THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 288, 5 December 1935, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

Dear M.A.T.,—Overheard in Fort Street on election night as Labour victories kept mounting up. "Gee whiz, I wonder what Bill Massey would say if he THE BULL. were here to-night." An

Irish voice was heard: "Begorra, if Bill Massey was alive to-day he would turn in his grave!"— Twelve Bar.

Dear M.A.T.,—The question of how this name originated seems to exercise the minds of the present generation. Some attribute it to Dickey Barrett's bad WORSER BAY. grammar, but surely there are people still resident in Wellington who have heard of Captain Worser, after whom the bay takes its name. It was in February, 1842, the ship Lord Auckland, Captain Jardine, bound from London to Nelson, lay in Palliser Bay, when a passing whaler asked, "What are you doing there?" "Looking for Wellington Harbour," Captain Jardine replied. "You had better get out quick or you will be blown ashore," said the whaler. At Captain Jardine's request the whaler piloted the Lord Auckland to Wellington and subsequently to Nelson. The master of the whaler was Captain Worser. My parents, who 'were passengers on board the Lord Auckland, told me that they had conversed with Captain Worser, "the little old whaling man with a wooden leg."—Dornford Thompson.

A balanced diet is desirable for future supermen and superwomen, although most of the millions of the earth survive on diets so

unbalanced as to horrify THE DIETITIANS. Western dietitians. Mother

had been impressing on the small daughter (who, like so many children, shies at vegetables) the necessity of eating them, saying that she could not expect Father Christmas to be kind to her if she neglected them. So the little one vitamined copiously and obediently—and they went to see how the early commercial Christmas was proceeding. It was proceeding in a very wintry costume with cheerful summer smiles. Two Messrs. S. Claus greeted her. One, she noted, was wearing winter gumboots and the other nice spring shoes, but both had beautiful white whiskers and fur and all that. But what astonished the small girl was that Santa of the gumboots was as keen a dietitian as mother. When he asked her what she would like for a Christmas present she replied, "Oh, I'd love a doll's pram." Then Santa asked gravely, "But do you eat your vegetables?" When she got home she said, "Oh, mother — however did Santa Claus know ?"

A suburban vicar has very reasonably | shown no continued desire to hire the Parish Hall for dances, as one of his tasks has been to collect bottles around TOO FULL the buildings any mornFOR WORDS, ing succeeding a dance. He whimsically remarked 'that they were always empty. Other collectors in times gone by have been luckier. There is the well-known Takapuna case of the Indian hawker, who, being directed by a maid to the empty department (the washhouse) of her employer, bagged four dozen. The master, returning home that evening, after dinner demanded ale —and, alas, there was none. The removal of the empties was mentioned by the family. "Heavens!" he shrieked. "Ten of those empties were full." Then there is the even truer case of the man who did not sell his empties, but made garden borders of them —necks down, hollow ends up. It was his rather nasty custom to plant rows of full ones as well as of marines—for a rainy day, as it were. But in the course of time he and his family shifted. He ultimately discovered to his unutterable horror that he had left several dozen undoubtedly full bottles of ale bordering the paths of the deserted old home. He pined about these treasures, and at last he could bear it no longer. He went to the old house and saw the new tenant telling his pathetic story. "There were about ten dozen of them not opened," he sobbed. "Yes —I know," said the new tenant. "Good beer it was, too!"

Cabled that as an answer to sanctions against Italy the authorities in Trieste are distributing "a buck and doe rabbit to the

dwellers to keep the meat RABBIT and fur business going, SANCTIONS, thus, one assumes, mak-

ing it unnecessary to obtain beef, mutton and pork from unkind and pernicious foreigners. The rabbit breeders having enough young fur and meat to keep the family going will give a spare young buck and a young doe to the Borough Council, the Meat Department or the County Furrier, and so the beautiful system will proceed. Anyone who knows anything about rabbits will understand that every Triestian will be giving a buck and doe to the Borough Council (etc.) every few weeks, for the fecundity of bunny is so alarming that he might reasonably be expected to fill up the 475 square miles of Trieste with his families before the Ab-It war is over. They grow grapes and other edibles in Trieste, but if the anti-sanctions rabbit business flourishes they'll have to rip the vineyards up and move most of the old palazzios to make room for grass. On the other hand, the anti-sanctions bunny may be the pure inspiration of a journalist, for Italy is crammed from the toe to the heel of the boot with journalists —the Master being one, too. After all, the rabbit notion is copied from Russia, where awhile since the Ogpu invited the proletariat to breed emus in the backyard to prevent future famines —emu steak for breakfast (ugh!) and emu eggs for tea (pah!). Some people got served out, with two roosters —and waited for eggs!

Dear M.A.T., —Now summer is nearly here the subject of men's dress lias cropped up. Our traffic inspectors are grateful for their lighter

clothing, but our postTHE ETERNAL men, with their heavy QUESTION. burdens, have had nothing

done for them, and. even the ordinary citizen is always a matter of amusement with his heavy winter suit in a February swelter. Twenty summers ago I had the effrontery to wear suits of white duck, and I didn't care one of those tinker's things when I was greeted with such subtle humour as "Here comes the ice cream man." Was it really humour or envy of my dinkum comfort or envy of my pluck or bravado? I was inspired to think thus on reading in your column some anecdotes of Lord Jellicoe. When we stood shivering in Auckland one winter's day I said to him: "If it were possible for you to enhance your popularity would you do something in the cause of humanity that would make you immortal in the hearts of Aucklanders?" His ever-ready emile was there with "What?" I said, "Leave Government House at 11 a.m. on our first real summer Saturday morning dressed in tennis togs, no socks and a. Panama hat. walk up Princes Street, down Wellesley Street and Queen Street." I shall never forget his sad smile — he also being a sufferer—when he said, "It's not part of my gubernatorial duties to lead men's fashions, but if only I could! You see . . . !"—A.L.D. THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. Parents are mistaken if they think their existence a necessity for their children. Every living creature finds its own nourishment, and even if a fatherless boy has a less happy and less sheltered youth he may profit from having to train himself more quickly for life from realising in time that we must adapt ourselves to others—a truth we all liavo to learn sooner or later.—Goethe.