THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 150, 26 June 1937, Page 8

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MEN ABOUT TOWN.)

Dear M.A.T.,—"Johnny's"' paragraph regarding barbers and their razors reminds : me of a curious experience I had in a hairdresser's saloon in the SHOCK FOR West End of London a THE BARBER, few years ago. A regular customer, I had been in the habit of borrowing the razor for a minute when the barber had finished, in order to remove those tiny bristles at the corners of the mouth which can only be reached when the mouth is open. To my surprise, on this occasion the barber declined, and it was not a smiling refusal, either. "Sorry, sir, can't do it now,'' he said in a hoarse voice. "Why not, for goodness sake?" I asked, and still more hoarsely he replied, "fJor hies*: yer. guvner. we 'ad a bloke in 'ere yesterday an' 'e borrered the razor like you useter do, an' cut "is froat wiv it. Tt was orful. So the boss 'e sez. '.Vo more lendin' razors 'ere.' Yer can't blame 'im, can yer?"' And I had to agree that one couldn't.—Bouverie.

"Touchstone" writes: "To settle an argument," says a correspondent signing himself "Up a Tree," "and an old grievance under which I am still smarting CLIMB DOWN, will you kindly answer OR DESCEND? the following question? If a man climbs a tree can he climb down? As a boy going to school I, with others in the class, was asked this question by the headmaster, and I immediately replied that a man could climb a tree but could not climb down. I held to my argument that a man could descend. I was told not to arpue and was jriven the strap because I persisted that I was right. Will you settle this for good and relieve an old sore?" The answer to this question will be found in a modern use of the word climb. Can an aeroplane be climbing if it is flying on a level course or descending? The answer is "Xo." To climb is to ascend or mount laboriously: to ascend as if with effort; to rise to a higher point, and (botanically) to ascend or creep upwards, by twining about a support. Even the word clamber implies ascent (laboriously, with hands and feet). The correspondent was right, and the teacher was wrong. "Climb-down" and "climbing-down" are merely American slang, invented in the first place to raise a smile by an inversion of ideas, like "lower up." Xobody could climb along the level branch of a tree. Descend is a good word, but better still is "come down." The Authorised Version of the Bible has the sentence: "Zacchaeus, make haste and come down."

Kipling described cricket as casting- a hall at three straight sticks and defending the same with a fourth, hut Sir James Barrie said it was the only game BARRIE ON the immortals plaved. CRICKET. While at Dumfries Academy he contributed to the local newspaper's reports of cricket matches—also letters, signed "Paterfamilias,"' advocating longer school holidays. In later years he wrote for private circulation a book about cricket and has several times, despite his retiring nature, spoken at duiners given in honour of visiting Australian teams. "Cricket is an idea. It was an idea of the gods. They looked at poor humanity and its often tragic efforts. And though we made them wince we occasionally found favour in their eyes, and they sent us gifts—a little fortitude, a sense of fairness, an unconquerable gaiety of heart, and perhaps an aphorism about the wisdom of sometimes forgetting," Barrie once said. "They did not send these gifts to us one at a time; thev rolled them up into quite a little ball and t'ossed it down to us. The name cricket is ours. Any genius could have invented it. But its meaning is theirs. The ball does not, as is cenerallv supposed, contain ashes, it contains "a livingthing, a winged word about 'plaving the game?' The immortals left it at that." for cricket is the only game they plav themselves. If we don't continue to play it in that spirit, posterity may forgive us, but we shall be accurst of our forbears. You will find all about it. gentlemen, in the lost books of Homer." \nd now James Matthew Barrie. who always played a fray and clean game, has finished lii« innings.—J.W.G.

Xewspapermen don't laugh out loud in Court, except, of course, on those rare occasions when a dignified judicial joke has made the "SILENCE,- SS\„* ETJS mirth. But there was one newspaperman who did laugh out loud in Court, all by himself, when nobodv else was laughing. Indeed, the moment was a solemn one and most inappropriate for laughter, for a large policeman, his hand firmlv grippin" the book, had just promised to "tell" the truth" the whole truth, and nothing but the truth " Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the newspaperman It was an occasion when a justice of the peace was presiding, replacing an overworked magistrate. The justice was puzzled. It was°all wrong. He knew that, but not being practiced in Court procedure, did not immediatelv commit that irreverent journalist for contempt as a magistrate would surely have done Instead he just looked at the fellow in astonishment, and then demanded to know why he laughed like that. '-The book." said the journalist, ''look at the book the constable has been sworn on. It isn't the Bible It's my copy of .Milne's essays."' And it was The reporters' table happened to be alongside the witness box, and the Court orderly, preparing to swear the. witness, had put out his hand" without looking, to the spot where the Bible usually reposed The constable. without looking, duly took the oath on the book that wa* thrust into his hand. Only the reporter was look.ng. a delighted witness of Homer nodding, even in his judicial capacity.—B.O'X.

Talking of the old-time policeman, one's mind must travel hack through the years to recall a dramatic Court incident. Although wrT \ l is ««PP<*sed to have happened very manv ~ . . >' cai ' s ago. it suggests that even in those <ii m <i ays the nlulist ' club theme was not unheard of. Thus there appeared at the Tolice Court a CTO up of men and women who had been bathing in Natures clothing. This, of course, happened long before Kangitoto was discovered. The local constable who had rounded up the offenders stood in the witness box relating the bare facts of the case Lnder cross-examination he was nueswl. 4 ? ° W Cl ° se he ha<l been to the bathere. His answers, not being altogether definite, he was asked: "Were vol, close enough to distinguish their sex'"" To th amazement of the Court the witness answered Certainly not, sorr!" The charges ajrainst the accused were promptly dismissed. Natural!v the prosecutor later inquired most indignantlv of his witnees why he should have given such a stupid answer, but received the renlv- "How could I tell whether they was o Catholics or pwhat?'—B.C.H.

] THE FAR EAST. To-day's topical pun: The last word in the discussion in the back seats of the St Helier s Bay bus on the Brown's Island «ewe fS ei "*f ,u d t jL e »'««n?tl«« thing; shifting the outfall from Orakei down to Brown's Island means that we won't be living 'East of Suez' I any more!"