THE PASSING SHOW

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22195, 11 September 1937, Page 19

THE PASSING SHOW

"The Onlooker Sees Most . . ." At the British Medical Association meeting in Belfast the story was told of a boxer who fought on automatically after receiving a heavy blow, but was so hazy about subsequent proceedings that he had to look in the naper to see who had won. There was a similar incident in a league football match at the end of last season. Harry Hibbs. the Birmingham internn tional goalkeeper, left the field thinking his team had won 2—l. whereas after he had received a knock the onposing team had scored again to make the game a draw. It was a long time before his wife and teammates could convince him that he let another goal through. When Jimmy Johnston, of Madison Square Garden fame, was boxing, he fought for an amateur championship in brilliant style after receiving one severe blow. "Why did I let him kiwk me out?" he wailed in the dressing-room afterwards. _ His seconds could not persuade him that he had won until they bought a newspaper and showed him the result in the stop press. * * *

Account of horse show in a London papen "Horses stood on one leg for sheer boredom." ,- ~, One of the scenes we should like to see illustrated. * * * Spanish Art Treasures Some of the pictures and other art treasures of the Prado, Madrid, which for safety are being *sent on loan to the Louvre, have been accommodated in the great Paris gallery before, but in somewhat different circumstances. One of Napoleon's little hobbies was to plunder the art collections of the countries he conquered, sending their choicest contents to enrich the Louvre, and Soain suffered heavily in that way. In 1815. after the Emperor's fall, the Allied Powers gave orders that the stolen treasures should be restored to their original owners, and 15 states sent commissioners to Paris to claim their property. Some of them seem to have worked on the principle of levying interest on the enforced loan, for more than 2000 pictures, together with almost innumerable

geuier wim auuvai. iuu»u«,.—.. smaller items, were carried off, leaving the Louvre so denuded that for a time it had to be closed. *, * * * Royal Family of Egypt At home in the Royal Palace at Cairo the newly-invested young King Farouk of Egypt is the only son—the only man, in fact—in his family, states the "Morning Post." Of his four sisters, it is Princess Fewzie, of the ready smile and bronze hair, who is his inseparable companion, as, of course, at 16 she is more of his age than the younger three—Princess Faizi is 12, and Princess Faikah and Fathia are 10 and 6 respectively. The King partners his eldest sister at tennis and dancing, and argues—as brothers doin French and English, as well as Arabic. Brother and sister enjoy motoring in the King's high-powered cars, which he drives himself. Queen Nazli, their widowed mother, is known for her chic French dress, her beauty, and her intellectual charm, and she has wisely combined the best of East and West for the education of her children. They have a professor of Arabic, an English tutor, and two governesses, and masters of music ana dancing at Abdine Palace. .The four Princesses dance with Egyptian grace, and are talented in music and languages. . m . # #

"In the final he was the first local Sot to become amateur champion. Gl sTr g Har?y P La"uder will probably take note of this. * * * The King's Clothes

The attention that was once concentrated on the clothes of the Duke ol Windsor has now been transferred to those of his successor on the throne. Details of every hat, suit, and shirt that the King wears are noted by West End tailors and the male fashion correspondents of the American outfitting firms. Although the King would no doubt be accepted as a leader of fashion whatever he wore, he is, in fact, a better dressed man than his elder brother. The Duke of Windsor's taste in the days when he was much in the public view often inclined to eccentricity, and though he may have set fashions which caught on in Blackpool or Chicago, his influence on the modes of Saville Row and St. James's was not as a rule considerable. King George VI, on the other hand, is an absolutely safe model to follow for the man who wishes to be strictly correct in his attire.. He is, indeed, the typical well-dressed Englishman in that his clothes are always of the best quality and well cut, but quiet in colour and formal in design, with nothing about them specially to attract notice. Grey morning-coat suits with plain blue or white shirts and white starched double collars and ties in blue and grey or black and white are favoured by the King for town wear, and in the country he has a fancy for Shetland tweeds in unobtrusive colourings.

New Warships for Old Temple These are sad, bad days for architecture, eart and west. In Osaka, Japan, the magnificent Temple of Humanity Ls sold for scrap-iron, wrecked and junked. Symbolically, the iron will be used for new warships. The gently religious temple was sold for 150,000 dollars, to a profiteer who outbid 3000 other similar vultures. Current history becomes ironical. What price humanity? ' Meanwhile, Venetian thieves stole the entire roof—two tons of lead—from the far-famed Bridge of Sighs. The bridge connects ducal court and undent prison, and was put up in 159! v Nobody knew the lead was stolen till rain began to leak in and discommode traffic in tourist Americans, criminal Italians, and ghostly old Venetian Doges. » * * *

"For the whole 12 months Doyle was punishing Levinsky unmercifully."— Boxing report. Even the famous old bare-nstea fights did not' last as long as that • • • "Hitch-hiking' Savages Even head-hunters hitch-hike, according to Dr. Frederick Meyer, who has spent 17 years in medical work in the Philippines. Dr. Meyer, on furlough from his work as_ director of Emmanuel Hospital, Caplz Province, said that he was accosted by savage Borocs. head-hunters, as he drove along a precipitous road in the interior of Luzon. They brandished their axes as he applied the brakes, and then asked him: "Sir, may we ride to the next town with you?" , <• * ' * ■ *

Doubt is expressed by various authorities on the transmission of share scrip by air mail. It is pointed out that the scrip may be lost in a crash. A number of local scrip holders have written to say that theirs already has.

