THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 116, 18 May 1936, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

A man has been fined for wilfully damaging a "Police Gazette" by tearing out a record which contained his own photograph. noticed that misdemeanROGUES' ants of any celebrity have GALLERY, the habit of obscuring their faces when a questinn- camera is at work, and it seems natural that Bill Sykes should not desire publicity. One remembers the case of the two friends— a detective and another were browsing in the photographic "rogues' gallery" from -N.b.W. They came across the picture of a smart young man with the record of his crimes added. e detective (it was in a New Zealand city) rose quietly, saying to his friend, "I'll go out and <ret that chap!" He was absent for less than fifteen minutes—and came in with a policeman off the beat in custody. How the man from N.S.W. had ever wangled his way into the force is not known, but the old incident is worth recalling as illustrating the valut of very careful police records.

A man has been sentenced for passing valueless cheques, which is to say that mankind is very trusting, and will continue to be trusting, for there are THE TORN more honest people about CHEQUE, than the other kind. Any old-timer will tell you that in earlier days when actual money was scarce the cheque was often currency. When the back-country boss gave up paying Bill in sheep, allowing them to feed on the run and increase, he paid by cheque. Old Man •Squatter's cheque often had a wild and ragged career before it reached a bank and passed from dirty hand to hand just as if it was real money. Backblocks toilers had. the almost invariable habit when they had "cut out",„tlieir job of cutting out their cheques in the nearest hostelry, so that many of the cheques were gathered before they were utterly microbic, ragged and smelly. But it is the fact that in many cases the most decrepit cheqfues passed from hand to hand for months or even years until somebody with a bank account imprisoned the derelict in an account. Which goes to show that there were dreadfully honest people about long before you were born—and anyhow, working backblockers were not very good penmen. There were very few "bruminies" about.

Somebody watching tlie civic obedience of tli© Auckland morning crowd mentioned that it seems to be but yesterday since all the street discipline could be GRIM GAME. covered with a tarpaulin.

People resented being put or staying put, and when queues became the habit grannie still butted into the centre of the tail, and got away with it. Even now the footpath ordinance is often not obeyed, and sullen souls peevishly object. And this, fellow says we are a meelc people. Then one reads that New Zealanders. are "too grim" in their football, which is the antithesis of that meekitude they are accused of. After all, football began grimly, and probably grew from the germ of street fights with cudgels, when apprentices had "clubs" (in both senses) and a cracked sconce was a commonplace. Grim New Zealand footballers who come out of a game a bit knocked about are mere successors to the lads of the village who used to play early football in two armies, with the town ends for the goals and broken heads and shines as victories. You imagine as a modern imitation of old-time football a hundred or two Pon3onbians meeting a hundred and fifty allcomers in Queen Street and being "grim." There have been old-time British games played in old-time British towns that have ultimately been "refereed" by troops. On the whole, we are not as grim as we were. There hasn't been a murder at a cricket match for years.

That very large body of diners and lunchers who take their tucker, skoff, kai or food away from home of a necessity, usually agree that food served in HOT PLATES. a hundred eating places is good. Auckland used to have a reputation for the fewness of its eating places and the largeness of its portions. It has now a reputation for. the large numbers of its excellent feederies. Many people flit from eatery to eatery day by day seeking the perfect meal, and one man is said* to have received his plate from a beaming official recently with a "Wow!"—it was so hot. This is almost the only case of supreme hotness heard bf. Querulous birds hankeriug after warm food for a cold stomach after a day of foodless toil smile wryly when they receive excellent warm food on a stone-cold plate. One complainant goes so far as to say that in a long round of restaurants there was an almost total absence of hot plates. He thinks the ancient art of keeping food warm by putting it on a warm plate needs reviving. He declares that to receive meat and vegetables beautifully cooked that congeal into greasy islands in coldish weather is repellant not only to the trained gourmet but to the mere plebeian sender of eigliteenpence or half-a-crown. He, of course, toys with the idea common among the elite of many generations of "covers" for the banquet (and even tureens for the soup). He says that he has even had the boldness of late to say in distinct tones. "Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, gravy and two veges.—and a hot plate, please," and has watched the look of pained astonishment on the face of the administator of kai. He thinks that an establishment with habitual hot plates would be eaten out of house and home by myriads of delighted gastronomists.

Philologists investigating the profundities of verbiage, necessarily neglect those simplicities of language common to the proletariat,

who are "habituated to BUDDING the utilisation of a mere ORATORS, half-thousand words in their diurnal conversations. Your" observations will have taught you that the juvenile who, following the paternal direction, hopes to achieve at some futuristic era a Himalayan altitude in politics, •rejects, too, the simplicity of dissertation of the everyday conversationalist, and distends his sentences inordinately, using syntactic efflorescences. ' These simple thoughts have been promulgated (if one may use an indicative expression) 011 overhearing a nine-year-old boy, son of a gentleman habituated to publie speech. A little girl friend during play had hidden in a garden shed. The coming statesman was outside with a hammer beating loudly on the tin roof. The little girl screamed— and the small future statesman said, "Poor child, she is full of apprehensions."

THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. It's deadly commonplace, but, after all, the commonplaces are the great poetic truths. —R. L. Stevenson. It is difficult to be happy without a horizon.—Callistlienes. Good purposes should be the directors of good actions, not the apology for bad.—Anon. This our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything. —Shakespeare. Passing sweet Are the domains of tender memory. —Wordsworth.