Miscellaneous Items

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1573, 17 June 1920, Page 4

Miscellaneous Items

The directors of the Union Steamship Company presented Captain D. McClean with a tea and coffee service on the occasion of bis retirement after 33 years’ active work. He was master of ■ the Niagara and also the Mokoia when she made the recent Parliamentary trip to the Islands. Captain McClean was master of the Maheno for the whole period during which that vessel was used as a hospital ship.

Speaking at the farewell, social in Wellington to the Olympic team, Mr. A. A. Marryatt (president of the N.Z.A.A.A.) said that picking an Olympic team was no small matter. It was not the finding of the best men, the fastest and swiftest. But they had to have a well-balanced mind, and do credit to the country they represented. He was well satisfied with the New Zealand team, and felt assured that they would do their country well.

“Don the Denim” is the slogan of the “Apron and Overall” clubs which have rapidly become the rage in some of the large Eastern American cities also, as the male population is equally fleeced by unconscionable tailors on the Atlantic seaboard. In Columbus, South Carolina, every member of the student body at the University of South Carolina has determined to wear overalls until “clothing reaches a reasonable figure.”

“Residential buildings in most of the American towns are generally of wood,” says Mr. W. H. Morton, Wellington city engineer, in his travel report, “and frequently have great architectural merit in the designs. In New York City such is not the case, and the great majority of the population appeared to live in apartment houses, which were generally about seven or eight stories in height. The use of apartment houses such as these would not, I venture to believe, he looked upon with favour in this country. There are, however, apartment houses, or flats as they are sometimes called, which are in every way satisfactory, with sufficient air space about them for the lighting and ventilation of the various rooms. In many of the older of the blocks of buildings to be found in America built as apartment houses it is impossible to believe that satisfactory conditions in regard to ventilation and lighting can be effectively provided.”

Harry K. Eustace, the great African explorer and cinematographer whom J. and N. Tait have engaged for an Australian tour, gives a com-

mon-sensible explanation regarding the alleged existence of the brontosaurus in the swamps of Central Africa. The amazing prehistoric monster that imaginative hunters are supposed to have seen is nothing more than an aged and dying elephant which has sought the swamps in its last days so as to get food and water with the least exertion. As the beast wallows most of its time in the mud it. gradually gets a crust of earth all over its hide, which eventually cracks with the heat of the African sun and gives the effect of the giant scales with which the ancient brontosaurus was known to be armoured.

“The Better ’Ole,” now on tour of the Dominion, is the self-same play that ran for two years in London with Arthur Bourchier as Old Bill, and is founded on the three redoubtable characters that Bairnsfather created in his ever-famous "Fragments From France.” The play gives a very good idea of the aspect of war-life, and if it is depicted in a slightly more cheery mood than it actually was. who could blame such a master of cheer as Captain Bruce Bairnsfather? The first act is placed in the trenches in France, the second is a railway siding in Boulogne; the third is behind the lines in billets, and finally the scene is laid in Blighty. Old Bill is played by that inimitable character actor Mr. Lionel Walsh, Alf is Mr. Hubert Lee, and the impressionable ’Erb is played by Mr. Harry Young. Very able assistance is lent by Miss June Addell, Miss Lena Henry, Miss May Hewlett, and Miss Louise Pascoe (a particularly brilliant soprano singer). "The Better Ole” was witnessed on three occasions in London by the Prince of Wales.