BY THE WAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17880, 23 June 1926, Page 9

BY THE WAY.

SOME REFLECTIONS AND COLLECTIONS. (By One of the Boys.) Who's to blame for unemployment? Holland: Immigration. Anderson: Commercial depression. Yeitch: Lack of secondary industries. Sullivan: Government must take whole responsibility. Armstrong: Lack of country work. M’Leodj Single men won’t save. Mason: Indifference. Ward: Seasonal occupations. a si si Auckland is not the only place that is having a hockey row. There is a hockey boom in Christchurch, and between my house and the tram are three miniature teams. To-night, in the centre one, blows were flying, and I heard:— “ Yes, Stinker, yer big stiff, just because ycr own the ball yer thinks yer going to be Dianchand all the time. Well, yer not. Yer'll take yer turn.” There was no reply, and the game went on, so I guess Stinker did not occupy the star role that time. It is quite wrong to consider the road hog the only one of his species. There is the Tory hog and the Communist hog, the religious hog and the Atheist hog. and the many others who want both feet in the social trough. Of all these, the worst is the frosty morning hog.

Curse him. May his hell be a frozen one. May furry imps chase him naked among icebergs and prod him with pointed icicles. The wisest animals sleep through the frosts, vegitation stays dormant, but man has to leave his miniature burrow beneath the eiderdown and wander out into the icy, frosty streets before the sun is properly up, in order to gather a crust.. This is hard, nay, it is more than that, it is fierce, and then on the top of it you meet a fat, bloated blimp who says loudly, breezily, braggingly: “ Yes, it’s fresh this morning, but I like it frosty. Keeps sickness away. Sharp, I’ll admit, but not really cold. I enjoy it. Good for you, man—good for you.” Curse him! May he slip on the ice and splinter his wooden skull. May he never get anything to eat but ice cream without the cream. May every show he goes to see be a frost, and may every enterprise he goes in for do a freeze. May his banker give him the cold eye and his neighbours the cold shoulder, and if he has a rich uncle in South America may be cut him off with a shilling in Chili money. Then if he gets a wife, may she have cold feet, and when he dies let him be buried in a blizzard.

In our veins runs the blood of all our ancestors. The later onts, being more advanced, have the greater control of our destinies, but the spirit of the older ones peeps out at times from our eyes. This morning I stood in Hereford Street. Near by was Smith, the big bank manager, talking to Brown, the insurance magnate. They were discussing golf. A little beyond was Jones, the sharebroker king, talking to Robinson, the head of Softgoods, Ltd. They were discussing tennis. As they talked a pretty girl passed by. There was a lull in the conversation as each one eyed her closely. She passrd on, and the talk resumed. Now, if this girl had entered the offices of any of these men, and offered to kiss them, they would have jumped through the window and yelled for the police. They were good moral men. It is but one in a hundred that are not. Why, then, is the interest married men take in pretty girls? I have discovered the reason. Solomon had about 500 wives and (what the schoolboy called them) 1000 odd porcupines. Many of the old-time chiefs had as many. In old Bagdad, in Rome, all over the world, the rich men thronged to the slave market and picked the best of the girl.*. Tn our veins still runs a little of their blood. Jones, banker; Smith, insurance man; Brown, sharebroker; and Robinson, warehouseman, watching that girl, eyed her with an appraising eye, an old slave market eye, but the brain behind had improved. Not now could she compete with the worthwhile things of life. What would she bring in a present day slave market? Very little. Four pounds will buy a new tennis racket, and, for the golfer, quite a number of Silver Kings. An English lady whose son had just come down from Oxford was anxious that the prodigy should adopt the journalistic profession, so she invited onfe of the Nabobs of Fleet Street to dinner one evening. During the course of the evening the youth, who had been instructed to be very bright in order to create an effect, passed a number of hopelessly fatuous remarks. “ Don’t you think, ” remarked the fond mother to her guest, “ that my boy will be a great wit one day?” “Certainly, madam. ” replied the newspaper owner with characteristic bluntness. “ Why, he’s a half-wit already. ” k s :< Our sympathies are with the Scotsman who, finding that the admission fee to Pavlova's performance almost equalled his annual expenditure, cheerfully determined to die a year before his time—and then could not get a seat. Si si a The following questions are causing some anxiety in certain circles:— “ Was the sovereign which was found in the unemployment fund plate at the band concert given by Pavlova’s advance agent?” “ And, if so. was he acting for the Soviet or not?” “ Ex-Kaiser sits up until 2 a.m. to hear latest from Berlin,” It is assumed that he had better luck than when, some few years back, he sat up late awaiting the latest news from Paris.