THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 247, 17 October 1936, Page 8

THE PASSING SHOW.

. (By THE-MAN ABOUT TOWN.) TO JEAN BATTEN. On silver wings vou soared above the clouds, ° And in that swift descent was there nofeai Of the Unknown, and when face to With Death, perhaps you felt the pre near. Of that vast HosJt, the silent and Rank after rank, the eagles who had gon , To higher evries, but throughout the nignt, Courageously, your silver bird flew on. Perhaps the beating of your heart was stUled By engine's throbbing like a hvi n e thin D , And then, exultantly, to feel the blood _ Pulse through your veins, and all youi senses sing Triumphantly, that here was Life ' . And Life's whole meaning, now \your e> es The glory of the morning: it wasfthough The darkness of the night had never been. Below you rivers murmured on their way. Foam wet your lips, and from the widening, plain . - The campanile of cities rose above, > A Nation's murmur, and an Empire s gam. When, in the darkest hour before the Dawn, You knew the vast infinities- of space, Unknown and unexplored, you winged your way. ' , And made the heavens a very lovely place. —JOAN PAYNE. One of the most notable features of the arrival at Mangere of the beloved witch of the skies, the unique and peerless Jean, was that she spoke with utter CALM LITTLE calmness to a seething LADY. crowd minutes after she had made a perfect landing. She had done the last hop over a route notoriously the jnost dangerous under heaven, yet without a tremor, after the fatigue and danger and what might easily have been a difficult landing, she spoke with as much cultured poise, simplicity and modesty as if there was nothing much to brag about in a performance unique in the history of flight. The extreme plainness of her diction, no less than the choice of words and the neglect to take any particular kudos for herself, matched her incomparable flight. Many professional talkers never forget themselves so perfectly as the witch of the skies did in an epic little speech after an epic great big conquest.

Lord Nuffield, that almost inexplicable giver of stupendous public gifts, has become old enough to feel that unthinkable oodles of hoot personally held GORGEOUS? GIFTS. are none so much, and he gives them away in cartload* for the good of the people who gave them to him —and very nice, too. Note that he is among that sparge hierarchy of millionaires who try to empty a stupendous bank balance while still on the earth—and it is well. You cannot imagine a 'potential .millionaire with a fiver for a start and in his teens screwing a pedal on an old bike and saying, "By the time I am middle-aged I shall have a matter of fifteen million pounds in the bank. Fifteen million pounds is a lot of money, and tlie getting of it hard and interesting—l'll give it away as it rolls in," because it isn't done, and youth is youth and age is thoughtful. It must be quaint to have so much money in one's advanced maturity that it hurts and doesn't matter to the owner, and, indeed, rather bores him. It is so much that a man with fifteen millions or so can buy almost everything he wants —but "man wants but little here below —nor wants that little long." It is romantic, even fantastic, that an initiatory fiv ( er should burgeon into fifteen million pounds, or shall we say one hundred and fifty tons of sovereigns expressed in minted 'gold? You will remember that Andrew ■Carnegie expressed the belief that "to die rich is to die disgraced/' a classic thought. One'rather wonders- if Lorn Nuffield'does riot render it, "To live rich is to live selfishly." The Boy Who Got On grew in stature and in mind with maturity. He can't take even that boyish fiver away with him.

Here comes a young mother driving her two-year-old in single harness. No curb bit and chain, chin straps, tight cinches, or bearing reins—benevolent coercion SINGLE for the good of a spirited HARNESS, little boy who will some day achieve much without those soft reins and the nice white little leather breastplate. As one watched with admiration this vital child pulling hard against the benevolent maternal rein, one dropped a metaphorical tear at the shackles, the hits, bars, surcingles, breastplates, martingales, rings, buckles, curb chains and twitches that bind' us to the drivers we ourselves select. The perfectly kind driving of a jolly little boy suggested that all grown-up driving isn't nearly so kind, and is often attended not only with official whalebone, but with long-necked spurs. Modern people not only appear to love single harness, but team harness, too, and the drivers (selected by the driven) have only got to'yell "Gitup!" all in the same tone, the old driving formula, and the whole team steps off with the near forefoot and gallops obediently at the crack of the whip. Every successive bunch of drivers has an apparent formula, much superior to the formulae of all preceding drivers, but whether one bunch yells "Gitup!" or "Come hither!"—the whip and the spur and the twitch are universal— and the little boy dodging through the crowd benevolently driven by mother is enjoying his reins while he can.

It is an anomaly that in this country aching for people the handful we have cannot all be fitted with jobs. We shall, one takes it, in due time invent a THE FISH larger variety of jobs and MINDER, thus absorb the workless surplus. Take the example of Ernst Gisscli, of London and Hungary, who personally conducts live fish between England and his own country. He is a live fish minder and has accompanied carp from the Continent to Britain for eleven years. Mr. Gisscli is mentioned here mostly because he doesn't eat fish, but he sinks his personal appetite in the joy of accomplishment and the necessities of business. He lately took a school of seven thousand Hungarian carp to England for the English to eat, and will continue to do it weekly through the years to be. Mr. Gissch, who abhors fish as food for himself, travels thousands of miles a year in a special railway carriage containing two tanks full of live fish—and bunks down between the tanks. Mr. Gissch and his fish are here used as a hint to New Zealand statesmen who are lookI ing for new avenues for employment of the idle. There is an unexploited field for the fish minder in New Zealand. A live trout train in the care of a fish minder is indicated. Too many, presentation trout from the thermal regions arrive far too dead in Auckland. The cure is to land 'em alive in the city in care of a trained fish minder—a veritable fish I Gissch.

THOUGHTS FOR TO-DAV. A good heart is the sun and the moon; or rather the sun, and not the moon; for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly.—Shakespeare. Do not strive to eradicate a fault, but to cultivate a virtue in its place. —Anon. Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one who will stand prosperity there are; a hundred that will stand adversity.— Thomas Carlyle.