THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 228, 26 September 1929, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.)

THE DREAM. Mr. H. Spears, of Wellington, is claiming a fortune of £20,000,000 which has been in Chancery for many decades. If I had twenty million pounds, I venture here to say, I'd start my new life wearing a Clean collar every day ; In Queen Street there's a corker hat For seventeen-and-eleven, If I had twenty million pounds 'I'd buy it—ah, what heaven! If I had twenty million pounds I'd often take the bus, I'd pay my twopence cheerfully And seldom make a fuss; When girls invaded Queen Street with Their boxes; 'twere no sin For me to swank a little, and To drop a penny in. If I had twenty million pounds I'd drink the rarest wines, Mumm magnums(those at eighteenpence) And cigarettes—Woodbines ! I'd shout the talkies to my friends, And buy them peanuts round, I'd give my pals a hummer time With twenty million pound. I'd buy a 4-r. bungalow With £10 down—a snip— With copper, bath, e.l. and tubs, Such luxuries I'd sip ! In forty years 'twould be my own House, tubs, volcanic grounds. Electric light and all convens. With twenty million pounds. If I had ten or fifteen bob To splash about to-day I'd listen to your plaintive bleat, Which always ends in "Pay!" If I had five or even two, Then would I say, "Old son, I've got a coupla bob, old tug, And you may borrow one !"

Apropos recently-expressed opinion that too much sun may induce malevolent growths in the skin, there are suggestions that going without hats is flying in BLAME THE SUN. the face of Providence. About half of the world's population has thus been flying in the face of Providence since Adam went without one in a certain tropical garden of Mesopotamia, since traversed by men in pith helmets and carrying bayonets. The variability of humanity in covering the head or leaving it bare seems to have nothing whatever to do with disease. Some dark persons in China, Mexico and other warm spots wear hats with leaves a foot wide, while others living under even warmer skies have nothing but hair between them and the source of all light, life and warmth. A local curiosity noted is that middle-aged gentlemen, endeavouring to regain the downy thatch of early youth, deliberately walk the earth with bare but sunburnt polls under the impression that dead follicles will start to life in the sun. There are men still extant who, subscribing to the convention that hats are indispensable, parade the earth with circular holes cut in them for ventilation. Ladies, for their part, consider the sun either harmful or harmless, as Paris dictates. During a wet and sunless summer in Paris, Paris dictates a Merry Widow hat three feet from brim to brim, while for sunny seasons the darling little cloche worn by ladies the world over seems to serve. Now that we know from the experts how malignant the sun is, what-ho for the kiekie potae, the cabbage tree hat, the Western sombrero and the sunshade for men.

Seeing that West Coast miners have been accused of irreligion, M.A.T. would add to their naughtiness by accusing miners generally of heroism unsurpassed NAUGHTY MINERS, by any other type of men. No dogma of any kind ever induced any man to face the terrors of underground, and the history of the Empire is thick with true life and true death stories of these irreligious heroes. It is undoubted, however, that many miners have been deeply religious. M.A.T. therefore rejoices in repeating the true story of the Ballarat gold miner, cheerful, uncomplaining and bright. He sang hymns unceasingly and he was an excellent exhorter at the Miners' Hall on Sunday. Even though he had a nasty lump on his head he was cheerful. One day he was working with a mate in a drive and a bit of loose quartz fell off the roof and burst that lump. Out of the lump (which was made of rubber and kept on by suction) fell sixty pounds' worth of the firm's nuggets. A rival exhorter did even more good (in the way of words) and really preached most excellent sermons. A nasty new manager, suspecting that the company was not getting all the gold that came of the reef, instituted a system of quiet espionage. The exhorter's crib can was found to have a false bottom in which was stowed six ounces of gold.

Many years ago a very clever conjurer had a spectacular trick which delighted his audiences. He crawled into a milk can, the can was placed in a sack, THE KNOT. the sack mouth was tied by a sailor and examined by a committee from the audience. Immediately thereafter the conjurer walked in from the back of the stage, smiling and bowing. During the conjurer's stay in the town he was invited by a local gentleman to go on a fishing expedition. His line fouled as he hauled it aboard the yacht. It became hopelessly tangled. For fifteen minutes the conjurer was ardently engaged with the line. Then he turned to liis host. "Good heavens, Harry," he said, "I can't for the life of me untie this knot. You have a go!" Harry untied the knot while the man to whom exit from knotted sacks was a mere trifle looked on admiringly.

A man has been knocked down by a push bike in New Zealand! There's no end to the surprises of the day and nothing new under the sun. It seems to be RED FLAG. but yesterday when the penny farthing bike with a nfty-six-inch wheel was regarded by the terrified pedestrian population as one of the most sinister innovations for the destruction of humanity ever invented. Even before this innovation regulations had to be made to compel riders of boneshakers (who used to run and jump for propulsion) from endangering the King's lieges. Immediately after the "Rocket" ran on lines in England some nefarious persons invented the road motor car, a monstrous vehicle stoked with coal which roared along the London-Brighton Road belching smoke. So dreadfully frightened were pedestrians at this monster (which sometimes exceeded six miles an hour) that they forbade it to continue its devastating course. The danger of the bike was enhanced when an inventor, making a push bike (without pedals) for his little boy, had a brain wave and tied a rope lound the rim of the front wheel to absorb the shock. This was the beginning of the rubber tyre and the forerunner of the inflated tyre which revolutionised speed and laid the foundation of those vast cemeteries to which an enlightened age now so frequently contributes. It is almost unthinkable in these glad days of acceleration that a horse-drawn ■ vehicle could ever have been a menace to life, but before petrol came to revolutionise transport people used to plead with the supine authorities who permitted persons to dash through the scenery at seven miles an hour, making pedestrians gallop in a perfectly shocking way. And Auckland people will remember, that less than a decade ago a gentleman agad eighty-one was knocked down by a gig (a gig, good heavens!) and killed. A THOUGHT FOR TO-DAY. Of Courtesy, it is much less Than courage of heart or holiness, let in my walks it seems to me That the Grace of God. is in Courtesy. —Hilaire Belloc.