THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 209, 5 September 1939, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MEW ABOUT TOWN.) SUNDAY SIDELINES. The membero of the Waihi Borough Council have been discussing the question of Sunday football on the local recreation reserve. "Observe the day." some fellows say. While others have asserted That even thought it's wrong to play A try can be converted. —B.C.H. i Demarche is a French word that has come suddenly into the news. It has a good many meanings in its own country, but it will no doubt be used chiefly in WAR-TIME place of "overture." Still, VOCABULARY. it is such a convenient word that all of its meanings are worth mentioning. It stands for gait or walk; proceeding or measure; step or course; application or overture. In IVench a "demarche noble" means a noble bearing. To "faire une demarche" is. to take a step or make an application. Observe toutes ses demarches" means "all his steps are dogged." The pronunciation, roughly, is day-marsh, with emphasis on marsh. A note will be given anon about that controversial word '"morale," which is best pronounced morahl, with the emphasis on "rahl."—Touchstone.

AN UNPLEASANT TASK. T.he time has come when reason's past

Invoking l — Tho tide too swiftlv for discussion runs: Alreadv now in German hands are smoking, Impatient guns.

The fight. Lord knows, was never of our seeking: Not ours the threat of force: but yet our vow Was something stronger far than idle speaking— We're in it now.

It won t be nice: in seasons like the present Restraint is dead, and chivalrv a jest: Yet. be the burden never so unpleasant. We'll meet the test.

J 311 .? no l f rom hatred of the nation So sadly tortured and so vainly led. , with a sad determination. The job ahead. —SIXBAD.

The crowd at the end of the Queen's wharf watching the coming of the Aotearoa was a mixed one. The great event was a reasonable

_ excuse for a stop-work BOTTLE BATTLE, meeting. One elderly . _ knight-of the cargo hook spied an old friend in the gathering whom he had evidently not seen for some time. "Hello, Bill, ow yer doin'. 'Aven't seen yer for a long time." "Xot so bad," replied Bill, "hut things ain't looking too good." "Oh, I don't know," replied the elderly one, "we've faced nigger things before and" we won. Wot we should Vive done was to 'ave tackled 'em long ago." 'That's right," answered Bill, "but the combination we're up against is a pretty strong one. They think we're bluffing." "~Vo Warned fear. Bill, we ain't bluffing this time: it s a fight to a finish. Unity is strength, and we'll win on the showdown." "Maybe you're nsrht, but that means war." "You betcher life. Bill; war to the knife, but another week will see the end of it; we've got 'em thinkin.'" "Maybe you're riffht. but Poland will 'ave to give in," suggested Bill. "Poland? Wot has Poland got to do with it?" "But yer talkin' about the war, ain't yer?" queried Bill. "War he dashed. "Oo is talking about the war? I'm talkin' about the Beer Boycott." The throats of the listeners were too dry to raise a laugh.—Jack.

The talk this day be all of the war and how all shall go in it, and none has the same view, which do make it all very confusing, so that I know not what SACRIFICES. to think, and am exceed-

ingly worried. And no petrol there be for the private cars, so that they that would use them to take them to their offices must walk, or go by the tramcars, so that they feel already the pinch of war, and do regard themselves as having much hardship and making great sacrifice for the cause. The which, however, be but a little tliiryr, and more sacrifice they will make ere all is over. But little or nothing; or any panic do I find, but all ready to do what there may be do to, and concerned little if anv at the consequence thereof. Which do be an encouraging sign that the nation be in good lieart. But hard it is going to be on those lads that are real sons of their fathers if they must stay here and watch their kin •bearing all the brunt and fury of the battle, and them compelled to stay here in idleness and doing nothing but hoping to bring about the desired end. Little prospect it seems there be tha.t any from tliis land will be able to join in active battle for the assertion of the British right, and as the days go by. will irk such as have the martial blood within them, and that, thank God, be still verv manv of us. For, though it be an evil thing to do battle, still greater evil i. s it to let him have his w ill who will lightly impose it on others, and bv the misuse of might take from him that is weaker the things that do belong to him. And so through the day with these and other thoughts bothering me." and little attention given to the duties of the dav. AYherein I do but be like others, who in this calamity find a paramount interest that do tend to banish routine matters from the mind.—B.O'X.

Strange as it may sound to lovers of the pipes, it is only in comparatively reccnt times that the War Office has admitted the right °f Scottish regiments C to PIPE BANDS. their pipers. Associated

as pipers have been to these regiments from their earliest formation, hard-hearted, unmusical, unsentimental- and unimaginative Whitehall for centuries not only refused to bear the cost of paying for pipe music but issued cdict after edict aiiainst pipe bands, even going so far as to inspect all regiments ordered to proceed abroad and decreed, when such were discovered, that they be left behind. The pipers of the Fraser Highlanders at Quebec were probably on files »in some dusty pigeon-hole in Whitehall, whilst the heroism of the pipers of the 71st at Porto Novo and Vimiera, to say nothing of those of the 42nd, 70th and 02nd. at Waterloo, had also been probably unoffioiallv "noted." For some perverse reason. Whitehall disliked pipe bands, pibroclis and pipe-majors—and the money they cost. And so we find the 91st in ISoO on the eve of their departure for South Africa, being inspected and ordered to leave their excellent pipe band behind them. True Scots, they sent Home from the Cape for a new outfit—out of their own pocket, of course, for, outside of drummers and trumpeters, Whitehall recognised no other "musicians." The great "Iron Duke" himself ('twas the Irish in him, bedad) on one occasion dared to offend Whitehall and surprisingly (and sharply) reprimanded MajorGeneral J. E. C. Xapier when (in '."52) that worthy presented to him a report on the "irregularity" of the 92nd (the Gallant Gordons) having pipers. Drawing himself to his full height, Wellington scowled at Xapier. "I am surprised that an officer who has seen, as you must have seen, the gallant deeds performed by the Highland regiments, in which their pipers played such an important part, should make such a report." But Whitehall till quite comparatively recently decreed that pipe bands were an abomination—not in so many words, it is true, hut by official bans and refusals to meet the cost thereof, and by demanding to see the authority of all officers who allowed such organisations to exist.— MacClure.

4 THOUGHT FOR TO DAY. True greatness consists in being great in little things.—Dr. Samuel Johnson.