THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 135, 9 June 1936, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

c '-Snowdrop" sends a dainty flower, par- ■ taking somewhat of the appearance .of the ; JSBi «„„»■,„,„„ «^««;a : w]NTE ?aS A pe. "i. r'«r;| :i says tliat i" proof that ? Taihape is not so wintry in winter time as ' ,\TLrf weather and outside a g™nh°™; ' th<. flower a specimen of which is on the t t bio is. allv called a "snowflake," each • huton h vin-' a series of little green spots ' oi the eSge of the petals. The snowdrop is t l all white. I ■ ) LITTLE newspaper-wrapped par- - HERBERT, col. Carefully he removed the paper, and, patting the naked crayfish fondly, sat it on the seat alongside, speaking a few words of encouragement The conductor went his round. The > companion of the crayfish handed up Ins own ; fare smiled, received his ticket, and pocketed , it The'conductor was about to pass along. i knd the friend of the crayfieh said to the t official, "Give little Herbert a ticket, too — . produced twopence, and patted his friends red i head Little Herbert received no ticket, but t lie advertised his presence. The audience i smiled. The world ifi still enthusiastically trustful. Even locally one may see thousands of ' people eagerly devouring books of prophecies, ' " dream books and books THE PROPHETS, of astrology. One feels ! that even now the old : witch who used to prophecy like anything may [ have been rig'ht in the following forecast: And this -world to an end shall come , In eighteen hundred and eighty-one. [ Old Moore ie on the job for 1937 for Britain. [ For April the seer forecasts: "The Budget [ proposals have a mixed reception. . . . The Cup Final will be fought out by teams representing widely differing areas. The victory will be intensely popular." Another horse to win over any course is tipped for , October: "Countries of the world will seek a solution of the problem of stable currencies." ! The shape of things to come tapers rather , gloomily, with the star of Peace being . gradually obscured in December, but "the world may still avoid another disaster," and the old seer's words remain nothing more than a note of warning sounded in time. After a protracted spell of dry weather it necessarily follows that umbrellas have strayed in the beatific interval. One man tells present infrequent A LITTLE DAMP, umbrelliet that looking for his gamp this Tuesday morning when the indications were favourable for its use, he found it suspended from the washhouse ceiling by the handle, opened, and containing several dozen large onions. Complaining of this intolerable insult to a muchprized family- relic, his wife deliberately informed him that she had done this thing to force him to buy a new one. He has. This Tuesday morning a suburbanite left home without an umbrella. During the morning he called at the office of a friend, and, said he, "D'you remember, about six weeks ago, mi coming in to see you and leaving a crookhandled gamp behind? ,, "Yes," trilled the friend—"it's behind the safe—quite safe," got it, and handed it over. The pleased visitor shook the dust out, rolled it, and, with thanks, left his friend. The man with the umbrella emerged into Queen Street. On his way to his own lair he stopped for a moment to speak to a friend, who seemed so pleased to see him. And the friend said. "By Jove, Jack—thoughtful of you. 1 see you've brought my brolly back the first wet day- —thanks, old'man"— and took it from him. Aching for knowledge, present voting student selected a man and asked him to'what he attributed his most excellent health at an advanced age, his ability SUNNY SIDE. to smoke the dreadful pipe he was masticating, his bright eye and his intention to see many more peach seasons. And the veteran solemnly replied, "I always walk on the sunny side of the street." He seemed to believe it, too. His whole active working life had been sedentary, most of it scratching away *in a concrete bin which the sun lias reached but rarely. For thousands of his days he would be on the I street a few minutes before work, several minutes at lunch time and a negligible space of moments at knock-off. Among these thousands of days there would be a large proportion that were sunless —there would no sunny side of the street." If he walked on the sunny side of the street at an average three minutes per day for fifty years he would be lucky. If you had suggested to that man that he is a hale and hardy octogenarian because he conies of a long-lived line, that he wasn't brought up on the bottle, that he has been so strong that microbes bounce off him, his broken bones mend like a charm, that he can guzzle "indigestible foods" and survive—that he can live dangerously without danger—he would say, "Nay, nay, iaddie—it's all because I have walked on the sunny side of the street" —and the belief will help him along nicely until he's ninety. A shivery message comes from the Northern Territory. Five poisoned blackfellows and a speared white dingo trapper — all dead—have been • DRINK AND FOOD, found. Said that it is likely that when the i blacks had speared the white man—he poisoned the tucker with strychnine so as to ' get his post-mortem revenge. Backblocks ( people are casual with poisons. Strychnine is ' used in immense quantities for poisoning S rabbits. Arsenic in quantities for dressing '■ skins. Three rather novel poison affairs in 1 one's own experience recur. In South Aus- ( tralia a thirsty man coming across a rabbit- ' trapper's camp found a bucket of water hanging on the ridgepole. He drank copiously. The water was a very strong arsenic solution. On the Murrumbidge'e River there lived in a boat in the middle of the stream an aired rabbiter. He slept on several hundred rabbit E skins all "cured" with strong arsenic solution. ' As no one had seen this old man for eome f time, a trooper pulled out to the boat. The ;l trapper , was extremely dead. Backblocks e strychnine used to be coloured pink. Present s wanderer once very gratefully dropped across 1 a bark hut—obviously a boundary rider's C home, sweet home. The occupant was away. " The flour bag stood on its end, the mouth v opened. On it rested a bit of bark with thie l; notification (per burnt stick) to passers-by: s "Striknin sprinklid in tins floure." Black- * fellows can't read—and a spot of pink won't stop 'cm. THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. . n Thoughts create the individual. ]- You are not what you think you are, j ( But what your thoughts are. j, "Aβ a man thinketh in his heart so is he." 6 —Anon. The most helpful people in the world are ever the most hopeful. To believe the best b of life is to encourage it. —Bishop Freeman. si