THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 164, 14 July 1939, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MEN ABOUT TOWN.) TIGHT. The chief looked out of his ollice door. Hn saw a reporter typing details on an expenses voucher. "Don't make it too loner, lad! ' he admonished. "It's late in the day and sjiace is short!" "Hey, Honi. do yon know Bon?*' asked Honi's pakeha friend. '"Ben who?" innocently queried Honi. "Oh, Bon Zinc, of course.'' came the replv. It took Honi "BEN WHO?" wine moments to grasp the perverted sonse of humour. At last, convulsed with laughter, he said: "That te werry pood joke. I try it on my friend Wireniu." Coming hr-ro-s his friend later in the day, Honi accosted him with. ""Hoy. Wireniu, you know Ben'/" Wireniu fell for it. '"'Ben who?" lie asked. '"Ben Kerosene,' chortled the gleeful Honi. —Islefort. "Teleman" has ■written to "Touchstone" asking if the following construction is correct: "The same as water finds its own level, so a man may he known METAPHOR. by his companion*?." Alas, no, that i* to say grammatically, and that is what the correspondent wants to know. Everyliody can get the drift of the writer'* meaning. The (Sentence should start: "As water finds it* own level." Even then there i* another fault to he corrected. An idea, whether a metaphor or a. simile, must he evenly sustained. It i* no', possible to jump from levels to knowledge or companionship. The sentence might he rewritten. "As water find* it* own level. s<> a mini finds his own social level." And oven that is debatable as a matter of fact. — Touchstone.

It is indeed a strange liiiman trait. this habit of nicknaming. Plow often lia* a name earned at school, or before, stuck to its possessor through the NICKNAMES. venrs that alwavs roll

by, and even when he passes on he is remembered not by his christened title but rather as Slim, Shorty or Professor. The reasons for snoli naming are many and varied, but there is usually sorne foundation on which the charge is laid. We have Longfellow for the tall, Happy for the proverbial grouch. Lightning for the slowcoach and ("Jenerous for the tight wad. A new generation of nicknaming has. however, arisen with the coming of the talkies, and I have met many well-known counterparts of screen fame walking in Queen Street. Donald Duck is a short, hoppy fellow, with all the mannerisms of the original, while the same applies to Pluto, a long fellow with—yes, that same hangdog look. Then we have Lofty, because the victim's name a'so that of a well-known ''rassler." as is Ruth that of a well-known actress. The animal kingdom has not been overlooked, either, in this wild search for original titles, and so we have .Tumbo, Bruno and Mousy, but can anyone tell me why an upstanding, athletic, admirable fellow in every way ha-; to be nick-christened —well, of all n:i mes—Puss ? I give up. —Boris Karloff.

Much talk there be in Parliament of the state of the country and what should be done concerning it, but. Lord, what with all the members thereof but PEPYS AT THE seeming to talk not to GASWORKS, the end that they shall solve the difficulties but that they shall score off the other fellow, the chatter do lead nowhere, and seems to me a great waste of time. Fcfr all of which the taxpayer must pay, and it is expensive entertainment. For the Opposition do spend all of their time quipping at the members that are the Government, and would have it that all that they do be wrong and ruinous, and the Government fellows do reply in kind and will have it that all that they do be right and wise, and both of them equally absurd. And it leads me to wondering how much attention men will pay to their Parliament or have any respect for it. And the farmers, I see, do hold their annual talking meet in sr. whereat much is said of the woe of the farmer and the way he is put upon, and how little of his ills the town fellow knows or cares of. But no mention is there of the woes of the city fellow or how little the farmer knows of them or cares, and I overhear a remark that of ail the best and newest motor cars to be seen collected these days, the best will be found outside the saleyards where the farmers do >ell their wares, from all of which it would seem that the farmer leads not so needy a living as he would have us think. Some there be. doubtless, that live in want, but there is no way of tellini whether their want be merely the lack of cunning to devise ways of running their business that they may be rid of their troubles. And less talk there is this time of the Socialist fellow and more of the Conservative. who, it seems is an equal evil and as fully to be avoided. So that the farmer sees himself surrounded by political foes, not knowing l quite where he stands between them, nor understanding whether the Government or the Opposition be his biggest enemv, which maketh the calling of a farmer a puzzling occupation.—B.O'X.

When the Centennial arrangements are finalised it will no doubt lie found that the Government will have recognised the claims

of Scandinavia in the NATION makinsr of this nation of BUILDERS. ours. From the beginning of the 'seventies Norway, Sweden and Denmark sent us many, many thousands of her best citizens. The Wairarapa district lias seen them grow and multiply, and. as the forests disappeared before them, there srrew up town town utterly "foreign." Norsewood, Ormondsville. Dannevirke. Mauriccville, Palmerston North. Eketaliuna and several other towns owe their origin to these sturdy Norsemen. In the years 1870-73 alone what was known as the Seventy-Mile Bush was settled by these immigrants who came here 111 windjammers to build a newer Scandinavia. Tn those three rears alone

"Scandies" to the number of 2000 Dane*. 740 Norwegians and 725 Swedes arrived. Lnzed's total population was well under 300.000 those day«. and the arrival of .V>oo '"'foreigners." the bulk of whom were rather hazy about expressing themselves in our language, was no inconsiderable item. Given 40-acre section* at one pound per acre on time payment, they made good and to-day the farms of these early nation builders have grown to be the pride of the district, whilst the produce therefrom helps to build up our London funds in these precarious days. Eketahuna was named Mellemskoff then, and in the thick forests that covered the whole countryside one could meet •descendants of Vikings going about armed just "in case." The very name of Dannevirke (a township founded by Danish immigrants in 'seventy-three) takes us back to the = ninth century, for it was in that far-off dav the name of an historic entrenchment built for the defence of Denmark, a place fated to be lost to Germany in the war of 'sixty-four, when Denmark fought that eountrv. Beginning as a busy sawmilling town, the disastrous Are of October 20. 1917, destroyed what was probahlv one of our finest totara forests. A westerly wind fanned the flames, which destroyed the business area, causing losses to the extent of over £200.000.—MacClure.

A THOUGHT FOR TO DAY. Whoso hath felt the spirit of the Highest Cannot confound, nor doubt Him. nor denvYea, with one voice, O World, though thou deeirest, Stand thou on that sid;, for on this am I. Myers' St. Paul.