THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 237, 6 October 1928, Page 8

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) SILENCE! The Pritish Home Secretary will initiate legislation Laving for its object the diminution of street noises. Bane! clatter! clash! the noises go and come. The lorries loaded up with iron, The railway trains, the big brass band, The loud Salvation drum; The cars that rattle, screech and whine. The busy boiler shop, The motor bike well opened up That makes the walker hop. We're going to stop this frightful row, ■ -And London takes the lead, Shall we have peace and quietness, And get the rest we need? We'll make a law to stop the noise, . Wherever it may be,_ And fit some domes of silence on The jaws of each M.P.! Once upon a time there was a left-handed boy who went to'a school where the schoolmaster, who possessed several degrees,- was far more' ignorant than THE LEFT HAND. Squeers. .This superior

1 Squeers determined to break the lad of his natural impulse to write left-handed andused to steal silently up behind him with a switch and strike him violently over the left hand as he wrote. It horrified the boys, whose common sense, unlike the master's, had not been impaired by methodical swot, and it made" the unfortunate victim incapable of doing any good work. One merely mentions this as comment, on the little controversy as to our own left-handed children, as there are stupid teachers in New Zealand ■who believe they can undo God's work. The boy mentioned above, as soon as he left school, resumed left-handed writing, and nobody ever refused any cheque ho ever wrote'with it. Hβ was one of the best left-handed bowlers in the English counties, he used his dinner knife in his left hand, and he dished out a shocking punch with the same hand. It is but fair to say that the superior Squeers who tried to spoil this original boy's life never had a thought of his own, or did an original thing. He grubbed among other people's thoughts until education didn't want him any longer and—he was left. The left-handed boy, being apprised of the position of his old enemy, did not seek him out and hit him with a switch, but heaped coals of fire on his head by writing a cheque with that banned left hand.

Apropos left-handed writers, it is a curious thing that in the case of ambidextrous persons who are able to write with either hand the

script by one hand differs MANUSCRIPT, entirely from the script by the other. M.A.T. knows .of a famous lawyer who, when a boy, badly fractured his right arm. For six months he co"uld not use the right arm and learned to write with his left. In legal life he afterwards used either hand, but the two scripts were >so dissimilar that when two documents were before a Court, one containing his lefthand signature and the other his right-hand sign manual, the left-hand signature was declared to be not his, until he demonstrated before handwriting experts. There is the case of the soldier who lost his right hand in action. Ho learned rapidly to write with his left, but is also able to use the right arm for writing by screwing a pen into the artificial wrist. Tho curiosity Iμ that:the writing of the right closely resembles the writing he had done with his real hand before the war, while that of the left hand bears no resemblance whatever. PERSONALITY OF THE WEEK.

Mr. Justice David Stanley Smith, LL.M., who has lately been exalted to the Supreme Court Bench, has already charmed Auckland with silver speech. He is MR. versatile. Ho was schooled JUSTICE SMITH, at Wellington College and

at Victoria- University College; he was a representative tennis player, a representative athlete and a prize debater, taking the Plunket medal in 1009. He has been senior partner in Morison, Smith and Morison, noted for skill in company law, and examiner in, law at New Zealand University. His Honor served with the New Zealand Forces during 1917-18 and has been chairman of the executive of the R.S.A. He is the author of works on legal subjects.

Dear M.A.T., —Many thanks for your par anent Punga Plat and its picturesque denizens. It started a train of thought which, transported mo back to those good old OLD HANDS. days. I found myself

standing beside the dilapidated shack of poor old Felix Lavery, colloquially known as 'Thil." Across the valley Crosby's string of pack horses meandered down past old "Geordie" trim cabin, whilst'breasting the.hill below me came Jimmy Donelly with two milk can's for ballast. Wafted to me on the .breeze came the stertorous voice of "Tom" of that ilk, yarding a recalcitrant beast somewhere in the vicinity of the cherry trees at the back of the dwelling (your friend doubtless remembers them). Mention of "German Bill" (Oldham) conjures up a vision of a shack by the creek which sheltered a reserved man of some education, together with a library of works which many would be proud to have on their shelves. His end was tragic. It came to him in a whare hard by the old home of "Geordie," whither he had moved after the destruction by fire of his cabin and its contents. Advancing years and lean times took their toll of health. He struggled bravely on till there came a time when his prolonged absence from his usual haunts caused his only neighbour (Taylor) to investigate. He was dead in his whare—a saucer of flour and water told a pitiful tale of poverty and suffering. Apropos of "Jimmy Donelly," many old Thamesites will remember an incident connected with. a church parade of the old Navals and the Hau'rakis in which the veterans were invited to take part. Sergeant James Donelly was in charge of the "vetherans," and, as a preliminary to putting them through their paces, he gave the order, "Squad, dhrass by the gutther!"—Daddy Dusty. CHAOTIC. There are other equally beautiful, words meaning practically the same thing. "Frugiverous," "fructiverousness," "fruitfulness," and so on. \ Tfyruivcit. . . Pructiv it y. Churchmen may like this one: Naatihsaan. A THOUGHT FOR TO-DAY. - A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; more's the pity. So if any.one man,. in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, lei him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and to be spent in that way.—Herman Melville.: "-■'.' ■