LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20922, 11 July 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

BY MERCUTIO.

It is perhaps a sign.of the times that jlhere is a special' Maori exhibit at the jAuckland Winter Exhibition. True, the purpose is also a special one, to raise picney for current needs in relieving distress; but it may help to establish the fact that in an exhibition designed to display New Zealand's industry there should be room for a section devoted to ancient Maori arts and crafts. They were,. if not |tho parents, at least the forerunners of »})() industries that exist to-day. They Recall, too, a time when New Zealand was completely self-contained and selfsupporting, when there was no dependence ton thß overseas buyer or manufacturer, jwhen unemployment was unknown. A yeturn to that state is the ideal of those who urge the full support of New ZeaJarid industry. It is impossible of complete realisation; but there is no harm in people- being reminded that, despite the Roasts of progress and civilisation, the community to-day cannot rely on itself and its own exertions to meet some of its most elementary needs—food, clothing and implements, for example—as old New Zealand did- A lesson in proper humility never does any harm. Incidentally, this exhibit will justify itself if it helps to spread the conviction that those things 'distinctive of the pro-European Maori are worth intelligent study and appreciation by New Zealanders, that thov need not simply be conserved and paraded for the delectation of overseas visitors whose ■jaded palates for something new must ever be tickled. .

t A bull in a china shop is the conventional figure to suggest a wild disturbance, with some breakages. A bullflog in a cat show. might be expected to prove nearly as calamitous. But when logo, the mascot of the Philomel, visited jthe cat show last week-end nothing un-' toward happened at all. The main credit must go to Togo." Cats are good at jcohcealing their feelings and seeming merely bored in face of what might be alarming situations. Dogs, honest chaps, aw not nearly so well controlled as a rule. When they see a cat their impulse is to show what they think ■of the whole race of cats. That Togo scrupulously observed his obligations as a visitor and a patron can be attributed to gentlemanly • instincts and Navy disciplina " The two go naturally together, taywny.

Tho Government seismologist reports, jUiafc last Saturday was a remarkable day. Not the smallest disturbance was recorded' by the instruments, though small tremors Jtre usually detected every day. Apparently the fireworks and other celebrations in .the United States did not spread their effects this far. Incidentally, wasn't last Saturday the day for which a major . (disturbance was. predicted ?

A proposal, casually made, but not pursued, to stock Lake Takapuna with front has caused a good deal of official Comment—all of it unfavourable. Now the medical officer of health at Auckland caps it by remarking that, even if the lake were stocked, fishing would Eave to be prohibited. Sounds remarkably like the irreverent story of the man .who, arriving in the next world—the unjleasant part—found a magnificentlyappointed golf course. Remarking that this didn't seem much like eternal punishment, he suggested a game. Here two versions appear. One says he was told there were no balls, the other that flay was prohibited. Both agree that the punishment lay in the realisation ttare could be no game on this wonderfill course—a sort of golfer's torment of Tantalus. The lake would be like that to-the fisherman if stocked.

" Steady improvement in roading conditions in North Auckland was reported !>y the touring manager of the A.A.A." '—so ran the story. Well, well; one |>y one the old shibboleths and the ancient jests, lose their strength and their application. The " roadless North "is vanishing fast. That is to say, its roadiesisness is going; the North remains, and. of course, always will. As a matter of fact, it was always miscalled' roadless; "s the inhabitants used to explain bitterly, it was not the want of roads, but the superlative badness of those they had that caused ali the trouble. It is that which :s now being gradually con qoered, so that the days when the rivers Mil the arms of its great harbours were the main highways of the pioneers—many ■travelling in boats with one manpower propulsion—grow dimmer and yet more If the North was not rightly called roadless, neither could it be called trackless in the days antedating survey a nd settlement. For down that narrow peninsula ran the great war trails the Maori followed when Ngapuhi and ■Ngati-whatua were ever at one another's throats. How the shades of the old-time Warriors must have jibed when the ignorpakelia talked of the " poor North " a "d prophesied that, with the timber ail and the gum all dug, it would revert wilderness. They knew what a teemlnf?> aggressive and pugnacious life it supported before guns and gunpowder decided the tribes. What it had done before it could do again; and it is doing fast. The making of roads is only Cn e part of the great evolution.

According to a prominent medical man, *OB little toes are not much use to any--0!1e, and if. they give any trouble are better retooved. So there's another thing the fraternity tells us we can do Without, though nature supplier! it with admirable persistence. The appendix and • tonsils are recommended for removal the slightest provocation; sometimes .he patient ruefully wonders whether there is any provocation, at all. It is remarkable evolution, if there is such a thing as Solution, does not seem to work in harmony with man's ideas. Here is Nature doing h er unhurried best to turn human beings into toothless creatures, and the of science are being mobilised counteract the tendency. Yet whilo tdnsils and toes are supplied in the usual jjumher and place, the medical scientist declares they can be tolerated only so long -they do not assert themselves. It is fashionable to suggest that this tooth Problem is exclusively a modern one; but isn't. Egyptologists say that they have signs of dental disease in mumtoles thousands of years old; also attempts ,° re pair the ravages of such disease. It 16 recorded, too, that the handkerchief, ,l °t previously in common use, was given j' 'vogue in France because a _ certain * vf U j en France, several centuries ag6, - very bad teeth. She carried a band|§i|F c ki e f to hold in front of her mouth • "hen she smiled. It is only in comparai' -. !T % recent years that it has been dis- ' ;2' that Nature's assault on the teeth . Ust bo checked. At the same time there .P er fect readiness to start a little war, ? 9 independently, on the tonsils, the *8 and the appendix. It is very, very