THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 30, 5 February 1937, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MEN ABOUT TOWN.) Though Premiers dm ngc, ;rs Premiers must, we see persist in-_; \ I. I lie curious sort of wanderlust that politicians get. When Gordon ('outos was on the THE BIG top there used to come SMOKE'S CALL, a day when off to London lie would hop, and who could say him nay Y The critics his decision jeered—"A joy ride," wan their word; yet Gordon boldly disappeared like any homing bird; and when his friends made bold to hint at unsolved problems here, his eye still wore a tourist's glint—the Big Smoke's call was clear. Now those who Gordon's jauntings gay were first to criticise, regard things in another way, when hopes of tomvs arise. Good Walter Xash was first to fall—the busiest of bees, yet all the same he felt his call was clearlyoverseas. Now Mickey, too. will soon take wing; a good excuse he's found; without his beaming smile the King could not l>e truly crowned. So, reader, do not in your haste. I prav, these tourists blame; if you were similarly placed you would do just the same. —Sin bad. Seeking information for an article on "Sailors' Hobbies," I bailed up Old McFid down by the shipping office the other day, and bluntly asked him what HE-MAN'S HOBBY, he and his shipmates did in the fo'c'sle in their watch below. What were their hobbies? "Hobbies." lie repeated. "Well, for the young blokes that go to sea nowadays, reading slushy novels and strumming ukuleles is about their limit. There's not one in a thousand that could make a pair of tancy beckets (rope handles) for a sea chest, or rig a model of a ship. Lots of them have never seen a fullrigged ship." Under pressure, however, Old Mac did recall some interesting hobbies he had seen followed aboard ship. There was an officer in the intercolonial service, for instance, who used to make jewellery set with opals he had himself mined at Lightning Ridge. And then he chuckled. "Once when I was bo'sun in a Union ship I had to go along to the mate's cabin one night—a young bloke, he was—to ask him about some gear." said Mac. "And, gosh, there was his cabin all littered with bite of coloured silk, and him sitting doing embroidery on a pair of ladies' whatyoumaycallems. Making silk underwear for his missus, he was." I suggested that that had raised a laugh amongst the crew. "Xo darn fear it didn't." said Mac. "I kept my face straight while I was in his cabin and my mouth shut outside it. Before we left port I'd seen that same young bloke knock a bigger man than himself right across the deck —and then he didn't put his weight behind the punch."—l.M. "Touchstone" writes: What Mr. Sill thought Mr. Armstrong said to him in the way of, adjectival contempt has not yet appeared in print, for we OATHS SINCE are very touchy about CHAUCER'S TIME, oaths in the newspapers. How English - speaking peoples have avoided good round oaths is the subject of a paragraph by Dr. Otto Jespersen on what he calls bl-words: "Blessed, by a process which is found in other similar cases, came to mean the opposite of the original meaning and liecame the synonym of cursed; blamed had' the same significance. Instead of these strong expressions, people began to use other adjectives, shunting off, after pronouncing bl, into some innocent word like bloody, which soon became a great favourite with the vulgar, and therefore a horror to ears polite, or blooming, which had the same unhappy fate in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Few authors would now venture to term their heroines 'blooming young girls,' as George Eliot does repeatedly in 'Middlemarch.' Similarly. Shakespeare's expression, 'the bloody book of law.' is completely spoilt to modern readers, and lexicographers now have to render Old English 'blodig' and the corresponding wbrds in foreign languages by bleeding, bloodstained, sangjiinary and ensanguined; but even sanguinary is often made a substitute for bloody in reporting vulgar speech." (So. for that matter, is bleeding.) Chaucer had to listen to,some rough stuff in his time, for he wrote: Hlr othes been so prete and so dampnable That it is erfsly for t" here hem swere: Our Missed lories body they to-tere: Hem thoughte Jewes rente him noght ynoush. The lalest arrival in This-and-Tliat Street is a fox terrier puppy which is possessed of seven devils—one that howls all the time it is on the chain and is in POULTRY GOING mischief all the time it CHEAPLY. is off. Tt would be the people next door to an enthusiastic poultry keeper who would get siu-h a pet. It always is. Foxy had been at his new home only a couple of days when he completed a tunnel under the fence from his own backyard into the next-door fowl run. and was subsequently seen frolicking around his own domain with the hedra<r<rled body of a pedigree White Leghorn lien that, until that dnte. had been in full lav. The wrathful bellowinsjs of the poultry fancier brought out the don's owner, who rescued the corpse and brought it to the dividing fence. "Dear me. Tt.'s dead!'" she remarked, onite nnr'e.-essarilv. Her neighbour agreed, emphatically. "Well, well. What shall we do?" asked the dor owner. Her neighbour held very strong ideas on that subject, but as they included the immediate dispatch of Foxy to another wor'd. she could not see eve to eye with him. "I'll tell you what I*ll do." offered the lady, sweetly. "T see in the paper that hens are fetching 2/ each at the market" (she was quoting the lowest price). "Tf you will pluck and clean it for me T will sfive you 2/ fcr it." The owner of the bird took it back in silence and tottered away to find a spade wherewith to dig the grave.—l.M.

T agree with the Hon. Mr. Semr»lo. There are some drivers that simply shouldn't be allowed. And there are some i;sers of the ferry boats who should be OLD AMD SILLY, made to swim. The driver who shouldn't he allowed is the fellow who decides that five minutes is sufficient time in which to get from a distant suburb to catch the last ferry, and the fellow who deserves to swim is tlie passenger who agrees with him. Xot that T would care very much about these things if it were not for the habit of the driver, on such occasions, to take me along with him. just for the sake of my dubious company on the return drive. On general principles T prefer, when in a car. to drive it myself: hut when 1 must, perforce, fill the role of passenger I prefer competence at the wheel, and not these hustling exhibitions that elderly incompetence seems to be in the habit of staffing under the impression that long-lost youth, with the quick reactions that keep youth out of trouble, is still with it. The passenger for the ferry—we'll call him Roy—seems complacently prepared to risk his neck every time he comes to our suburb, for invariably he ignores the ordinary and safe methods of transport provided by the community in favour of that last-minute hectic dash in the motor car of an old man who doesn't realise that he is old and persists in acting as if he were young and capable. He is neither. Away they go. this pair, racing through the nrrlit. the driver, in "the valour of his ignorance."' loudly proclaiming his confidence that his car will beat the minute hand of the clock. And. away, almost invariably, go I. the victim of their rashness, to spend miserable minutes wondering how the headlines in the paper next day are going to deal with us. So far those headlines haven't appeared, but if the Honourable Bob doesn't do something about this particular last-minute dasher after ferries, tliev are going to appear. —B.O'X.