THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 222, 19 September 1928, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) WELCOME "SMITHY!" Cook, Raleigh, Drake, great names these be, At pioneers their fame i* high; !They blazed thetr names on land and sea. But "Smithy'f wrote his on the sky! It has been strenuously denied that Dame Nellie Melba advised Dame Clara Butt to "Sing 'em muck—it's the only thing they (the Australians) can underHOBART HUMPIES, stand." The incident recalls a supposed comment by the Australian queen of song, who, haying sung at Hobart, was asked by a reporter what she thought of that little town. Everyone knows that Dame Nellie has all the frankness of genius, but it can never be believed that she replied: "Hobart? Hobart? Why it's a collection of humpies on a ditch!" Although the incident is supposed to have occurred many years ago it still persists, and it is time it was suppressed. She couldn't possibly have said it. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, and few know whether one's fellow man is in his original form or has been manufactured de novo by the surgeon. SPARES. Pity a man can't carry spares around with him, though. A third arm would come in handy under certain circumstances, just as a fifth tyre is safety to a motorist sometimes. The other day a doctor found that a man's arm had been broken. He took a piece of bone from the man's leg and mended up the arm, but later on the patient, walking on the leg, broke it and went to bed for some weeks. Still, although you may smile at a surgeon filching a bit of bone from one member to patch up another in the same subject, such robberv of Pete"r to pay Paul often pans out most satisfactory. The queerest cases of the effect of surgical transplantation came out of the war, one soldier who had his face remade appealing in vain to his wife to be taken as her husband. She said he was far too handsome. Please do not look upon a flying machine as a mere spectacle for curious people or a reason for a school holiday. Uncle Sam and others now use it as a WORKADAY farm implement, blowing 'PLANES, insecticides on fruit trees and giving the cabbages a spurt. In Africa the airman, habituated to the destruction of men from way up, now pursues the miles and miles of locusts and gives them their conge. But what is extremely important is that it will be left to the airman to explore unknown country and to find spots for teeming humanity to settle on. Very likely now that flying seems definitely introduced" into New Zealand the terra incognita of the south will become known land. An aeroplane may be an angel as well as a devil. The other day a wounded sheik was saved by the accidental advent of a British aeroplane and a doctor. The grateful old fellow now sends armed parties to guard any British 'plane that lands in his territory. They are prospecting for oil per 'plane in Venezuela and spraying the cotton crops out of the clouds in Africa. And it won't be long before there are flying policemen.

M:A.T. hails with joy an improvement in statesmen's manners. Here is a photograph of the Prime Minister looking straight at KingsPHOTOGRAPHIC the cusTom "since time hn° REFORM, memorial (or at least since photographs have been published) for eminent politicians to be snapped grasping the favoured one cordially by the hand and looking straight at the camera. In short, it has been clear that the politician might as well have been snapped grasping the village pump, the one idea being to show His Top-Hatted Nibs with his vote-winnin" smile * he ™ an honoured being a mere "also started." M.A.T. has often thought also that solemn group photographs of congresses, union meetings, footballers and other minor eminents will some day put off that appearance of beinc chopped out of wood and sawed in lengths' One of these days a group of men desiring to .be photographed will casually stroll eye of the camera talking, chaptering, and even laughing. If it could be arranged for somebody s hat to blow off just as the bulb was pressed the cachinnations of the group would photograph quite naturally. As it is, nowadays the average man in a group looks as it he were attending his own funeral or had been cut out of black paper and gummed on

Lets 30m the navy! Reading about the equipment of H.M.s. Nelson makes one feel like a stray peer staying at the Cecil or the wn ._ . -_-»„_, Ritz with battalions of wuaj. a MESS! smart servants doing the . necessary. Among the luxuries are sixteen hundred gallons of rum (the navy isn't dry yet), five thousand pounds of tobacco and ten thousand pounds of soap What is most curious, though, is that there is no slap-and-dash -cooking, and no cookie can make meals for men upless he is an expert. Ihe cooks have every kind of modern electrical appliance and never handle even a potato There are club rooms and social halls and everything the most exacting matlow could desire. A local tar who remembers the navy when the fittest only survived tells M.A T the story of the mess deck. The officer of the day with his acolytes entered the room at ?n^irV nd £ 8 i, the men Btood to attention the petty officer bellowed as usual: "Any complaints? "Y USj sir » said one £ officer showed intelligent interest, "jeet you taste that!" The officer sipped some o f the beverage and remarked: "I really can't taste anything wrong with it. It is extent sou P '" tar «4 a teaf» SOUP ' *". Said the a^ie^ed

The unearthing of a spurious coin plant in Australia, induces the pleasant thought that no manufacturer of bogus coins ever tries S LTTRF OP rnjn .* nd at a sovereign. PosLURE OP GOLD, sibly coin artists feel that . tlle people wouldn't recognise a. sovereign as a negotiable article The bat pubhcly-exhibited golden soverei £ from the American Navy when Sam's fleet was W, e \ Zealand Wa ' ers > an * Sam'?4i Sm Jht have been seen in many places pushing sovereign, over counters and desiring tSkS How much is this in real money?" ft was J M k ° f , the America/ Xavy who didnt know the value of a sovereign, for acute young Auckjanders who had never seen such strain and many a man, finding that the weight had been too much for his pocket wTwVt° *• «!*"«* of tieing with a bit of string. Seems queer for bo-us CHAOTICS. " " ** u eS, J c . ert f'? lv there are more Chaotics in the bag the brief hiatus having been arranged o°f *"«**** to fUrther eS; of SWS Siacelcettse.