THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 185, 6 August 1936, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

Dear M.A.T.— As I enjoy your column so much, I thought it up to me to tell you so. I always turn to it first, and especially do I like any tales of the KIND THOUGHTS, -young folk. We were talking one day about Mr. Bernard Shaw being offered £1000 for his head when my young nephew remarked, "What good would the money be to him without his head?" A little friend of mine put her hair iti curl papers one Saturday morning.I remarked, "You are vain; do you know what Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived, said?" She retorted quickly, "I don't think lie was very wise when he had all those wives." I was very much amused about the man., mistaking eucalyptus for gum leaves. The scents arc not alike, though many people think the eucalyptus is the Australian gum. I am an Aussie and we had a largo eucalytus tree iu our back garden, while the street in whic'.i we lived had an avenue of gum trees (quite different). I hope you will live many years to make people laugh —"the best medicine in the world." With the best of good wishes for your paper, and especially your particular column. —-An Old Maid of Sixty.

A clergyman from overseas has arrived to fill the place, previously occupied by a predecessor who is called elsewhere. It has been found convenient for the THE reverend -gentleman from APPOINTMENT. Home to occupy the house vacated by the former tenant. Xo need to remove the telephone. On the first evening of occupation the telephone bell rang. The clergyman answered. The voice said in a polite, deferential tone, "Is that the Rev. Mr. X.?" "Yes." "Successor to the Rev. Mr. Y.?" "Yes." "Might I beg an interview with you at your earliest-con-venience?" "Oh, yes, certainly, but could you indicate the reason for an interview? No? Then make it seven-thirty to-morrow evening." "Very well—ve-ry well, then. Thank you so much," said the voice. Next evening a decentlyclad man called, introduced himself as yesterday's telephonist, chatted cosily of the weather, asked if the reverend gentleman had had a nice voyage, said that the clergyman whose place he had taken was a kind friend who .had often been good enough to give him a few shillings. Could the new arrival follow the generous conduct of the Rev. Mr. Y.? Ten shillings would he acceptable, but he would be most grateful for live, or even half-a-crown. The newcomer is thinking hard yet.

Hardy adults, one understands, play about in and under the Pacific even during local frosts —but up to now no wedding party has taken place under Auck"THE VOICE land waters. They manTHAT age these things better BREATHED." in Seattle (Wash.)— Wash

being a peculiarly appropriate locality for under-water weddings. The following details are communicated by a man who stood on the bank attired in gumboots, overcoat and muffler and who watched the happy couple and party emerge after the solemnisation. The bride was quietly but sensibly dressed in a brown, rubberised ensemble, trimmed with lead weights. Her hat was a 301b spherical helmet, relieved with a glass window in front. She wore no veil, but had air tubes attached to the helmet instead. She splashed up the aisle with a leaden tread, and went under, 100 yards from the shore, in a pretty little shower of bubbles. The bridegroom was similarly attired, and so were the parson and the witnesses. During the ceremony the party had to come up for air several times, owing to trouble with the pumping apparatus. The bridegroom was aged seventy-three and his bride was fiftyeight.

We are, one rejoices to observe, to have a local campaign in which courtesy on roads will be the objective—and very nice, too. Even

now there is the courtesy THIS COURTESY, of necessitv on the roads.

The pedestrian, though lie may not bow to the motorist or raise bis hat as lie leaps—leaps all the same, a gesture that is pleasing and polite to the motorist. You get the same gesture in the gent with the club who hisses, "Be courteous, you blighter!" Now by far the larger majority of people who cars are polite. They really don't want to kill you. It is a messy business, costly, and distressing. There are people with cars in Auckland and out of it who have been tooling them about since cars came without casualty. It used to be said that GeorgePfenning had never scraped a bit of paint off or biffed a pedestrian or another vehicle. Safety and politeness, as you are aware, ,are a possible combination. When you come to think of it, there are relatively few drivers who believe the earth is theirs and the roads thereof, and any impoliteness is unquestionable, because selected souls do not even yet appreciate the difference between a powerful machine and a relatively powerless being. Vorv likely you'll never get the amenities of the drawing room .011 the roads, but as the old 'tins die and bifTing about in cars is as common as toe and heel, people will avoid rudeness on the concrete as they would in the marts of trade, the Town Hall or the restaurant. Of course, in the meantime you might be run down and killed by a gentleman who does not even raise his hat to you as a farewell gesture. He is the man to whom the teaching of courtesy might be initiated with some blunt instrument.

He™ is a news picture. It shows a fifteenstorey Xew York steel and concrete building raised on stilts. Constructional geniuses have

lifted this terrific aggreONE STOREY gation of weight bodily. ONLY. A city railway will run

underneath this huge pile that formerly rested 011 solid earth. A thought obtrudes. The fifteen-storey building need not have been built in the i'irst place! There is no need anywhere on earth for building Towers of Babel or skyscrapers. The world is so large that every "building 011 it and every scrap of man-made stuff could be tumbled into a large gully and buried. Man builds a thirty-storey building in sight of ten thousand acres of bare land. • Why, the good Lord knows. The world is so large that if man could agree we could 'blow up every skyscraper in it and .build all the buildings necessary of one storey each. We will not think of such a thing mainly because people arc gregarious—herd together, forming populous spots in vast bare areas so that they will be easier to hit when the time comes. Nominally the whole earth is the People's property in 1 eality it belongs to Persons. The price bein f * as high as the skyscrapers—more skyscrapers! New York reduced to brickbats wouldn't make much of a heap in the Colorado Canyon, and New York and other towns are pushed* towards the sky because individuals at some old time grabbed bits of land and their successors have been sticking the price up ever since. If vou ai e mad or reasonable enough to imagine the fee simple of the earth going back to People and not Persons—by Jove, you've got the solution of this skyscraper menace. You could get a clear bit of ground in Queen Street and put up a two-roomed shack for yourself— with 110 man to say ye nay. Just f'ancv!

THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAY. Events will go as God likes.—General Gordon. •Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.—Shakespeare.