THE PASSING SHOW

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 139, 13 June 1936, Page 8

THE PASSING SHOW

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

Extract from the pen of a United States naturalist who appears not to we ,"i °™ r " ,0 J.OBD LAUGHTER- jUai,' • Vkiivl T+a uproarious an exceedingly annoying bird Its P n screams are not unlike tnoae ui idiot. But with its disappearance came a plague of snakes, and it was learned tooja^ that the laughing jackass is champion snake killei.

£'i--srrr= NOTHING DOING, going to do to P ec P lc ; **£ absolutely refuse happiness? Komissars recently flitting from verst to verst sowing joy came a little com mime with no radio! The high chief sr offered the village a radio. iou w. l e ible to hear the speeches we make in tem" trad'" he said. "Can we talk back?" asked tl.n heid villager "Xo!" said the konnssar. "We don't like radios," said this unpleasant reactionary. .i

Dear M.A.T., —A recent paragraph in your column "made merry. over the orthographic shortcomings sometimes seen on the makeshift direction posts 111 "TO WADA." the . Xever Xever. The writer holds in grateful memory one such effort, which read Jo Wada." With .an empty water bag and all in and physically unfit to make the next well, the writer saw the two words made by a burnt stick .on a quartz outcrop. The notice led to a soak which relieved the situation and almost certainly saved a new chum's life. — A.F. Xo more suitable weather could be selected than the last preceding days to enjoy 'flu (or even a common cold). Medical authorities —themselves frequent TISHOO! sniffers—insist on total immersion in blankets, and will pardon perhaps the making of a solarium with the family clothes horse at the sunny corner of the dear old home. A blanket hung over the windward angle, the remaining half being extremely handy to suspend handkerchiefs on, the whole forming a romantic glade (or grove). Happily, the solarium stood at the corner passed by the whole army corps of hawkers. Their formula on observing the sniffer differed slightly, but was based 011 the interrogation, "Har! Gotter cold?" Present patient politely replied, "Yeth, I've god a code id by dose," conferring blessings and buying pants buttons several times. On one occasion as the sun was sinking (in the west) a burly itinerant surprised present patient,' who was reading a book and making noises into a hanky. "Har!" he bellowed. "Gotter cold?" "Xo!" said the reader. "I was just laughing." "Larfin'! Wot at?" "Well, Darwin and Disraeli, G'arlyle, Dickens and Emerson were all ill. Queen Elizabeth had ten distinct diseases, Michelangelo had cancer, Moliere was consumptive, Handel was paralysed, Rubens had gout and neuralgia." "Go on!" said the hawker. "Wot about a sixpenny card o' .pants buttons?" Then Rosemary (who had dropped that germ pecking pa a fond good-night) intervened to say that as the sun was going down and the clothes horse was wanted .

He blew on his fingers to warm them, as he .would have blown 011 his fingers to cool them. He moistened his thumb in the friendly way common to the counTHE DAILY try and opened his paper. FLATIRON. "Even the dashed newspaper is cold," said he. And when liis elbow mate asked him why his newspaper hadn't been ironed that day he did not comprehend. In remoter days in drear old Blighty the maid who brought the newspaper to 'the master (or missus) unironed was severely reprimanded and was probably told to "provide herself," whatever that meant. London papers used to arrive in British counties in quires—large, heavy and rather soggy bundles —and were folded by the whole strength of the company. Even men who were to become Ministers of the Crown been known to wrestle with a bunch .of "Times spread out 011 a cellar table under a gas burner, folding violently. Present emanci-. pated person could do it now—even without a gas burner. Nowadays, magic machinery counts, folds and piles the same, and all is better. The human boy who lired "The Times" over the colonel's fence would probably be hanged, drawn and quartered, and the lad who dropped the paper on the mat, yelled and scooted would possibly be brought back, interrogated and his weekly shilling docked for this nefarious- conduct. Deliverers decorously pulled the street bell, waited in a deathly silence until the maid took delivery, and faded away in respectful gloom. Monday's "Times" was threepence on Monday —if you kept it. Monday's "Times" was threelia'pence if it was collected by the boy and delivered to somebody else on Tuesday. And everything was wrapped in newspapers—from bread and fish and meat to news. But the customer had to have his news ironed.

The immense importance of teeth, natural or otherwise, induces hospital boards to offer larger advantages to the toothless or partly toothless who are not THIRD CROP. millionaires. Presumably for hundreds of years (maybe thousands) millions of people, both opulent and needy, losing their grinders, masticated their food with their gums, and in many cases ate prodigious feeds with this unarmed machinery and lived to great ages. Old people wlio have for a decade or two swallowed lumps of meat whole, mumbled chops, steaks and sausages, and performed marvels of assimilation, frequently fear dental aid, and there still remain aged persons who refuse it. Amateur dentists have been called in to perform extractions in cases where the patient feared the highly-skilled professional. One particularly remembers the case of an octogenarian lady who certainly could afford the ministrations of a dentist. She ate heartily of anything that was going with her gums bare except for a single upper tooth that engaged a single lower one —an awkward sort of thing. Meals went along very well until Nature, feeling the old lady was being neglected, grew a new tooth in her lower jaw. This was not good—she couldn't "masticate"— and dentists were suggested. The terrified old soul couldn't tiear the thought—but she would let her son-in-law dent, all he wanted. And so present trembler sought the only forceps available—a pair of blacksmith's pliers —and made a clean sweep of the two loose wagglcrs and the unsatisfactory juvenile cf the third generation. The old lady within a few days was again masticating cheerily on her bare gums, iappily swallowing chunks of meat and otherwise doing well. Queer, but true. THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. If the action be of worth that I take in hand, neither feliall an ill accident discourage me, nor a good one make me careless.—Owen Feltham, IC2O. The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready when his opportunity comes. — Disraeli. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.—Song of Solomon.