THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 206, 31 August 1936, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) Between Albury and Wodonga (Victoria) the water of the River. Murray has spilled over on both sides and there isi nine square miles of spill. The Hood, SPILT WATER. of course, won't even wet your shoes, but what an old Murravian wants to say is that on rare occasions one has leapt from bank to . of this unruly river without drowning. many of these Australian rivers are either a feas/or a famine. One of the nasty things one has seen old man Murray do is to slide down from the hills during the finest P° eslbl ® weather with a roaring crest on it like an exaggerated bolster, sweeping much propel ty, pigs and forest with it. One used to admire the sailor-coachman in flood df J*y s drlve J® would tool their vehicles through the submerged forest and go from Crojingalong as unerringly as a crow. This bit of a spil , although apparently of some extent, is apparently just a saucerful. If you get hold of one of those grand old Australian liars he will spill you a tale of the time that the Muir&y was forty miles wide. One mentions these little truisms about an Australian river because we, too, in New Zealand deal with floods. When present platypus was on the Barwon in 1889 —time, gentlemen, time!

It has become a commonplace in up-to-date police forces to demand a higher standard of knowledge, both technical and educational, from recruits. There was BRIGHTER a Scotland Yard ComCONSTABLES. missioner who ran the New Zealand force for a while who told present admirer of the police that he liked "all young constables straight off the grass." Nowadays, of course, most of the young constables are gleaned from the higher slopes of Mount Olympus, and the London force itself is so cluttered up with arts degrees that most of it will be officers very soon now. When the idea of promotion by examination was first made in London, Edgar Wallace, the man who knew so much about policemen, wrote of a gallant but thickheaded "cop" who was grumbling about the examination held in English history. "What good doe 3 it do us to know the scandals about Queen Elizabeth ?" ho said. "The chief scandal about you, my lad," said his friend, who was also his superior officer, "was that you gave her date as 1066!" "Well, there you are," argued the culprit. "If I'd known that 1815 was right would that make me a better policeman?"

. Very rightly tlie State intends to prevent the edible oyster from being eradicated. Haying some experience of the destructive capabilities

of a relatively small proTHE SEA portion of a million and HATH PEARLS, a half people, oyster cul-

ture is indicated. The destructive capabilities of a population (which is fifty million people) from the days of the Roman legions in Britain have still left an oyster or two hanging on the Home rocks. We are used to seeing (and occasionally eating) the delicious little rock adherent, and oystersas big as footballs are not common. If you went up to Broome or any of the oyster getting places off the coat of Queensland, you'd see dismal, dark devils who dive for oysters as big as dinner plates and which sometimes contain the bit of irritant that has become a pearl. Hundreds of people, black, white and khaki, live on oysters in the commercial sense of the word—and hundreds of these pearl hunters die at the trade or turn their toes homeward with a fortune—or paralysis. The shell as 'big as a plate is far more beautiful than the pearl—iridescent, large and lovely, done all over by Nature with glittering bubbles. Malays and other connoisseurs eat the dried interior of the pearl oyster—as foul a meal and as detestable a flavour as a man could wish. There does not seem to be any New Zealand water where the Fisheries Department could grow pearl oysters, but if there is a spot where dark people could live and dive and die among the great shells the State might have a look-see and start the industry. This oyster-eating is only playing at oysters.

Talking about large oysters, one had the advantage a good many years ago of being the guest of the Puckevidges, a Port Lincoln (West Coast, South AusA RAY OF HOPE, tralia) family. Lincoln has a magniflccut harbour— you might float the navies of the world in it —so it is big enough to contain the oysters facetiously served for dinner by Mr. Puckeridge the elder. Six oysters in shell covered the half of a large ciining table—but nobody dined on them. The largest Port Lincoln oyster has been in Adelaide Museum for 24 years. The shell is seven inches across and two and a half inches thick. Conchologists declare that as the Port Lincoln oysters are bi-sexual this particular oyster might have been pa and ma to three million young oysters at one spawning. And these shelly old gentlemen aver that if every son-daughter and daughter-son went on producing without loss for five generations the resultant bulk of shells would far exceed the whole bulk of the world. If the Port Lincoln oyster is allied in productivity to the New Zealand oyster, it naturally follows that the population of Maoriland will have to gulp 'em continuously to destroy the oyster race. If one were the Government one would cheer up about the future of the —shall we say?—bivalve.

Where do the people go when the trams Stop? About a Score of these indispensable vehicles lay in a long inert line in Queen Street this Monday morning. An MONDAY aggravating young tram MORNING, had missed the points at the Customs •Street intersection, and experts were coaxing it 011 again with shoes, what nots and gadgets. Nothing at all extraordinary in this—common as daffodils in August, but barring a dogfight there is nothing comparable to a street mishap to convince the immediate public that nine o'clock is not the hour for hanging the cady on the peg, stacking the brolly in the safest corner and draping the overcoat over the heater. Two or three hundred people willingly dislocate the cogs of commerce to see a tram man or two (or thirteen) adjust the doings. Here and there a man who ought to be at his desk, his counter or his countinghouse, grins knowingly and infers that if they_ gave him a bike spanner and a pot of oil he'd set the tramway service going. 2vow in almost recent days if that young tram had been an old horse in a middleaged dray the crowd would have been relatively as great and the helpers many, for there are people in any crowd who would sit on a horse's head, rush to a tram with their sleeves up. or seize a fighting dog by the throat and sprinkle pepper or snuff on his nose. Why do crowds gather ? Motormen. tram conductors, inspectors and policemen having heard that a clerk has had an accident with his cash book do not watch him while he puts the accident ri"ht. The only reason for this morning's erowcf to see a young tram disciplined seems to be that they were nil People—and people are just as curious as you are. The only people who sat like statues and took no interest were the passengers in tile derailed tram. A THOUGHT FOR TO DAY. A good gardener is a sound philosopherlie does not waste his time worrvino- ove ,. pa ,, t mistakes, but is always thinking of the future and hoping to do better.—Anon.