FROM MY VERANDAH

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 54, Issue 3906, 28 May 1937, Page 5

FROM MY VERANDAH

NOTES ON THE .PASSING SHOW. (By J.T.P?) The Coronation —and After. The tumult and the shouting dies, The captains and the kings depart. The second Coronation in our day and generation has come and gone, leaving behind it abiding memories of a great Imperial event that stirred the patriotic pride and inspiration ot Britons in every corner of that vast Empire upon which the sun never sets, and even beyond its confines to where subjects of King George and Queen Elizabeth happened to be domiciled, as witnessed the celebrations in unhappy, striven Spain. But the Coronation was something more than a ceremonial pageant of Empire. It was an Imperial Act of Faith, signifying and emphasising the loyalty that is an abiding part of the very foundation of our national life. Without the Throne, the British Commonwealth of Nations could easily become a congeries of jealous communities, noisy with political factions and competitive aspirations and ruinously confused in effort for peace and progress. Hence the reason for a democratic Coronation festival with its counterpart in spirit wherever the British flag waves its message of freedom and protection to patriotic people. Unselfish service, loyalty to the duty of maintaining honour and integrity and strength in “playing the game”; these are the real foundations of the Throne and the Empire. The Union Jack displayed in Te Awamutu or on the isolated cottage at, say, Wharepuhunga, the omnipresent Red, White and Blue; these were the visible manifestations of the solidarity of the foundation upon which rests the Empire we are all proud to belong. God Save the King! The Duke of Windsor. Ere another week has passed the King who will go down into history as the Monarch who gave up his job for “Luv,” will have been married to the “apple of his eye," or whatever else fantastic term you like to apply. Curiously too, he will be duly spliced on his father's birthday—sort of rank heresy, you will remark —and in a foreign land. The ceremony, the cablegram assures us, is to be simplified and, while the Duke will prove the best newspaper draw in the world, ii seems evident that it will be difficult to rend the veil of secrecy. However, a simplified service will knit the knot, though probably a still shorter way would have been to jump over the broomstick. Indeed, jumping the brookstick has been accepted in England as a legal form of marriage so far as a pension is concerned. A more elaborate gipsy wedding requires a whip and a halter. But then a gipsy woman becomes her husband’s servant as well as his wife. We do things more tactfully. At one wedding in America the ceremony consisted of bride and bridegroom being joined together in handcuffs, as a sign of wedded bliss that was to follow. Unfortunately the ceremony was so effective the unhappy pair could not open the knot into which they had locked themselves. The ceremony, therefore, ended at police headquarters. In Greenland the man seeking to marry does so by seizing the woman he admires and bundling her off to his igloo or other nook. The ceremony is completed by the man tearing from his bride the nets and other junk in which she has been wrapped since the day of the engagement. There are snags in this procedure, as one gallant discovered. This passionate lover carried oft his wife in her sleeping bag, heedless of the squeals of protest. He broke down his ice bridges behind him. Safe at last in his own igloo, he hauled his loved one forth, only to discover that he had married her grandmother. In Siberia a greater caution is shown. The would-be bride goes to the trouble of raising her husband from babyhood. In the meantime the woman takes a marriage companion of her own age until her prospective husband grows to manhood. There is much to be said for this method. The husband emerges completely trained and absolutely tamed. Romance of Te Rapa Winners. From the Far Land, the Small Boy watched, with Allegretto interest, the romance developing between Peter Beckford and Gay Rose. Unaware of the Bass Collision between Lord Vai and De Friend to use Saint Musk as a foil, he saw Black Marlin manoeuvre, so that Gay Rose fell like a Hunting Star to the charms of the aristocratic I,ord Vai, who carried away his bride to the delight of Kena. Luck. The Minister for Mines is reported to have struck a rich patch at Washdyke on Saturday. He is part owner of Wino, who won the Elloughton Handicap, but his lucky strike was made in connection with the second trot. Hearing a friend commission an official to invest a pound each way on Heather Queen, the Minister, on the spur of the moment, decided to have a similar interest in the race. The return for the £2 ran to over three figures. A Matter of Opinion. The Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage is in London attending the Imperial Conference, where mighty problems of world concern are being discussed and decided upon for good or ill. But what care we here in Te Awamutu when we are confronted by and pre-occupied with such momentous problems as the abdication of King Montefiore, the selection of a site for the Town Clock, ■he battle royal for cream suppliers .'nd—the.sitting qf the Magistrate’s < ourt on Titesday, June Sth! All the Joneses. It just happened when J.T.P. was spending a very pleasant week-end with a friend, J. H. Jones, of Ngahape, that he came across a curious piece of news connected with the Coronation—and all about a Mr Jones who was endeavouring to find a Mrs Williams. Well, this was fascinating, if not indeed appropriate, when his host was a Jones. Old figures and calculations (all based on statistics, such as the Te Awamutu district farmers, in another way, are at present endeavouring to compile for a State authority which has an insatiable greed for same) show that the chances of success would have been greater if the announcer had asked all the Smiths to step to one side. This would have removed one person in every 70 watching the proceedings. It

