THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 181, 1 August 1936, Page 8

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

In all ages perspiring geniuses liave sought to attain the unattainable. The endeavour to achieve perpetual motion lias driven many a promising lad silly. The EUREKA! transmutation of baser metal into gold has not only driven men mad, but has been the foundation of a thousand stories. A colonial man of sonic scientific attainment recently went to England to see what was going on in the field of research, notably as applying to the air. He found a young fellow at Lympne who, as money was no object, had been engaged in a single" experiment for three years. He asked this man what he was trying to do. I am trying," said he, "to evolve a universal solvent —one that will dissolve anything. "What," asked the curious colonial, "are you going to keep the solvent in?"

A correspondent who desires to be nameless, referring to a paragraph "Eggs Is Eggs," declares that there are millions of chances of "getting away with it" CONNOISSEURS, in everyday life. He refers to the case of the lady and the sugar in an excellent caravanserai in a colonial city. She was a handsome lady with extremely beautiful eyes, and she raked the admiring diners with these beautiful orbs. During litis dreamy operation she poured a tiny quantity of tea into her cup and from time to time dropped in the cup a lump of sugar. Having filled the cup with excellent cubes of sweetness, she merely emptied the collection into her superb handbag. After all, one hesitates to utterly condemn. She might have taken the silver sugar basin as well — manv ladies do. And one knows a man AAith a collection of splendid pewter and near-silver beer mugs.

Old Tom, according to a friend of his, roamed the wilds of Australia with a swag for thirty years and has roamed the tames of New Zealand for OLD TOM'S TALE, twenty. The other day lie was digging up Queensland reminiscences. lie and his mate were cn!ia (T ed in kangaroo shooting and othei slaughter. They erected a stringybark sapling hut with a bark roof and a bag door and a mud fireplace and settled in. They shot out all the local game, or the local game took to the back-country. Anyway, they had whips and lashings of time to' burn. They had no books to read and 110 sports. Old Tom (younger then) was going bald with lying 011 his bag bunk rubbing his thatch off, and his mate pointed out that Snooper's Sheep Dip was one of the best hair restorers. So they got a gallon or two from the nearest sheep station and both sat in the hut from December to March rubbing in sheep dip—and watching each other's hair grow. As Tom points out, you've got to use your head sometimes.

One asked herein wliv old New Zealand stage-coach drivers remain dumb while old Australian whips sing out perpetually. And a man writes to say: DAYS L.«NG "Reckless Albie Cro.— SYNE, his exploits are surely remembered. Thames to Te A roll 11 —football teams of the 'nineties —six horses—.breakneck speed—sheer precipices— thrills, June, IS9S —who remembers 110.W?" Plenty; Albie Crowther was contemporary of Maurice Crimmins, the Shorts, the Reckitts, and so forth. Albie was the son of a Mayor of Auckland and a horsemaster as well as a driver. lie had a little bay filly he drove in the coach team |et,ween Paeroa and Thames that all but talked to him. Is reputed to have put the filly in the. near-lead of a team of four driving the lot from Paeroa to Thames without reins—with the whip only. It sounds fantastic, of course —but they tell. \ ou. Wasn't it Albie's team against which "Hubert Town Jack" (a celebrity of that day) ran from town to town—and beat it, or was it the coach that beat the man? The road between the goldfields towns in the days one wots of were hardly roads within the meaning of the act and there was one long bit of flat swamp road that took some driving over —even with reins. Once a circus camel got away somewhere there, and present sinner aided "a cheval'' to recapture the oont. Them was the days! Too young to "get the hump."

The death of the Countess Beaucliamp, wife of the peer who was Governor of New South Wales in 1899—during the South African War —reminds all old A FAREWELL Waler of the period that DRINK, the Vice-Regal pair were notably hospitable. He tells a tale that may or *nav not be true. When Earl Beaucliamp was vacating his post and returned to England it occurred to him to dispose of the contents of his wine cellar by gift to the people. It is said that he caused large quantities of champagne in bottles, magnums and what not to be handed out to any who would accept it. This was a generous gesture, but Australians y-Jio are notably businesslike and not addicted to "bubbly" might be seen dashing to all the neighbouring hostelries where they exchanged the wine for mere beer. The man who revives the tale (which may be true or otherwise) has ascertained that a horny-handed worker might receive a bottle of bubbly worth, say, twenty-five shillings.—hardly enough to give a good toiler's thirst a mere damp. But exchanged for ale at current retail rates, the possessor of tho gift would receive about ninety-five pints of the less expensive fluid, enough tt> personally farewell the whole ViceRegal staff.

The combined ferocity with which a group of human beings will chase a loose rat to slay him indicates the animosity existing between the different RAT-BANE. species and the means

taken by man to eradicate the <-0111111011 foe. Records of the recent death of u rat per commune serves to remind one that there are specially gifted beings who far exceed their contemporaries in minting the foe. One has just heard of a skilled artisan who lias a side line not in the destruction of live rate but in the localisation of dead ones. Almost anyone can smell a rat, but tlm export inevitably locates the offence—and goes to it. The fact that rats die in the course of nature, fights and poison, and cussedly retire to obscure deathbeds, gave this expert Lis speciality. He finds the dead rat or rats, removes the portion of the building surrounding him, and thus sweetens the atmosphere of the dear old home, the warehouse, the store, the larder. He is called in as a consulting specialist when the odour becomes unbearable and lias never been known to fail. Interrogated as to liis technique, lie admits a superlative sense of smell, but does not rely on this gift alone. He watches the blowflies. Hitherto he has kept this secret dark, but a curious inquirer has caused him to divulse, and this may lead to parties of blowfly watchers and the removal of many departed inis which might otherwise remain a household menace and a source of interrogatory sniffs. ' ° J

THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. Initiative lias this great advantage—it conquers fear.—Anon. c All cruelty springs from weakness.— Seneca. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.—St. Paul.