THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 54, 5 March 1937, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

• (By THE MEN ABOUT TOWN.) When my old friend McFid, who follows the sea for a crust, comes ashore on holiday he invariably stays at a boarditr.'house conducted by an elderly IrishSCOTS RETORT, woman. He and she are great sparring partners. Neither ever misses an opportunity of "slinging off" at the other's nationality, and both cull the papers for ammunition, he for derogatory anecdotes against the Irish and she for similar evidence against the .Scots. On hi* last voyage Mac received at Bluff a letter from his Auckland landlady, together with a clipping of a particularly stinging skit on the Scots. Mac brooded deeply until he tumbled on an appropriate "come-back." Hie letter concluded with the words, "Thanks for the Scots joke. Am sending you another good Scots joke' in return. Hope you appreciate it." And he posted the letter without a stamp. —I.M. Dear M.A.T.. —The Maori meets an emergency in a different way to the pakeha. But although his method may be unconventional, he nevertheless HENARE'S always succeeds in CHAIN, bridging the hiatus or surmounting the difficulty. A traveller visiting the King Country came across Hetiare and hie family "stumping." The chain encircled the stump in the orthodox way. A fifteen-stone wahine (Mrs. Hcmtrc) was grasping the chain near the stump. Then came two buxom daughters, then Henare's two sons, he himself being supervisor. Ihe end of the chain was attached to the rear axle of an old etigineless ear with shafts, in which a hors» was yoked. "Why not yoke the horse direct to the chain?" the traveller asked. "He no pull te chain." said Honare. ''But he like to pull in the shafts. So when I crack te whip and 1 cry 'Pull!'—they all pull like , and out come te plurry stump!"—H.M. In a wheat field in Ota7o a phenomenon has occurred. A stook of wheat has been reduced to powder supposedly as the result of being struck bv a WHEAT, meteor. The owner, on MYSTERY. making an inspection, discovered that two sheaves had been severed as if cut by a sharp knife. In many places the ground presented a burnt appearance, a quantity of jiowder resembling burnt carbide was in evidence and holes had appeared in the ground, the largest being a foot in diameter with a depth of seven feet. A reader suggests, however, that a meteor was not in fact the cause, but that the Hon. Mr. Sullivan, who has been pestered with innumerable complaints regarding our standardised flour and bread, invited Mr. Sent pie to inspect a wheat field and give a candid opinion in hi« own language. At all events, the incident will soon be forgotten, for in tincase of wheat it is merely "ear to-day and scone to-morrow."—B.C.H.

"Touclustone"' writes: Probably the ffreatest stumbling block t/> good pronunciation among persons who have not had the advantage of much HOW ACCENT schooling is provided by SHIFTS, word® like com promise. A question about tlie pronunciation of thi« word has come to hand. The pitfall occurs when persons take the last part of the word ("promise" I, and. pronouncing it mentally in the accustomed way. try to continue that pronunciation as part of the larger word. Rhythm, or the harmonious flow of vocal eound*. is secured by a balancing of syllables. Vou can almost liken a word to the cross-beam of a nee-saw. Tf you add a tyllable to one end yog destroy the balance. To restore the. balance you mu«t shift the beam so that the fulcrum, or prop, touches another placer That is why the stre»s moves from one syllable to another as the word is extended—from electric to electricity, for instance. Here the stress move* from "le-" to "tris." Compromise has the stress on the first and last syllables. a« in "minimise," and it rhvme» with that word.

It is funny, when you come to tliink of it. that the one thing that British people boaet of is their aversion to boasting. An officer in one of the BRITISH American destroyers that MODESTY, has been visiting Auckland pointed it out the other day. "I know you Britisher* that all Americans are boaaters—skiters !• the word I've heard here —and that you \ ourselves are strong, silent jpiys that do things and don't talk about them," he remarked. "But are von T Take a think. Does 'Britannia Rules the Waves' sound really bashful, or 'Land of Hope and filory' or 'Sons of the Sea'?" In anticipation of his visit to New Zealand the speaker had read a short history of the Dominion. That, too, he found funny. "Readini that bit of history, I took a tumble to how you Britisher* manage to keep on kidding yourselves you are the greatest people on earth," he remarked, laughing. "Talking about the Maori War*, the writer says it was 'a decisive defeat.' or something like that, whenever the British troops won, but whenever the Maori* won it was called a 'massacre.' as if the British troops never had a chance to fight back. So you people can go on thinking that Britisher* have never been defeated!"—l.M.

DOUGLAS SOCIAL CREDIT. (With apologies to \V. S. Gilbert.) Po I've been told, there lived a man In the post-war days of the currency-fan Who brought out a brand-new money plan To cure the world depression. He averred that prices were so high That existing money would not buy. So to fix things we should try A dose of paper money. He calculated A p'us B Was more than A —without the B, So. to bridge the gap. says he. We'll broadcast "costless credit." Charges A would purchase aught. All others —B—were good for naught. But so that all things might be bought He planned a half-price sale. He wished all buying power to tie As great as the Hum of A plus B, So we could all go on the spree And he'd pay ua a national divvy. N'ow that's the «ort of b'oke for me, He wished that all might happy be. * , cou ld go on the spree. Ana he'd hand us round our divvies. This man, although no one denies His heart was of abnormal size. Yet he'd have planned it otherwise, If his reasoning had been sounder. The end is easily foretold, When all the money that vou hold Is made of paper—plain or rolled— You long for something stable. When buying power is very rare. Though Douglas "chits" are everywhere, , T °®" Douglas "chits" vou cease to care— Lp goes the cost of living. Ji 1 whoever you mav he. To this conclusion vou'll agree \\hen Douglas dividends are free The money has no value. Now that's as plain as plain can be, 10 1111s conclusion we agree. hen Douglas dividends are free The money lias no value. V.li S.