THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 35, 11 February 1939, Page 8

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MEN ABOUT TOWN.)

Looking back a number of years, I can still see the old school room, hot and stuffy, in the afternoon of a summer's day. The subject was history, and THE TOMB. the subject of the subject was Napoleon. We had been given several pages to learn about that worth}', and I had been so busy thinking about swimming, or something of more importance to me, that I had quite neglected my work. The result was that I was made to write, one hundred times, that "Napoleon now sleeps in a sarcophagus of black Egyptian marble." Hence I learned the only piece of history which I can remember with any clarity to-day. That was until last week, when I read a book by an eminent man who visited Napoleon's tomb in Paris and writes: "The remains of the great Emperor repose in a. plain sarcophagus of red porphyry." Without wishing to cast any aspersions upon ray late teachers or upon the writer, could anyone tell me if I have been misled—and one hundred times at that?—L.

We patriotic Aucklanders used to boast of our inches of rain and our hours of sunshine, and we still boast of our Harbour, our Museum, our Rangitoto. GHOSTS. our Zoo and our Hospital

Board. But we rarely make a claim fo fame for our ghosts. Are we too busy to be bothered, or is it just natural modesty? Ghost stories arc rampant in most other parts of New Zealand. For instance, there is the house at Puketapu, near Xapier. (solemnly pointed out by passing motorists as the placc where a ghostly lady works a ghostly sewing machine every Saturday night between 12 and 1. Xo four-hour week there! And I remember two old ladies in a Dimedin suburb who spoke in the friendliest fashion of their blue-eved, yellow-haired spectre who was practically one of the family. But Auckland is singularly destitute of these tales. It is true that there is a story of an old Maori woman who used to patrol a Xorth Shore beach in the 1900's, her head cloaked and her eyes on the ground. Looking for pipis, the irreverent suggested. And there is the story of a house in Ponsonbv on one wall of which, as a warning of death in the. family, the imprint of a bloody hand occasionally appeared. But this seems rather like the vision of some lad coming home after a. quick one. Apart from these, not even my theosophical acquaintances c*n relate any local legends. Perhaps some Auckland Gaels know of a few city kelpies, bofrlc6 or banshees? —C.P.H. "

Love of animals has ever been extolled ss ono of mankind's infrequent virtues; we all know those ardent dog loverc who proudly rate the intelligence of DOG LOVERS. their canine companions

as "nearly human'' (a poor sort of compliment, if the hapless wretch only knew it), and persist in making practical and usually messy demonstrations of their pet's precocity at every opportune, or inopportune, moment. However, the proprietors of hotels and the keepers of boardinghouses remain rigid in their disapproval of all fourfooted friends, despite the protestations of their owners as to their cleanliness and unimpeachable behaviour (the quadrupeds, that is). A married couple, both members of the ballet company at present in Auckland, have cause to regret the harshness of one of our local purveyors of good cheer in this touchy matter. This couple own a dog whose habit it is to sleep in his mistress' room, a custom so ingrained that the said ballerina finds it impossible to drink of the cool, deep waters of Lethe unless the animal is lapping noisily by her side. Even one of the most conservative and austere of inns bowed to her prejudice, but the worldly-wise hostess, anticipating trouble from this source at the ballet's next port of call, wrote to the manager of this particular hostelry requesting that as a graceful gesture he should for once condone the dastardly practice. He, visualising a small, neat Pomeranian or some such, went forth gladly to receive the arriving pair, to be greeted by a massive Gordon setter, like the noses of the Norwegian Trolls, about four ells long! His polite suggestion that the mammal should, like his own tail-wagger, sleep in the car, was met with blank disapproval, and.it was only after wearing discussion and controversy, accompanied by much broken English, that it was decided to hire a caravan and house it in the garage opposite so that the custom of ages should not be thus rudely disturbed. The upshot of the whole affair is that the terpslchorean pair have taken a room, where, no doubt, the Gordon setter repose* by his mistress at night in sublime and undisturbed serenity.—R.M.S. '

Mention in the same issue of the "Star" last week of the death of Mr. E. S. Little, of Kerikeri, and the Japanese order that all foreigners evacuate Ruling SMALL WORLD, preparatory to attack, is a coincidence which brings to mind a further coincidence affecting China and Xew Zealand. It was Mr. Little's father, a pioneer missionary and business man in duna, who first saw the possibilities of Ruling as a mountain health resort and summer retreat for foreigners. It was a place in which they could escape the oppressively sticky heat of a Yangtse Valley summer. When Mr. Little, senior, first conceived the idea only a handful of foreigners had ever heard of, let alone seen, this land of age-old temples, sacred groves and monuments of what was once a great and glorious China; a China where culture, science and all the arts flourished long before those of Greece. Soon the foreigner came in his hundreds—men, women and children—to Ruling. There he found rest and cool breezes. And now we have the announcement that the son of the man who made all this possible died in New Zealand, apparently on the same day that all foreigners were ordered to leave Ruling—let us hope before he heard the news which certainly would have hurt him. The coincidences do not end there, however. Three or four weeks ago it was reported that a new gunboat had been launched in England for service on the Yangtse River. It was stated that she was of the same type as two gunboats, the names of which I forget, which were said to be the first steam vessels to penetrate the Gorges of the Upper Yangtse. That is incorrect. The first steam vessel to go through the Gorges was the paddle-steamer Pioneer, built and owned by Mr. Little's father. She was purchased" later by tho British Admiralty and became H.M.S. Rinsha. After many years of useful service as a unit ' of the British Xavy she was sold to the ! Chinese and ended her days ignominioflfcly as a "chicken boat" running up and down the Shanghai River. Gone were the yellow smoke stack, shining white hull and polished guns. In their place were dirty black paint from truck to water line and chicken coops from bow to stern—even on tho sacred bridge. That is not the end of the coincidences, however. The first man to install a motor engine in a | sampan later sold the boat to the British Admiralty, and it wa6 carried by H.M.S. Kinslia. That man now lives in retirement I at Howick!—Tslefort. j