THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 53, 4 March 1939, Page 8

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MEN ABOUT TOWN.)

The Cockney must look to his laurels — or his pearly buttons. His "Lambeth Walk" is about to be challenged. Xews from America tolls us that smart ball--01! rooms may presently take to the warpath with a Red Indian vogue. Someone in the land of novelties has turned for dance inspiration to the Muckleshoot Indians. (Sooner or later, of course, a name like that was bound to be noticed.) On their native heath the Muckleslioots performed some sort of tribal hop-skip when the bison market was bullish, or when a record crop of -palefacts had been scalped. Out of this, modern Amcrica is evolving a danec. It is known as the Muckleshoot Stomp. Steps include the Rabbit and Squaw Sidestep, the Rattlesnake Oilide and the Lame Duck Turn. Surely Auckland dancers can produce a few steps set to swing music to meet the challenge of the Muckleshoot Stomp. What about a Taxation Tango. Social Security TingleTangle, Marketing Maxina. or Ministerial SideStep? The last-mentioned should be an easy one.—Johnny. An article in Wednesday's "Star" headed "Demand for Private Garages" constrains me to draw a comparison, or, should I say, look back a year or two to the POUNDKEEPER. horse days. To-day motor accommodation is almost as essential as a house, and both seem to be equally hard to procure, separately or together. It is not so many years ago that a paddock was equally essential to a tenant. The tenant of the paddock, of course, was the family horse, sometimes sharing his accommodation with the family cow, and perhaps a calf. What a. lot of fun was had in those days, when, for instance, Dobbin jumped the rail in search of fresh fields. Equally so when he was caught wandering on the streets by that worthy, the poundkeeper. And then the identification parade when prospective claimants looked the captives over. The poundkeeper, however, is almost without a job nowadays, while to procure liorse accommodation is almost impossible. With so many cars garaged under the stars a new type of poundkeeper may be evolved. A qualification necessary for the job would be one who can handle any type of vehicle from a. model T to a traction engine or Rolls.—M.C. On the farm the plumbers and painters have been in residence for a fortnight. Jt all came about in this wise. Despite the guaranteed price and the THE PLUMBERS, promise of social security on that memorable First of April next, Mr. and Mrs. Cockie decided to "do up" the house. Mrs. Cockie had been

hoarding her egg money, the children's calf money was raided, and Father Cockie, in a burst of fatherly thrift, decided to adopt the "water wagon" and eschew tobacco for six months. The finance was so arranged, and the necessary cash safely in the bank. Priccs were sought, wallpapers bought, and one fateful Monday morninjr the plumbers and painters arrived in force. There were five of them; a boy to fetch and carry for liis plumber, and three wild-looking painters. If you have lived on a dairy farm you get some small idea of the upset all this entails. Fifteen extra meals, five morning and five afternoon, "smoko" ten daily, together with the extra washing up and the usual tidying up after five workmen. After a fortnight of steady work the plumber and his boy bad arranged all the water and drain pipes, etc. The boy was soon a nervous and moral wreck—on the move from morning to night, finding this, looking for that, and losing most things. The memory of a plumber is a by-word, but, believe it or not, this parspecimen of the genus Plum got up one morning and could not find, not his tools, but his clothes. He had used them for a pillow and forgot all about it. He came to breakfast in bis nightshirt and overcoat. This put the lid on. Mrs. and the Misses Cockie were annoyed and struck —good and hard. The painters were not so bad. They are quiet, deep sort of chaps, the monotony of their work, I suppose, providing the reason. In a fortnight they had "done up" a couple of rooms, painted the roof and some of the sheds. Mrs. and the Misses Cockie now took a band in the game and flatly refused to provide any more meals or "smoicos." The whole fit-out were starved out and retired badly hurt to headquarters, leaving all material on the job. Next time, if ever finance permits, the job will be done between milkings on a strictly communal basis.—J.AV.W.

The smile had faded from Annie's face. The Druce family had thrown a spanner in the works. By entering a. caveat they had succeeded in having the THE DRUCE CASE, exhumation postponed. (III.) Annie's victory in the Consistory Court was an idle one. Thoroughly determined that Annie should not open that coffin, the Druce family sought, in the Queens Bench Division, to have the verdict given in the Consistory Court annulled. They failed to secure an annulment, though, and while the case was being hotly contested in the Law Courts, Annie decided to put one over on them, so she started an action in the Probate Court to obtain a writ revoking the probate of the will, and played her trump card. It was essential to her case, she maintained, to ascertain whether that coffin did, or did not, contain old man Druce's remains. The question was argued in Chambers before the President, Sir Francis Jeune, between August 3 and 9, 1898. Annie won again, and it was agreed to issue to her the necessary order for exhumation. Annie, gripping her screwdriver, hurried smilingly along to the Consistory Court to collect the order for exhumation, and it was granted to ber—subject to a licensc being obtained from the Secretary of State, in accordance with the ruling of the Queen's Bench. Annie then got in touch with the Home Office, and they broke it gently to her—no sanction, they told her, could be given "unless it were applied for by the actual owners of the vault." Now the Druce family's claim to the ownership of the family vault was upheld by the cemetery authorities. Annie and her boy, Sid, had a talk over things. The more she thought of that cofliin the madder she got. There must be some way. Sid, never too bright, couldn't think of any. In his mind he had unscrewed the lid a million times. Now? All England was crazy over the affair by this time. Why wouldn't the Druce family allow the body to be exhumed ? There was most decidedly something very fishy about the whole affair. Unknown to Annie, a grandson of old man Druce far away in Australia had come to the same conclusion. "A sliam funeral, eh? So that was it. Well, we'll soon see into that"— and he, too, decided to "do something about it." And lie did, and the smile on the face of the Druce family started to fade; they held a hurried family council. They must prevent the exhuming at all costs; and they did— temporarily—but . . . —MacCTurc.

COW IDEOLOGY. Socialism: You give half your cows to your neighbour. Or do you? Fascism: You give your cows to the Government, which gives you back part of the milk. Nazi-ism: You keep the cows and give the milk to' the Government, which sells it back to you. New Dealism: The Government tells you to shoot some of your cows, milk the rest, and pour the milk down the drain. Communism: The Government shoot* you and takes the cows. Savage-ism: You milk ib» «rws. Mr. Nash milks you, —R.M.S.