THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 194, 17 August 1936, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) FOUND! Dear M.A.T.,—Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary gives "pen" for a female swan, its opposite being "cob." the male. Hope tliia may be of use to you. —Glad to Help. The crowd was moving with regulation step down Queen Street —very solemn, very circumspect, exceedingly orderly, uniformly dressed, tlie very spit and UNUSUAL pattern of itself. SudSOUNDS. denly the respectable air was rent with unbecoming laughter. The crowd almost stopped in astonishment. It wanted to know what person dare disturb the matutinal respectability. And two men accurately aligned and in perfect step turned amazedlv one to the other, and the other said, "Good heavens —it must he a foreigner!" The rumour, that some person had disturbed the solemnities of an almost pious street was worth investigating. There in the centre of a footpath stood two American sailors. One was reading a letter (obviously just gleaned at the Post Office) —and both—oblivious of the presence of the people and the police had thrown back their beads and laughed loudly! It seemed incredible, biit it was so. And the man who had suspected foreigners, ranging alongside, said darkly to his mate, "There! I told you so." With set faces they passed on.

It is an amiable fallacy that the average or garden public print practically sits up o' nights wondering wheiwer it is going to get stuff enough to fill its —WITH THANKS, columns. The truth is that the ordinary print spends a lot of time wondering what to keep out and devises nobby little remarks with a sob in them to placate the person who reasonably believes that his masterpiece should have space. Many editorial eminents merely return pious thanks for an opportunity of perusing, etc;, and regretfully regret inability, but there are master regrettist" as well as master writers. An American mail who is really a master scribbler got this from a Chinese publisher, and it could be adopted universally as being near the general truth. "We read your work with boundless delight. By the sacred ashes of our forefathers, we swear that we have never dipped into a book of such overwhelming mastery. If we were to publish this book it would be impossible in the future to issue any book of a lower standard, and it is unthinkable that within the next thousand years we shall find its equal. We are. to our great regret, compelled to return this too divine work and beg you a thousand times to forgive us." An editor couldn't say fairer than that, could he?

One read with avid interest that when the land guns decimate the common duck and every shootist is hung about like a poulterer's shop, and the photographers THE have done their work, the , CONQUERORS. escaped remnant of ducks go to sea. One felt there was something lacking in this natural history item. Aeroplanes observed this method of escape—but neglected to drop bombs! Dropping bombs on wild ducks at sea would far exceed in intensity of charm the almost universal sportsman's device of shooting 'em sitting on land. Nowadays sportsmen herd wild animals of the jungle, the veldt and the prairie by 'plane, and there is a series of German pictures extant showing uncountable wild beasts fleeing before the wings of the pursuers. Authorities having power over great game lands are doing what they can to prevent airmen from bombing the earth clean of creatures wild by nature, but up to now there seems nothing to prevent genuine New Zealanders from bombing godwits or ducks that are taking a sea trip. Sportsmen hesitating to indulge in this relatively harmless sport— for ducks rarely bite back—have the excellent precedent of all civilised nations who would hail an isolated gang of men at sea (or on land) as a gift from heaven, bomb them ta smithereens and tireless home saying there had been another victory—please get another batch of medals baked and a thanksgiving day arranged for the conquerors. Life is far, far too serious to Mr. Savage for him to play pitchendiekle with marbles and a horse shoe, or for Mr. Nash to indulge in the ancient pastime of PITCHENDICKLE. puff-dart. You could imagine Mr. Semple at rare intervals smiling slightly, and selected members of the Cabinet even roaring at their own reflections in the mirror. Greater men occasionally descend from the pedestal. J. M. Barrio, 0.M., had a yarn with <a colonial statesman the other day in England, and the man who made Peter* Pan didn't ask the visitor how the wheat was going 011, or whether the bullocks were fat, or if the Burrinjack Dam was wot or the back-country dry. He asked him if he could play shove-ha'-pennv, and said that to him this was one of the most beguiling games he knew. He said he had a whole stock of pocket knives in various stages of bladelessness, won at hoop-la, the well-known village game. But the man who made the undying university rectorial address on "Youth" said that the greatest art of all in which lie most rejoiced was sticking stamps 011 ceilings. "You lay the stamp face downwards 011 a penny, moisten the adhesive side, and then throw the coin in a flat spin to the ceiling. If you are a master of the art, the stamp sticks and the penny drops back to you." It occurred to one as one learnt of this divine childishness in a great and profound mind that an occasional descent from the heights of, say, a Budget debate to sticking stamps on the ceiling would shift many a dictatorial mulligrub or a statesmanlike Old Man of the Sea. Decapitating the matutinal egg, engulfing the spoonful (with appropriate water) of the grateful oat, and scrunching the strip of bacon, one was reminded that the A PERVERSE earth is at present debatGENERATION. in-g hotly the business of tucker. It has become a fashion. Medical gents (and spinsters) who have let the people eat what they want to eat for decades (or centuries) suddenly find that Harley Street isn't so sure and charge oodles of hoot for not being so sure. Selected highbrows aching (at intervals) for the turns of the lower orders, who have been fightinsr for so many centuries 011 food—and food, and food —say they really ought to eat the food they have been eating and shriek of eggs and milk and butter as if they were 1030 discoveries—things the races have been gu7.7,1 ino- I if available since William the Conqueror trot his first indigestion 011 British soil. Incredible, uncountable, unbelievable millions of people' have lived and died and fought and bled on the Bafferty plan—clivil a wan of tliim knowing a vitamin from a murphy or a calory from a pumpkin. Here is Ruth F." Wadsworth, M.D., up and saying that the human race, generation after generation, has thrived 011 any old combination of food that suited fancy or convenience. Good little Ruth. "Any kind of food at any time it could be found was the primitive way of eating." By the way, we who are a toothless and perverse generation are mixed like our food. The Maoris were not toothless. Let's follow the Maoris—not, of course, excluding "long pig"—which is good for the teeth. We who have rotten teeth from living on the foods we eat have brothers with perfect teeth who have lived at the same table with us. Providence moves in a mysterious way its wonders to perform.