THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 173, 23 July 1936, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

He was a big, broad, burly man and lie looked like a statue of physical power standing on a brick or two among the remains of our much farewelled ShortPAXIENCE ON land Street P.O. He stood A in about the same place MONUMENT. on successive days and with a kind of saturnine gloom watched the gradual disappearance of the pile. One felt that he might be a depressed architect mourning over the destruction of a nice old bit of work sacrificed to make a townplanning holiday. So constant were his visits to the spot and his look of gloom so pronounced that an inquisitive citizen one morning stood by him and watched for an opportunity to speak. The man himself opened the conversation. '■Ruddy good bricks them nr.istei bin," lie said. "Yes—first-class stuff," raid the inquisitive one. "You come here every day, don't you?" "Yairs," said the contempkitor, "I thought I mighta got a jorb." "But the stuff is nearly all shifted." "Oh, I don't want no jorb shiftin' bricks —I'm looking for a jorb 011 the 1100 road."

David Lloyd George, the great British statesman, fell ill a few years ago, underwent an operation, bucked up and is now seventy-three. He has just BE BLITHE! completed writing one million words in four years. People who complain of corns 011 their lingers where the pen grates or worn-down finger nails where the forefinger hits the dratted typewriter might raise a cheer for the "little Welsh lawyer." Lloyd George began his memoirs when he was sixty-nine, an age at which so many men spend a life of moan with their slippers 011 the hob. He has been writing a quarter of a million words a year and he will get a thumping price for his six volumes, because they will deal with the most momentous times in the annals of the Empire. This is not to recommend you to be Lloyd-Georgian, because you couldn't be, but is in aid of the spifiication of that horrid heresy that a man ought to gracefully retire at forty or sixty or seventy and twiddle his thumbs. There was to-day a man skipping along the wharf bearing his whiskers blithely. Who's that? quoth This of a fellow wordsmith. The f.w.said who it was and added, "He's seventy-nine—going Home to the North of Ireland to get married." Of course he was lying, but his meaning was clear. You're never too old unless the works have gone bung.

Without venturing an opinion as to the impiety or otherwise of permitting lotteries, one could remind the populace that in all

ages people of all nations THE LOTTERY, have decided matters

grave and gay with drawn straws, with tossed coins, with anything agreed upon as being decisive. There have been notable occasions when the parties to a dispute, despairing of lawyers, have tossed a decisive halfpenny to the mutual satisfaction of the parties. "They parted my raiment among them and upon my vestments did they cast lots." There are Biblical cases of lottery that would hardly satisfy modern scrutineers, and in the little matter of Joseph's coat tlie methods might have been fairer. Among the interesting lotteries in real and fictional life are those which deal with the fate of man. Castaways starving in forlorn boats have cast lots, per various lengths of splinters, as to who should drink the last spot of water, or which of the survivors should become breakfast for the party. Come to think of it, life itself is a lottery, long straws for some and short ones for others. Enormously respectable companies whose greatest boast is that they possess, say, a hundred million pounds of your money, knowing that life is a lottery, •gamble 011 the chances of your survival. In dear old England the State lotteries used to be the semi-annual events of the year, but the race has become mycli more pious and stupendous lotteries are left to the Latin races. One conies to the old conclusion that people at heart remain as human as Joseph's brethren.

While we talk of centenaries and anniversaries it is not unbecoming for an admiring old soldier to drop in and say a word of that

almost incredible New LONEHANDER Zealand soldier, Richard DICK. Clark Travis, V.C., D.C.M.,

M.M., Belgian Croix de Guerre, killed in action. He was tlie man who in counter raids against the Germans repeatedly led daylight patrols up to the enemy's trenches. For forty days and nights this astounding hero was in No Man's Land — lone-handed. He had a roving commission. On this day in 191S, at Rossignol Wood and thereby, there was hell to play; and Travis played a good deal of it. To the right of the Second Otagos massive wire entanglements made it impassable. In broad daylight the amazing Travis crawled out with two Stokes mortar bombs in close proximity to Fritz and reached the block of wire. He blew up the block of wire and made the way clear for attack. Subsequently Travis, smoking a cigarette, was watching the left of the attack when the German machine guns checked it. He leapt from the block, rushed straight at the position, and with a revolver killed the seven men of the German machine gun crews and captured the guns. Four Germans charged Travis. He shot them all. On the twentyninth this amazing man was killed by a fragment of shell. His death cast a gloom over the battalion. This man had magic gifts as a soldier, and on this anniversary manv a comrade will have a thought for the lonehander. probably the outstanding fighter of a great Dominion army.

An old identity who mentions that he is seventy years of age, but wlio merely signs himself "Memories," is reminded by "Off His Course" of earlier days. MEMORIES. A most correct lady returned to Auckland after fifteen years' absence with a pleasant memory of ISS7, when she had enjoyed the Pollard Juvenile Company in Gilbert and Sullivan's Operas. Scanning the "Auckland Star" (she still has an 1863 copy of the first "Star") she noted that "La Mascotte" was billed for that evening. Alone she went across the water to Fuller's Opera House in Wellesley Street (now S. and C.'s building), and got a good seat in the dress circle. . A Chinese took a seat next to her. Then came a well-known "bottle-oh" and many others, but none in evening clress. Fur coats in those days were regarded without favour. The curtain rose, disclosing an unusually tall, loudly-dressed man with huge black and white check trousers and a grotesque little hat, awkwardly carrying in his arms a baby. From the wing a distraught fjernale appeared shrieking, "Oh, here you are!" frantically grasping the baby. The man monologuist had explained that while walking up Queen Street r female had thrust the child into his arms and bolted. The lady, who ha,d been absent so long, sat trying to remember this particular scene from "La Mascotte." Then she heard the distraught woman invite the man with the baby to "Come and have a drink," the man replying, "No thanks —I'm not dry now." Shrieks of applause from the audience. The correct lady left and ascertained that during her absence from Auckland a new Opera House (His Majesty's) had been built. A THOUGHT FOR TO-DAY. Cheer up —there's all the future to try and put things right in.—Eden Phillpotts.