THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 235, 3 October 1936, Page 8

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) Hard workers extinguished a fire in the steamer Wingatui while lying at Napier breakwater —did it in three hours without sluicing her. Ships will catch fire SHIP AFIRE. sometimes, and one remembers one that did it at a Wellington wharf. Strange how these marine names elude one, but she was well alight .when the brigade made a quick passage, with the faithful Press an excellent second. The captain of the burning vessel remarked that the captain of the Wellington brigade showed an almost uncanny knowledge of the ship, and ultimately when the fire was out the two talked a bit. Captain T. Hugo, of the Wellington Fire Brigade (he was afterwards chief of the accumulated brigades of Xew Zealand), told the ship's skipper that he jolly well ought to know the old thing, as he had 'been captain of her in his time. Old Tom Hugo, with the pointed moustache and the dreamy eyes, could be induced to tell a thrilling tale of land and sea now and then. It is long ago, still one can almost see those smart horses walk into their collars, hear the click as the hames fell and fastened, the men spring to their seats, the doors open, the bells clang—and away. Those old horses made good time, t?>o.

Imaginative persons chewing the luncheen crust or otherwise fortifying the innards with starch ought to see, as tliey masticate, the illimitable field#; of wheat THE GOODLY on which' the turn of the GRAIN, starch'-'eating Christian races depend so largely. Wheat is "up," as you know, and Australia has corns on her hands, sending it Home and to other places where it is wanted. One has before one a Press photograph of a masked brigand in heavy overcoat sending part of thirty thousand tons of wheat away. His face is wholly bound up in cloths and he has large winkers on to save his eyes. He is standing at a lever letting loose wheat flow into a ship's hold. If he didn't wrap up the dust would choke him —which is to say that you really do eat a lot of dust in your time. What seems queer in these clever times is that Australian wheat is brought to the ship in sewn bags as usual and men with knives slit the stitches and let the wheat trickle into the holds. Some of these days, of course, the cocky won't bag his grain at all—bulk from winnower to ship—and eo Home—and, of course, they'll fan the grit of the great fields off your potential loaf before it gets to ship, silo or bakery. Handling of grain has somewhat improved, however, since one watched Australian slaves at about four shillings for fourteen hours winnowing at a handle and filling interminable bags per hand. Ever seen twenty thousand acres of standing ripe wheat on fire? Fearful sight.

Nice to learn that St. John did so well in Auckland streets on Friday. You never know what St. John means until you want him— and there he is rolling ST. JOHN. up like a benevolent spirit, strong, silent, efficient. Of course, most people haven't been taken for a ride by St. John, and anyone who has been and who has been lively enough during the ride to lie down and take notice treasures the memory. Present ex-patient has done it more than once. In perfect comfort, having been slid in with motherly care by extremely manly aiders and abettors, one lay in a sort of fraudulent peace gazing at the scenery of which there were only ambulance walls and shadows of buildings without, until one was decanted as per instructions —and all went very well then. What one wanted to say about modern ambulances, however, is- that a ride (if painless) is very like one of those quaint and not unpleasing dreams in which one finds oneself gliding over the world without volition—a combination of bird, car and aeroplane. The queer difference between St. John and the gliding dream is that one gets nowhere in the dream—and St. John takes you where you ought to go. Many a man of experience would rather be driven by St. John than lifted into a bag stretcher hung on sticks and carried by mates, however kind and heroic, through the bush for miles of much more unpleasant dreams. On the whole—thanks, St. John!

Two fellows were walking down (or up) a street each left foot tapping the pavement at the. same moment. The littler one, nodding to the tront, exclaimed, GLENGARRY. "Glengarry!" and the other, quite interested, said, "Where?" "That girl!" he answered. And sure enough there was a tallsome lass wearing a glengarry cap—but what a difference to the old army glengarry, both of the men had once worn. The girl's cap was sufficiently gorgeous and beyond the description of a mere man, except that there was a dinky golden tassel hanging down the feminine curls and that would have been strictly "agin rigilatlons." The two men pedestrians recalled tens of thousands of glengarries on the march swaying up and down, and recollected that the two regulation ribbons flowed down the back. The regulation was strict as to length, and Tommy often when "walking out" used to nefariously obtain ribbons of extra length for swank. Both of the men 'had seen the regimental tailor carefully snip off the extra bits —and the men who had worn the long tails "crimed" for the same. And one remembered that during the short Premiership of Tam Mackenzie, Tam appeared on the platform at Waipu wearing a glengarry bonnet, much to the joy of the local Scots. When Tam was clear of Scots country that glengarry bonnet reposed in the portmanteau.

They sat at a table gnawing bones (or the modern equivalent), and the chap with the napkin round his neck said to the cove with the napkin on his knees VITAMIN A TO Z. that the medical swells were having a fit about food and that the world was going all wrong and the masses ought to be regimented and fed 011 the requisite vitamins with more eggs and milk, cabbage and carrots and cash in it. The cove said to the chap that prior to his city life he had wandered far and near, knew the feel of a shovel handle, the smooth 'beauty of an axe 'haft, and so 011. Mentioned *Lat he had toiled in the Never-Never or near to it and had seen chance wayfarers carrying their swags obtain scrub-cutting contracts, dam-digging contracts, fence contracts, every kind of contract with the hardest possible yakker in them. In many cases these men who worked from sparrow chirp to sundown lived either solely on camp-baked flour damper with meat if they could get it. He had known of thousands of men who had travelled unheard of distances on the boot carrying the "drum," who for months had lived on flour cakes baked in the hot ashes, remaining as hard as pin wire and as healthy as wild goats. He had known of hack-country men who saw neither milk, eggs nor vegetables of any kind for a year or two sustain 110 injury, although where men drank saltish water they tended to scurvy, and he wondered if humanity went 011 chewing what they could get when they wanted it if they would live or die. Then both cove and chap had another helping of vitamins, and were so invigorated that they both signed their signatures without fatigue during the interminable afternoon hours before dinner. There was the Irishman who dug forty tons of murphies and lived on nothing else and buttermilk while at it. But the poor felly died at eighty-seven.