THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 236, 5 October 1936, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) Dear M.A.T.The Maori who dreaded the end of the world was not so dreadfully out | in his prognostications after all, seemingly, for a fellow I Know says ANOTHER END. that Mother Shioton never intended her prophecy to apply to the terrestrial globe but ; to a whirl or whorl in Time, such as an era, !so that when she wrote of 1881 as the end lof the world or whorl it was approximately j the end of a phase and the commencement of 'our present-day sfate of mechanical whhidom. j The Maori may mean something similar —perI haps the commencement of a Maori-o'er-again ! phase. It looks dreadfully as though it's • coming, judging by the news. World without end. Ahem. And why work? —H. The message from Home remarking that the authorities will take all care but no responsibility during future air raids, advises the citizen to find his THE own 'ole unless he knows BETTER 'OLE. a better one. The only place on earth where one has had the advantage of seeing the civil population emerging from holes is Kimberley, which during the siege was plastered excellently by Piet- Indulgent Piet (so the inmates informed the relievers) usee', to do his shrapnel stunt at stated times each day —with the excellent bomb-proof shelter where the Town Guard lived, the chief hotels and the mining drives, for targets. Droves of happy children lived in these drives, and even went to school in them. When Piet fired shrapnel the kiddies waited for the burst, rushed out and picked up the shrapnel bullets and played lovely games of marbles. Labram, an American mining engineer, a,nd a'genius at that, manufacturedag, clinker gun of modern design by boring out a steel cylinder. It worked like a charm. He plastered Piet good and plenty, much to Piet's surprise. Then one evening Labram was dressing for dinner.in his room at a Kimberley hotel. Piet lobbed a shell into his bedroom and blew him to bits. Pity.

Very likely the man who endeavoured to hoax local coal dealers by ordering fuel per unstamped letters to be delivered at fictitious addresses had read his THE HOAX. Conan Do vie. You remem-

ber the Sherlock Holmes story of "The Red-Headed League"? Fantastic burglar about to rob a bank obtains;.a billet in a pawnbroker's s'hop—the shop giving access to the bank vault. The idea is to get the red-headed pawnbroker off his premises while the bank-breakers work. An advertisement appears in "all the JLondon newspapers" requiring the services of a red-headed man. The approach to the advertised office is so full of carroty men that it looks like a coster's orange barrow. The red-headed pawnbroker applies, of course, else there could be no story. He also, of course, gets the job, because he has the reddest hair. His job is to sit in his employer's office and copy out the Encyclopaedia Britannica at a good wage. This, you see will keep the red : headed pawnbroker away from home while his burglar assistant .and pals burgle the bank. Sherlock and my friend Watson, called in, walk about outside the pawnbroker's, poke the hollow pavement with sticks —ha, ha! —excavations underneath, knock at the door, the burglar appears with clay on his trousers —ha, ha! some more. Sherlocks, Watsons, police, bank managers, of course, know the exact moment the burglars will chisel through, the wall. Slim burglarious wrist appears in opening. Sherlock—well, you know what Holmes would do under the circumstances. The red-headed pawnbroker goes to his job of copying one day, finds the office closed. Mych more interesting than writing letters to coal merchants.

Noted that in the wars and rumours of wars many gentlemen of mature age who will never fight again are eagerly anticipating universal war, and that PROPHECY. .young fellows in the fighting business up and say that war is as far off as Saturn. Everybody likes prophecies—they are so droll—and wrong. Take a prophetic English newspaper, published about a hundred years ago. In it King -Albert 111. is on the throne of England and Buckingham Palace lias "For Sale" notices in the windows. The United States have a king. St. Paul's Cathedral has been turned into a gambling den, Covent Garden Opera House is devoted to the manufacture of pickles and many places of public resort have been transformed into schools. Hail government has been swept away. Britain is ruled by a House of Peeresses and a Lower House of Ladies and they sit in a wrouglit-iron building at Hammersmith. A curiosity is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduces a Budget requiring large sums for air, land and submarine fighting. Everybody goes by balloon and there is an air service from Trafalgar Square to India and the journey is "almost as quick as the mails." There is a bridge from Dover to Calais and a tunnel under the Irish Channel. The prophecy of a hundred years ago is dated 1926—the year these marvels were to come about.

There seems to be some terror among the opulent that with the threatened invasion of selected home spots by a Government intent on housing the presumCLASSES. ably homeless, the classes may mix. It lias already been promised that local Government houses may be of a diverse character, variegated in form, and so forth. One will, under these indulgent circumstances, be unable to ascertain at first glance whether the inhabitant of a swish villa, a swagger bungalow or a posh house is a lawyer or his brother the artisan, an accountant or his cousin the shopkeeper. Diversity in the form and appearance of dwellings is not instinctive. A blackfellow, erecting the dear young home, slings a few boughs against the trunk of a tree, shoos the gin (or lubra) and the product of both inside and occupies the wurli, gunyali or- whatever his tribe calls it. The next blackfellow does the same thing, the mere form is common to all. Some remote African architect, smitten with a spot of genius, planned out the beehive hut and everybody followed suit, put a thorn fence round the lot, and there was a town, village, suburb—a positive Orakei. Breaking away from the common plan is irksome and expensive. In old countries the white imitator of the blackfellow has erected interminable miles of terraces, each house the replica of another, so that Binks is just as likely to key his way into Xo. 17 (the house of Winks) as Winks is likely to turn the 'latch of No. 15 (the home of Binks). Variation in houses for the less opulent is to-day's fashion, and domiciles of excellent appearance housing the poor are often dfopped amidst the sacred premises of people of larger income. It is, however, indicative of the attitude of the new political aristocrat that he should desire the mingling of the classes and the variation of domestic dwellings. Bless him! THOUGHTS FOR TO DAY. The man who is an optimist is usually a success, for his mind is never worrying about the reasons why a thing cannot be done. — Anon. See opportunity in every difficulty instead of difficulty in every opportunity.—Anon. Revised version: A brain is only as strong as its weakest think.—Anon.