. Giving a two hours' show, he travelled extensively throughout Australia, New Zealand and the East. Music, sliadowgraphy, magic, sleight-of-hand and ventriloquism comprised a talented offering that was welcomed in villagee from "the North Cape to the Bluff. Somewhere about thirty years back I met the sliowv in Naseby, then largely populated by Chinese fossickers, and these comprised the hulk of the audience. One of Fred's tricks was that .Known as "The Inexhaustible Bottle, fi om which came any drink asked for by members of the audience. On this particular occasion several Chinamen partook freely of the bottle, but loud and long were the yells, culminating in a noisy exit from the hall, when the magician, "finding" a blockage in the bottle, broke it to produce a live guinea pig.

Old artillery shells are interesting if you just let them be, and the wisdom of just letting them be has been shown recently enough. European countries are THE rather bored with shells, UNEXPECTED, especially France, where they get in the way of the plough and have been turned up in the post-war years in quantities sufficient to make Japanese collectors of old iron envious. Deadly souvenirs are very precious to housewives and those who love little decorative effects for the sitting room. Once a New Zealand housewife thought what a pretty little thing a simple pom-pom shell was and put it in the cold summer time fireplace, complete with dinky bits or coloured paper. When winter came a household assistant lit the fire —and the pom-pom —and blew the room to bits. No, nobody was hurt. Remember the Maori who, strolling along a beach, found a queer iron thing with horns on? He got a hammer and a cold chisel to knock a horn off for a souvenir. German mine exploded. Local person has some large, fat black-powder Brown Bess muzzle-loading greasy-paper cartridges—relics of that Maori affair. Rather worn they were—black powder oozed. Dear little boy applied a match to see if powder was still good. It was. Nothing was damaged barring the cartridges. Wlien one hears of ware and shells that explode in peaceful little countries, one often wonders what made a clergyman invent gunpowder.

Increasing numbers of women are buying pipe-cleaners, leading to the grave thought that Phoebe is becoming a pipe smoker. Investigation disperses this "TO WHAT fear. The common, everyBASE USES." day twenty-four for twopence pipe-cleaner has assumed a far more important place in the domestic scheme, for Phoebe does a lot of those dinky curls at the back with them, and even the small girl with the long plaits brings the pipe cleaner into use. Anyone with a few acres of ground to spare might erect a pipecleaner factory while the curly era lasts, for no man's pipe-cleaners are safe at present from wife, daughter or grandmother. In effect, the feminine onslaught on these useful articles is mere retribution for generations of pilfering by men. For a generation or two no woman's hairpins were safe from any man smoker —and now no man's pipe-cleaners are safe from any woman curler. Apart from the pipe-cleaner twist at the end of the feminine coiffure, any house containing women is odorous with the sharp tang of singeing hair and the fold-fashioned curling tongs are commoner than toasting forks or saucepans. The rare effects produced indicate that many young women rise hours before the milkman comes to ply the busy curling tongs—and the useful pipe-cleaner —all in aid of beauty.

The impeccably respectable Yorkshire family of Fawkes will bow no head in disgrace as millions of boys in the Empire burn Guy in effigy on due date. THE EFFIGY. Few families have the

proud distinction of seizing the public imagination and keeping it fresh for 330 years. Rebels have the quaint habit of becoming heroes as the years pass— they even celebrated the death of Peter Lalor, of the Eureka Stockade, in Australia this year —and the family is as respectable the family of Fawkes, which has admirals and other loyalists in it. The central idea of burning somebody who has done something naughty remains through the centuries, but the small boy, not being particularly historical, is at present preparing to burn an effigy of Mussolini with as little reason as they burnt an image of the immortal Guy. Present writer will make a slight wager that in the year 2265 A.D. the boys of Ponsonby will not peramublate Karangaliape Road crying out "A penny for the Benito—a penny for the Mussolini," which will demonstrate that the doings of the Duce will not impress humanity as did t'he doings of the Guy. By tha way, | the undying Guy served in the Spanish Army and would have been interested in seeing other Latins—including Benito—in Abyssinia. It is not to bo forgotten that Guy was not consulted in the Gunpowder Plot of November 5, 1605, to blow up the British Parliament, but that as he was the implement in .use he bore the brunt and went to the rack uncomplaining and as silent as an oyster. Politicians wriggled out. Every November 5 they search the cellars to find the gunpowder—if any. They don't even find a stick of gelignite or a Mills bomb nowadays.

The wordsmith had for a decade sat with his back to the wall, one eye on his bit. of paper (and the table) and the other protecting his front. No person could BACK TO without being observed THE WALL, steal behind him and stab him with a paper knife, and except for a couple of pieces of concrete which had during the years bashed tho windows and fallen near him, nothing whatever of a terrifying nature had taken place. Circumstances constrained him to change his place. He found himself sitting at a table which* except for a sprinkling of chairs, was practically surrounded by atmosphere—a table isolated in a sea of linoleum. Nefarious interlopers might, he felt, steal round him and deal him blows. A scientific friend entering the room unarmed was asked why this absurd and amusing thought of unprotection intruded in the minds of people whose backs were not against a wall. He said that it was a memory of ancient days when one man's hand was against every other man's hand and when each sought the advantage by having something solid behind him, such as a tree, a tombstone—or a wall. The man in tho office at a table entirely surrounded by space was the potential fighter of a' forlorn hope, the descendant of the man with the battleaxe and the wolves, the sword and the enemy. Unarmed in an office, he would instinctively back against a wall, and on being attacked merely lift a forty-pound typewriter and throw it featly at the armed interloper. He might pick up a spent razor blade or a paper knife and sell his life dearly—or, of course, he might wake up from his nightmare—and go to breakfast. THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. Thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away.—Job. Experience is like a comb, which comes into our possessions when we have lost our hair.—Anon.