would have enabled Mr Jones to get down to his task that much the easier. Yet the number of Joneses and Williamses are such that one might search in vain for the other. Not that there is no chance of a Williams and a Jones meeting. The chances are, in fact, very great. Now, according to calculations mentioned before, there should have been in the Coronation crowds 70,000 people named Jones and 65,000 named Williams, so that the chances ot the two correct Joneses and Williamses finding one another were very remote. Still, the fact remains that these Joneses are very kindly people—J.T.P’s. happy experience at Ngahape proved that, while if you require further verification of the truth you will find it in the mag nanimous action of Mel Jones last Saturday in spontaneously assisting a pal in distress. Oil Consumption. ' The fact that it has been officially i ecorded that at the Te Rapa races on Saturday last the motor ears numbered 2,300, brings to the mind of J.T.P. that few people realise the huge quantities of liquid fuel that are consumed these days. If all the 35,000,000 motor cars in the world were to average 10 miles a day they would leave little over each day from 20,000,000 gallons. Where ships are concerned one ceases to measure in gallons but in tons. It has been estimated that Britain’s new navy would burn over 13,000,000 gallons of oil in a week. The bright spot, so far as Britain is concerned, is that although crude oil supplies may have their limits, coal supplies capable of being converted into oil are very extensive. There are 7,400,000,000,000 tons of coal within 3000 feet of the earth’s surface. This could be converted into enough oil to last the world 2400 years. Britain has a large share of this coal. Talk of mechanisation is ail very well, but after all, the old horse at a pinch could be made to eat all manner of odds "and ends. You cannot feed a tank on chaff. The Abdication of the King! At the Te Awamutu Borough Council meeting on Monday night, violent opposition by Cr J. C. Montefiore to a proposal of the Finance Committee to increase a worker’s wages—a proposal which the Council ultimately adopted—led to his resignation as chairman and member of the Works Committee. Ole Monty’s got the bloomin’ ’uff, Our King is in a flurry An’ sez that ’e ’as ’ad enough, So walks out in a ’urry. It’s all a-cause those Finance-Bugs A-want to do some spendin’, Th’ poachin’ cows—the greedy thugs, Thus Monty’s spendin’ endin’. "1 won’t stand for you thugs to spend,” "It’s me to splash th’ coppers. “If poachin’ 'abits you won’t mend, “We’ll come some awful croppers." “It’s plain as mud —a kid could see, “Of money we ain’t got enough "For splashin’ round —both you an’ me, “Be-gobs, I’ve got th’ ’uff.” But ’abit grows, and ’abit stops, Th’ thugs persist in spendin’, Good-bye Ole’ Mont—so out yer ’ops, Yer ’ealth—me elbow's bendin’. A Simple Question. J.T.P. recently spent a week-end with a well known larmer. Never once did he growl about the Government, guaranteed prices or anything else. Wonder if he has been expelled, or disqualified, from membership of the Farmers’ Union! Exquisite Revenge! Timaru has put up the unique record of having a woman who has been fined for driving a car too slowly! She was returning from a race meeting and drove at 12 miles per hour, thereby holding up a string of cars behind her. Sounds like the story of the “exquisite revenge” in the Count of Monte Cristo, except that in this instance the lady was doubtless emulating the example of some of the horses she had backed at the said country race meeting! That Golf Swing! Little suggestions, even to Te Awamutu golfers, should afford a helpful basis for correct timing in the golf swing. Helen Hicks for instance, has the magic words o-o-m pah printed upon her golf clubs to remind her to go slow with the backswing. One can easily imagine Miss Hicks humming “o-o-m’ ’as the club is pushed back slowly on the upswing and then brought down to the tune of the more abrupt “pah.” With such a constant reminder there is small chance for her to make a too hurried stroke. Another phrase that has helped many, so J.T.P. is assured, is “Back Swing”; the “back" uttered slowly on the upstroke and “swing” accurately describing as well as timing the downstroke. With a bit of practice a golfer should easily find the right tempo and emphasis of those two words to use in his own swing. Quite a bit of concentration and patience is needed to keep repeating this for eighteen holes, but one’s play is certain to be the steadier for it. Some City! London has evidently been superseded by Madrid as the biggest city in the world, for, according to the cablecrammer, General Franco has been marching through its suburbs for the past five months! Tom Sayers. The name of Tom Sayers will be remembered in England, and beyond, as long as the memory of prize-fighting is extant. But, be it asked, how many sports in Te Awamutu and district are aware that Tuesday last was the 111th anniversary of his birth. Very few. Yet his exploits have been related with an enthusiasm and imagination that recall many a stirring fistic battle. Was he not the hero of a terrific battle with John Carmel Heenan, the American champion, at Farnborough in 1660? Did he not, though but a “chicken” in stature compared with the American giant, make a draw of the fight, although he had, almost from the outset, the use of only one arm; the other was broken when he delivered a blow? It is the general verdict, too, that had the police not interfered Sayers would have won, for Heenan was nearly blind, the result of Sayers’ none too gentle atten tion to his face. This was Sayer’s last appearance in the ring. He died in November, 1865. He was only once beaten, by Nat Langham in 1853. He was champion of England in 1857, and bis career as a prize-fighter dated from 1849.