THIS PASSING SHOW

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8179, 22 July 1912, Page 5

THIS PASSING SHOW

Some little talk avrhilo of iJo and Thee There was—ami then no moro of 'lace amt Me. —Omar Khayyam.

"Tho Ebb Tide” ns a title appH«l one of SaturdayV topics to the altairs ot tho .Seamen's Institute stnick me as-likc-Iv to appeal to a. large number ot people. lint; it also struck mo an needing just tliat touch of practical suggestion which one never expects from men. They, as wo nil know, are creatures ot wit; if you will, ami certainly ot imagination: it is women wluyseo from the practical point of view. Therefore IP I those who desire to help, hut are in doubt, as to methods, one may run through tho list of stalls for the bazaar, prefacing it with the assurance that, contributions to any of (hem will lie wetcoiuo. **«fuinhlo, * swo<?tri stall, lolrcshmeat, men's stall, work stall, hooka, pioduco and flowers. Surely there is some way, in all these diverse ways, in which wo, can all help, even tho people who (on principle) only give away what they don t: want tnomsclvcs, for they can give what they don't; want to the jumble stall! Indeed here is an excellent way of solving that age-long problem so dear to every daughter of Eve. getting something tor nothing." For if you give away something you don t want, surety that is And if you are warmly thanked for it—as you, mil bo—then you certainly got something for nothing.

"But why?” you say, the ago of sentiment about the sailor man as typfied by Jack Tar, and "Nancy Lee, has passed with tho songs that many a jovial bantone wo wot of trolled with so debonair a stylo in tho past. The thick brown hair'of the singers is eilwr grey now or vanished I instead of The Midshipmite,” "Nancy Leigh, 'I ho blormv Petrel,” and "Tho Boatswains btory with their robust and wholesome tenderness, we listen to oriental love measures, and anemic nature songs. Quito true. Truo also that there is nothing particularly picturesque about tho A.B. of the Mercantile Marine, but ho is tho man who in time of danger and death carries out in silence the great traditions of noble'manhood, and cheerfully signs his own death warrant with the "hard, brown hands with which ho passes down "women and children hrst. While you and I mako our little coastal trips along tho most dangerous coast in the world, and arriving at our comfortable homes, grumble prodigiously about the rough passage, tho crowded boat, the miserable weather—what was, the sailor man doing? Bid yon hear him tumble up on deck for "the middle watch which every sailor detests- Bid you ever think of him as the boat plunged >and staggered through the great green rollers, just a little speck of man-made daring on all that mighty, waste? Think of what four long hours in the bitter wind and driving rain meant? . No, he is there to do his duty, he is paid for it . . . he does it. And we! we who ot course always do our duty too, and like It ho sailor man neither get nor expect I thanks for doing it. It is not much for 'us, thinking of the home, the comtort, I the hundred-and-one little happinesses of our lives, to make some effort to hold up the hands of those who try to bring a sens© of fellowship and coinfoi fc into the lives of those whose way is necessarily SO hard and strenuous. One thing more, to help at all, one must help quickly—the little, show, with its pageant, its stalls, and its welcome for tho visitors thereto, opens on July 31st. —ZEALANBIA.