THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 38, 15 February 1937, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MEN ABOUT TOWN.) Countess Haig makes reference in her diary to a visit to Brindisi, where she had difficulty in purchasing a corset small enough to fit her. However, THE CORSET. Brindisi shopkeeper* state that this is a common occurrence. People who visit the place usually prefer to make their stays short. —B.C.H. DOG DAYS. Anent the dog controversy, may I plead guilty to the following: O yelping litte yowling cur of nondescript How strangely hast thou come unto such sudden, notoriety. How nobly hast thou hurled the eage at scholarly attainment. And earned the devotees of such a terrible arraignment. Proud moment surely 'twas to thee when with such great velocity Your loving owner rushed to print with words of wild ferocity To rend the student who had dared to write with disapproval. And of thy vocal attributes to advocate removal. Ah. litt'e one, more precious still for what was said about thee. How loved thou art—yea. fleas and all —what would they do without thee? At night time when thou bay the moon or join the yowling chorus. How sweet to contemplate the hours of sleeplessness before us! Now will I leave thee to thy moon and destiny's direction. But ere I die I'll found a school for canine vivisection. —STUDENT.

Modern progress is often criticised for the heedless way in which it sweeps out of its way everything old and picturesque— even old and picturesque pedesOUT OF trians. Fortunately, howTHE PAST, ever, some of the said pedestrians bob up smiling again when the jnggernaut has passed—even when they are as old as Uncle Joe, born in 1840. What annoyed him about being knocked down by a motor car was that he was born, as he points out, before the "wretched things" were invented. After a couple of months in hospital, however, he is about the town again. His hand shakes a trifle now, which it never did before, but otherwise he looks like a really good insurance risk. Anyone betting that he will not reach his century, to which he has only three years to go, should demand long odds. Man is apt to regret the shortness of life's span, yet it gives one a feeling of unreality to meet one like Uncle Joe, who was born in a world that knew not the telephone nor the wireless nor the motor car nor the aeroplane. He was more than a youth when he heard, in his native Bristol, a lecturer on the marvels of science declare that some of the younger members of his audience might, before they died, see mankind flying. The audience laughed at such a fantastic prophecy. I What marvels will the rhild of to-day see i when he reaches Uncle Joe's age next centurv* i — I.M.

A sailing ship is lying at the King's wharf, and all the old sailormen on the waterfront are inspired thereby to do a bit of lying, too. They call it "spinNOT SO "ing a yarn," and they ROMANTIC, are assured of an audience amongst the townsfolk who wander down to the wharf in the lunch hour to admire the'old relic and to gush about "white wings" and quote Masefield and Catherine Fox Smith. Sailing ships make handsome pictures and good reading, but there are a *ew of the men who served in them who, when they are not talking to journalists, artists or spring poets, confess that the old windjammer days were not a tailor's paradise by a long chalk. A lofty "skysail yarder." a picture of grace and beauty and an inspiration to poets and painters, might be, and indeed often was, a sailorman's hell. Gleaming spare and snowy decks were obtained only by the ceaseless toil of her crew—and they were as often as not half-starvtd. To set her Rcres of canvas, her crew had to risk their Jives. The subject of one of Spurling's most popular pictures had the reputation of killing at least one man every voyage. She never failed to do it. Still, she makes a pretty picture. Xo one would hang in his dining room, for instance, a painting showing the inside of her fo'c'sle, with a hagrard, toil-worn crew eating their meagre allowance of "salt horse" and biscuits full of weevils amid a litter of wet clothes and oilskins, and, perhaps, one of their number showing the salt water boils that are eating into his flesh.—l.M.

"Touchstone" writes: A very interesting note on the split infinitive occurs in T)r. Otto .Tespersen's book. 'The OrowtTi and Structure of the English Language." THE SPLIT '"Another recent innovaINFINITIVE. tion," he writes, «w the use of 'to' as what mislit be called a pro infinitive instead of the clumsy 'to do so.' Will you play? Yes. I intend to. Tam going to This is one among several indication* that the linguistic instinct now takes 'to' to belong to the preceding verb rather than to the infinitive, a fact which, together with other circumstances, serves to explain the phenomenon usually m!.-tcrmed the split infinitive. This name is bad. because we have many infinitives without 'to.' as 'I made him go/ 'To.' therefore, is no more an essential part of an infinitive than the definite article is an essential part of a nominative, and no one would think of calling 'the good man' a split nominative." This irs commonsense stuff. The author follow* it up by exposing- the weakness of Thackeray's sentence. 'She only wai.ted a pipe in her mouth considerably to resemble the late Field Marshal." which wou'd have been clearer if the "to" had been phi-cd before the advert), as in Burn* - line in "The Cottar's Saturday Niirht": "Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride."

While General Blimp, who fought in the Crimea, and General Limp, who fought in South Africa,* and General hup, who directed things in the Great War, WAR'S ALARUMS are busy_ telling to-day "a — OFF STAGE. generation that they are a nasty, degenerate lot of floral offerings, and should form fours more often in order that they might be worthy of , amateur status in the next Big Team that j goe6 overesas—other Generals, Colonels, Ser- ! geantfi-Major and privates are busy thinking out little dodges that will put one over on brother enemy when the big match pomes off. It is reported, rumoured, observed and stated that experiment* are being carried out with bomb-bearing kites and with flight* of pigeons . which carry concealed and automatic cameras against the enemy—for the confusion of. Private Blimey, who got ten days' C.B. and other decorations in the last shemozzle, remits, tiowever, that he has some map shaking inven-' tions which wlTi cnange the whole course of the next Dot-and-Carry-One. In the secrecy of the lunch hour on the waterfront he has been (stealthily) equipping grasshoppers with j loud-speakers. He is submitting his researches j to the War Office and confidently expects that, | when the Big Push conies, covies, flights or plagues of these will be released, causing the enemy to cower Mil their trenches thiukin" they are under heavy fire, thus allowing afore" mentioned flowers of New Zealand's manhood to come up unmolested. He plans next the ' submission of plans for the painting of i India's herds of elephants a bright pink. These can be released in the early dawn before the enemy trenches, causing the dear enemv to swear off the rum ration, thus wrecking their morale, and leading them to lose faith in the Higher Command. This next Bust Up is "oin«to be a serious affair.—Kea. c r