London Horses Not many people realise that there are more than 39,600 horses left in London, according to an estimate by the National Horse Association. The figure, of course, is approximate, as no one has ever counted all the horses in London, all the inhabitants of small stables tucked away in the great city. Of London's horses 13,000 odd are ponies and cobs, while nearly 19,000 are van horses, light, medium, or heavy—many more than the number of horses and mules together on the strength of the British Army. There are several ways of discovering how and where the London horse is surviving best in the struggle against motor transport. Blackwall Tunnel tells a tale of dwindling horse usage since the war. In 1915, on a selected day, 1498 horse-vehicles passed through the tunnel. The number for a selected day in 1935 was only 117. In other words, horse-vehicles declined, in those 20 years, from 76_,2 per cent, of the traffic passing through, the tunnel to being 1.5 per cent.

The lady's shrewd blue eyes rested on me with a lurking glint of amusement. I was not at all sure that I had been right in confiding in her. She and her husband had been hostess and host on a fishing holiday, and although she had been kindness itself. I was considerably in awe of her. Quite accidentally, I had learned that she was an uncommonly good tennis player, an experienced bushwoman, a champion horsewoman, and habitually won the open camp drafting competitions for a hundred miles on either side of her station. She was quiet, and a good listener, and had trapped me easily into talking about myself. Now she was smiling at me because I had told her that I wanted to become a good Australian, and that I was drawn to visit Canberra as a pilgrim is to Lourdes or, to Mecca. She laughed outright: "You may get to Canberra," she said, "but to get out again is something else," and she left me to ponder on it. But, to be truthful, until the day of my departure, I did not give my hostess's cryptic remark another thought. It came back into my mind again as I motored down the broad road from Cooma. and I was all agog for adventure. At last a beckoning signboard bade me turn tq the right, and, to my surprise, led me down a narrow bush road, which seemed hardly a fitting approach to a city of law-makers. But I pushed on bravely with the speedometer needle climbing higher and higher, until at last, on my left, a really pompous highway opened out, traversing a wide plain rimmed with low hills.

The blue-eyed lady described Canberra as being "something like Wembley Exhibition," so that there was no mistaking it when I arrived on the outskirts of what appeared to be a •elf-conscious, modern suburbia, with a very ornamental and expensive gas station on my beam. The high price of petrol humbled me, and I was prepared to be depressed as I drove away. The road had gathered the dignity of concrete with spruce cottages and trees on either side. A barber's pole, in a street of stucco shops, reminded me that my hair needed some immediate attention if I were to make a decent entry to the place from which Mr William Hughes castigates Australia upon* its empty cradles. When the barber had finished, I ventured on a question. "Will you tell me, please, how J may get to the Civic Centre?" "Friend," he said, "have you ever been here before?"

"Never," I replied, "but I have been anxious . . ."

He cut me short. "You'll have a devil of a job to find your way anywhere in this burgh," he said discouragingly. "Keep to your right, and it will take you to a bridge. When you get to the bridge, ask someone the way."

The barber took me to the door, with the slow tread of approaching doom, and bade me good-day . . . and good-luck! My spirits had.fallen alarmingly by now, but rose somewhat when I found

the bridge, and a man in a dark uniform.

"Good-day!" I said brightly, by way of opening, "would „you be kind enough to tell me the way to the Civic Centre?" The man in uniform looked at me rather witheringly, I thought, and said in broad Lancashire: "Ah, lad, first time thee've coom 'ere? I don't know as 'ow I can tell thee praper, but thee'll 'ave to do they best Keep to right past Parliament 'Ouse, and then ask some one else." He looked at me again with distaste. To cover my sensitiveness, I looked away and was dismayed to see Canberra opening out bewilderingly in a series of wide circles, bounded by lawns and shrubs. "Thank you! Thank you very much!" I said, and pushed on past a white pile of marble set in lawns on my left, and down a byway, nearly skittling a car, whose indignant driver yelled at me insultingly: "Can't you see this is one-way traffic!" and was gone before I could either apologise or ask the way. I got back 'into the vicious circle, and made four complete circuits of the

in the car, ate up a mile, tore round ft corner, and out to a wide, open road. and straight into the sunset, with the tears streaming down my cheeks, not having seen Canberra, and hoping never to visit it again.

"Lady! Lady!" I wrote admonishingly. "Why? Why didn't you tell me what you meant?" And the answer came back from La Belle Dame sans Merci: "Another poor fish caught in Canberra's net. I've been there five times, and never got out the same way twice. I've spent hours in it without seeing it. Cheer up, laddie. I've got a surveyor friend who lives there, but he never leaves home without a guide. Folk resident in Canberra have less difficulty. I'm told that they are never allowed to move out of the suburb into which it has pleased God to call them. They are not permitted to mix with people whose income is a hundred higher or a hundred lower, and the nightly ringing of the curfew is under consideration." , , . I wonder whether that lady can be trifling with my credulity? Not .. . not the curfew in a modern city . . • .surely jwti £