THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 140, 15 June 1936, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

Notable 'warriors, breathing fire and polishing up the snickersee, are beseeching civilian?, to get rid of their war souvenirs, cmuans 0 Ajjatralia . paf ticularly SOUVENIRS. of late, father's souvenirs which lie brought back from the front to decorate the peaceful little home have '"gone off," killing units of £he second generation without any glory whatever. Very tame —just the same as an old soldier surviving a couple of wars, coming home, ana dra< T,r ing'a loaded (and cocked) fowling piecc bv the barrels through a wire fcnce with fatal results. Commanding officers and others who mav vet be blown up in a glorious manner and in a perfectly legitimate international war are pointing out that grenades, bombs, shells and ammunition are dangerous U'! lec ® attended to by an expert. The internal fillings have a tendency to develop chemical nations, so that when Jane is dusting the shell (all the way from Messines) and is putting the sweet souvenir back in the parlour fireplace—it may kill Jane. It would, of course, be quite all right for a shell like that to have blown Tom. Jack and Harry into bits during a glorious war —but Jane? Dear, dear, dear —and in peace time, too! Jane- in peaceful times m many parts of the world is at pr&sent'^practising breathing through gas masks so when it comes down to brass tacks the sweet old ■souls who beseech Jane to be of war souvenirs, really desire to keep her for legitirAate occasions, when it will be perfectly glorious to smash Jane as well as John receiving decorations for the same. Statesmen, epicures and the common herd are waiting with poised forks for the festive rock oyster, which opens on Thursday next. The preliminary oyster is — : AND STOUT, so important * that the bringing of him (or her) from Stewart Island in aeroplanes to Auckland has been discussed. But what is discussed most by people who knew old times is the fact that within the memory of man there was "open slather" and oysters were for any who bad a hammer, an oyster rock and an appetite; One reprobates with horror the nefarious conduct of people who, disregarding the law, purloin oysters as if they were the gifts of heaven and not an invention of Governments. One has watched with immense interest the State, by its servants, transplanting infant colonies of—yes, these bivalves— from rock to rock, so that Bellamy's be not without. One has witnessed inspectorial launches change their paint frequently in order that no oyster should reach an unhallowed throat. And one day one was watching authorised men among the oysters arranging their futures. One said to a gentleman of the staff who was staggering about with a family of oysters on a piece of rock, "I suppose you can have a few oysters for yourself?" The ! reply was decisive, "I can't a-bear the damn things—l liates the ruddy sight of 'em." Mind you, when the Romans found that the ancient Britons ate oysters, they regarded them as nasty, dirty, slug-eating savages—and later copied tbeni to the point of emetics. Australia occasionally pinches one of us and labels us Commonwealth. It is a harmless sort of tiling to do, for people who make a naiiie belong to the "EX-NEW world. Hugh Walpole, a ZEALANDER." novelist, and who is likewise literary, is set down in a public library catalogue as aif Australian, whereas, of course, he is an Aucklander, born in Parnell, and was in New Zealand four whole years. He hasn't got any particular admiration for "Australasian" writers —and that doesn't matter. He can't imagine, for instance, literature "being created in a country like Australia"—yet who knows? Lots of musical highbrows couldn't haVe imagined Melba being born in the Commonwealth —or Scientist Rutherford being born in Nclscm. By the way, Hugh Walpole is editor of "The Diabetic Journal," himself having been a diabetic for about ten years. Like H. G. Wells, who invented the Diabetic Association (bein? a diabetic, too), Walpole is rather proud of it, and lots .of these dear old souls regard it as a sort of a discipline. It is.' You have to be clever to live (and so on) say they. Walpole hails the necessity of using insulin for the remainder of his life with equanimity and writes almost friskily about it. It is not so expensive to be ill where Walpole lives. One exceedingly regrets that a recent grammatical mistake in this column was not made by present writer. One might write ten thousand paragraphs THE MISTAKE, as flawless as a Kohi-

noor (God grant that the spelling is rightly and hear 110 word from the world —but a flaw in grammar? Heavens! At a rough computation, 011 the day of this error there were twenty-five million errors in the newspapers of the world. Fifty, million readers who hadn't tiie faintest interest in whether the news was good or clever, whether the article was original, bright or about something, loved, those errors. Something to snap about. Ever noticed that the one little thing a person knows is the only thing worth knowing? One knows a man whose celebrity lies in pronouncing Takapuna "Tuekapoona," and all who don't accept this are ignorant fools. King George used to receive the 'first copy of the London "Daily Mail" printed 011 expensive paper. Lord Rothermere wished to be able to declare the paper to be without error. He offered every inducement —bonuses, prizes and rewards for a perfectly errorless paper —but the staff couldn't do it.* He called the staff, telling them that he was about to send the first copy of the issue every day to the King. "This will be the Royal copy."' lie said, "and every other copy will be exactly the same as the Royal copy, except for the printing paper. And," he added, "His Majesty's Royal copy must be without error." Fleet Street men have said that errors dropped 00 per cent. "Xot 100 per cent?" might ask the correspondent who spotted a grammatical mistake in this column. G. T\. Chesterton, the fantastic literary genius who lived in a world of inky topsyturvy, is dead.. His gifts were amazing, and no one else using English "G.K.C." had his fecundity and his variety. Xo one ever imitated him. because he was inimitable. His literary estimates of contemporaries or of the masters who have gone were without peer, if sometimes bizarre, and it is certain that lie was one of the few great literary figures of his time who could charm an audience with the tongue as with the pen. Xo one, one fancies, knew if Chesterton wrote his speeches, swotted them and recited them, or merely oozed his verbal topsy-turvy philosophy without preparation. Ckcstertofi was as recognisable a figure as was Dr. Johnson. Johnson used to walk down Fleet Street patting the posts as he walked—counting them. Sometimes he would forget a post and would amble back and give it a pat for luck. Xobjdy laughed at the great man—and nobody laughed at the ponderosity of "G.K.C." —except in his writings or his talkings. Very likely the stout genius latterly went round in a "motor car, but his favourite vehicle was a small pony carriage, into which he entered by a low step. His weight was\ so great that the step almost touched the ground. If he was being driven in this little trap, the side on which he sat would sag so low that the driver-boy would seem to be perched 011 a mountain alongside. Everybody stared at "G.K.C."—everybody stared .it his books. His work was lively— it jumped about. It will continue jumping. Sometimes he would take an immense mail into a park and read it there—throwing the envelopes hither and thither. And parkkeepers and constables would say, "Sh-h-h-li! It's llr. Chesterton There are none like him—there couldn't he. Latterly his great bulk dwindled. His fame will not dwindle.