THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 91, 17 April 1936, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

T) „„ r M.A.T.,—Your paragraph rc the demolition of the old Shortland Street P.O. interested me, and also the pithy bit about interest dc{u . Q]d gcnt who

was rewarded by a nice, kind Government by receiving two stamps for his one penny inserted in the lienny-in-tlie-slot machine. I have a son"■ to sing-o about the same handy vendor. Some couple of years ago I popped my in and was agreeably surprised .o see tv o stamps appear at the mouth of Mo mach.ne. Not being a particularly honest sort of y OUII ° man, I thought, "If anybody is going to be in on this, it's me." Looking round with a Bill Sykes air, I quickly inserted another coin. However, instead of two stamps appearing, I got nothing. The mouth of penny-in-thc-slot was bare. It shows that you can t do the Government, but I do think that I sho " have got the stamp to wluch I was legally ! entitled. —I.M.P.

FOILED!

\n unhappy lady, probably not in peifect mental health (vide London message) surprised worshippers in St. Pauls Cathedial by disrobing in that great GODIVA. church. The news was current when Auckland people had a remarkable experience, germane to the London incident. A car stood parked in a local side street. Passers-by looked in the window, and, blushing,_ went their way. Some blushed and went their way and aboutturned, even going back to peep again, buccessive bunches of men passing that, way looked in and hastened away to tell their friends that a lady in the nude sat in that car. The news went further. Many gathered at nearby windows, gazed down 011 the car, and laughed with glee. One man declares he laughed so heartily that he had to remove his°denture to make way for it. It is he who avers—and his name can't be Ananias because he comes from Glasgow—that a clerk in holy orders, passing that way, looked into the car, and retired, blushing profusely. He is said to have returned with a police officer, calling his attention to this frightful nudity in a public street. The constable is alleged to have roared with laughter —and when it was explained and demonstrated that the Godiva of the car was merely one of those lovely artificial figures of the fashion windows on her way for repair, the crowd, grinning still, t fared forth to look for otlier sensations—but | there wasn't even a dog fight.

Felieitations to Mr. Valentine, chairman of the Taranaki Board of Education, who has evolved the bon mot, "There are 110 duds in

any school." Every mother THE TEXT BOOK, will agree with the dic-

turn in special application to her little Jimmy. In real life the splendid young swot does not invariably become the top fruit 011 the tree on the sunny side of the orchard. Thousands of lads remembered with contempt by their fellow scholars as the dullest young devils in the school —lammed by masters and kept in for stupidity—have become great leaders, great scientists, great sailors, soldiers, Prime Ministers. There are, indeed, men whose brains it is impossible to destroy by any system known to educationists, and occasionally there are even educationists who think for themselves. Memory sharks so frequently believe that the fellow who doesn't know some formula known to swot, knows nothing. What you yourself remember of what someone else said, discovered, set down, is so often the basis of the belief that most men are duds except yourself. One of the things no man can do is to lit a boy or girl with a different brain to the one he or she has not been fitted with. You can drive a boy to text books— but you can't make him think. All the men in all the world who stand out and lead their fellows are men of instinct—originators—many of them dull devils in the opinion of sedulous repetitionists. Such a lot of stupid schoolboys are running the world.

Subject to the correction of eye-witnesses, the following railway tragi-comedy is given to the eager public. The train was on its way liitherward from the subHER BABY. tropic North. Among those present were a lady and a younger lady who may have been her daughter. The train was rushing through the scenery at a good New Zealand pace —twenty m.p.h. on down grades—when the elder lady looked eagerly round the carriage and cried repeatedly, "Oh, iny baby! Oh, my BABY!" and burst into tears. A distinctly sympathetic railway clientele rallied round and decided to intimate to the train staff the misfortune that had befallen the lady. Her baby had been left behind at the station of departure. What to do? It was decided that if the hat were sent round and the station of departure advised that search both of the train and of the station of departure would be undertaken and if the baby was found it would be dispatched per taxi cab, the train would be delayed at the next station and the parent and her baby reunited. There is no doubt that the pathos of this unfortunate severance touched the people, so that when successful search revealed the infant all eagerly awaited the coming of the taxi. As the taxi drew up at the delayed train the passengers crowded round, expecting perhaps to find a sympathetic nurse in full uniform with the rescued infant ill her arms. As a matter of fact, a youth seventeen or eighteen years of age and of an altitude of six feet or thereby emerged casually from the cab, .and, addressing the lady, said, "Hello mother!" Mother, relieved of her intolerable anxiety, flew to him and embraced him with, "Oh, my baby—oh, my baby!" It was a touching scene—so they say.

The kindly chemist, speeding along the highway in Aqua Pura Six, noting the pedestrian kicking up the dust, halted and took

him aboard, saying that DOG MENACE, if his friend didn't mind

a couple of flat tyres at the back he was welcome—and they caught the boat. Well, then, asked what he considered to be the special cross of the kindhearted motorist, lie instantly replied, "Dogs!" A dog, ho says, will stroll into the middle of the driving way, sit on his hunkers, and hunt lleas up to the moment the car comes. The driver will dodge to avoid him —and the cussed kuri will stroll the other way, frightening the driver out of his wits. He thinks a dog feels that no decent man wants to kill a dog, and acts accordingly—full of faith—hence the universal dog name, "Fido." The chemist's professional instinct is for chemical action against intruding kuri, although he likes dogs and has avoided them for the past twenty-six years without damaging a single pup. He speculated on the kind of weapon, and concluded that a small tank and nozzle clamped to the bumper with a hose and bulb connection filled with ammonia might fill the bill. Honking, says he, is not sufficient—but honk and a squirt of ammonia might send a dog packing and prevent heart seizures in elderly drivers. Still, mind you, motorists in Auckland are free of the frog plague. Recently in Hampshire hundreds of motorists had to | pull up to avoid mass slaughter of frogs, i They emerge from tree roots and ditches after hibernation, croak across the roads like regiments of Yank crooners, and make for the nearest water to spawn. It would take too many hogsheads of ammonia to disperse them, so the motorists wait till the procession passes.

THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. There is not any way so sure of making others happy as being so one's self to begin with.—Sir Arthur Helps. Real life is, to most men, a long secondbest, a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.—Bcrtrand Russell.