THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 267, 10 November 1937, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MEN ABOUT TOWN.)

One of the features of the South Island's "City of the Plains" is a park of vast extent; and one of the features of the park is a shallow lake some five THE CALL OF acres in area, excavated THE DEEP, years ago by enthusiastic builders and sailers of model yachts. 'Tis no children's play, in this inland city, to sail a model yacht; "skippers" under the half-centurv are regarded as youngsters; few attain the skill and experience considered necessary to captain a three-footer liefore the Biblical span of life is nearly reached. So the visitor from Auckland, who 9 had baited amongst the elderly "skippers" on the bank to watch the progress of a regatta, > maintained a fitting solemnity of expression; but, having got into amiable conversation with one who seemed to hold the rank of commodore or some such exalted office, he could not help commenting on the keenness of the competitors and asking wherein lay the appeal of the sport to men of mature (and more than - mature) years. "Well, in my case both my father and my uncle were sea captains in the old sailing ship days," said the commodore. "It is something in the blood," and he looked ■ out across the lake as if he watched the empty " horizon of the ocean for an expected landfall. What an opportunity Tartarin missed when he omitted to form a model yacht club at Tarascon!—l.M. The dead heat between De Friend and £ Gay Hunter in the Spring Handicap at the p recent Poverty Bay meeting meant that two s dividends were paid in a THREE four-horse race. Xaturally j DIVIDENDS, the prices were small, but B probably the outstanding case of dividend paying is entered up in eon- , nection with the A.R.C. Royal Stakes decided j at Ellerslie on January 2, 1900. At that time 1 the rules governing betting on the totalisator r allowed for the payment of two dividends in R classic events where there were four or more f starters. The Royal Stakes that year attracted B four starters. Cuneiform, owned by Mr. G. G. f Stead, Multifid, owned by Mr. I)an O'Brien, the first owner of the mighty Carbine, Glenowp let, owned by Sir George Clifford, and Apol- (. linaris, an Auckland-owned two-year-old. j Cuneiform, ridden by L. H. Hewitt, was a hot favourite and duly won from Glenowlet s * and Multifid, who dead-heated for second place. r The result was three dividends, and for a £1 _ investment they were: Cuneiform, £1 3/; j Glenowlet, £1 1/; and Multifid, 8/. —Johnny. f 1 We have heard of some very tough backf> block farmers in Australia, but pride of position must be given to the gentleman near Sydney who, for ecoBRIDAL REINS, nomy's sake, has dis--5 {tensed with a plough X horse and has substituted his wife. According 1 to the news item, she has become quite i accustomed to the work, and prefers pulling r to driving the plough, always answering the - suggested change with a definite equine neigh. 1 For all we know, the husband may feel in t, duty bound to follow the dictum of "ladies i first." The wife is known in the neighbourhood as "the horse." and as a result, of course, ; she comes in for a lot of chaff. Some day - when things improve this extraordinary couple } will invest in a double-furrow plough and as 5 a result will show the rest of the married i world how easy it is to pull together in spite 1 of hardships and the harrowing times.—B.C.H. I "Anglomaniac" writes: "Recently T have noticed several cases of the use of 'unavailable' I and similar awkward 'tin' words where it , seems to me much better > PREFIXES. to use a phrase and work s in 'not' and 'available' , separately. Ts there any justification for this i forming of words by putting a Latin prefix • to them when the good old English 'not' would ; serve the purpose just as well and with more j i euphonious results?" The use of "not" is ' - preferable. The correspondent's note is worth j ■ taking to heart. "Un" as a prefix means not j i and is used to express negation, incompleteI ness or opposition. "In" as a prefix to adjec- , tives expresses more of negation and "un" ; more of mere privation; as a child's unartistic [ I speech, but a writer's inartistic diction. Used I .as a prefix meaning "back," or the reversal , |of the action of a verb, "un" becomes more • interesting, as in unanchor, unloose, unaided • ; and unburden. Unburden means to relieve of i a burden.—Touchstone. Dear M.A.T..—For a long time Bracken's metaphor was said to be an allusion to the I three branches of the British race—English, Scottish and Irish —who "PACIFIC STAR." pioneered and inhabited 1 Xew Zealand. Bracken, when questioned as to what he meant by "Pacific's threefold star." said it had nothing r to do with the inhabitants. He said he was 1 i alluding to the Southern Cross. This wellknown astronomical cluster, or arrangement [ of stars, was used by navigators for years. ■ But then a cross has four facets. Probably Bracken intended his metaphor to include only i the top and side stars. The star that "ends" ' the arrangement is (in distance) out of proportion. Tt will be rememl>ered the Maoris i and other Polynesians used the Southern Cross (and other stars, of course) in their crude— i though hishly intelligent—system of navigation.— H.M. What is the man paid per handle who fits the handles into spades in a British factory turning out those useful articles? In Xew Zealand the rate is 5/0 SPADES ARE a time, but it cannot be NOT TRUMPS. that much in England, I because the particular implement now under consideration cost onlv 4/9 retail, and out of that 4/0 the shipping company had collected freight, the Government Jits Customs revenue and the farmers their 25 per cent exchange. Admittedly, it was not a. good spade. Tts owner gets 3/6 an hour for pounding a "tripewriter." so lie ought to j get that much for the harder toil of digging ; the garden. Well. on that basis of computa- | tion, the 4/9 spade had done about 1/0 worth of work in the fallow corner of the garden when the handle broke. Fitting a new handle looked like an expert's job. so. on the morrow's morn, we drop into the premises of a tool repairer. The dialogue between the tool j repairer, who. according to the notice in his window, was the most "reasonable" in town. I and the owner of the spade ran something I like this:—Spade Owner: What'll you charge to put a new handle in this darn thing? To?>l j | Repairer: Seven shillings and sixpence. Spade ! Owner: What! The darn thing cost only 4/9. What's a new handle worth? Too] RenairerIWe have new handles for 2/. Tt's the labour j costs, you know, the labour costs. Spade I Owner : Give's a handle. Two bob. Sitting in front of the fire that evening, the owner of the spade whittled at the new handle: the spade was on the fire, the broken stump ; smouldering away in the iron sleeve adding its modicum to the warmth of the room. In ! an hour the stump was burned out. the rivets cut with a bit of hacksaw blade, and the new i handle secured in place with three old screws | jThe repaired spade might aptly be described ! as a rough job; the new handle is a trifle j askew and squeaks lngubriously in use. but it I has survived several fairly strenuous week-ends. But when one considers the original cost I minus charges, plus the cost of spare handles' 1 it looks i<R if the man who stuck the first I handle 111 that spade did not get much more ' for so doing than did the man who stuck the second one in—and that was sweet nothing— ; I I.M. °