THE PASSING SHOW.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 231, 30 September 1929, Page 6

THE PASSING SHOW.

(By THE MAN ABOUT TOWN.) Cabled that the Allies will sell thirty thousand old rifles and untold millions of cartridges for a song. The fact that humanity does not despise obsolete THE OLD GASPIPE. firearms is daily emphasised and New Zealand officials will be able to tell you that the old Snider with which grandpa used to go to war is still in use for peace purposes. Even the old; muzzle-loader Brown Bess, with a loose percussion cap which threw about an ounce of lead, is still regarded with affection in Australia. Dingo hunters set them in little I wine paddocks for the destruction of dogs. ; They destroy stray men and cattle, too, should either kick the wire. The old single-shot Marfcini was obsolete even in the South African War. Slim Piet had a clever dodge of putting down two or three kaflirs with Martinis to bang away at the enemy while Piet and Co. gallojped round a flank and peppered Tommy with Mausers. It was natural at first to go for tine smoke—and the kaffirs. Belgium loves old rifles. There is an immense business in boring out rifle barrels and making them into barrels for shotguns, which are again "sawn off" by Chicago gunmen and used for the chief industry in that celebrated city. During the late disturbances in Palestine firearms antedating Waterloo were occasionally used by gentlemen who apparently did not know that there aace far more civilised weapons with which, if one is quick enough, one can slay twelve men in fifteen seconds. It is the brutal savage who gets the old firesticks and the Christian who us'es automatics. Xo gun is ever reaßy obsolete. A Christian can blow another Cthristian's head off with Dick Turpin's muzzle-loading flintlock horse pistol.

Delightful to notice that although the British Labour party lias diluted its ranks with a blue blood or two it is really as human as the Tories. For instance, THE DEMOCRATS, the Minister of War, Mr. Tom Shaw, struggling along a London railway platform to see Sir. Ramsay Mac Donald off to America, lost his watch. The obvious pathos of this incident is left out of the cablegram. The really touching part of rfc is, of course, the watch was a three-and-sixpenny stem winder treasured since boyhood by the man who will launch Britain's lightaring when it becomes necessary for the lion to roar. Then see how exceedingly human the real going aboard of the Prime Minister was at Southampton. Anything was good enough for him. Even the suite invented for the ex-Kaiser aboard the Berengaria. One of the novelties aboard a trans-Atlantic liner for those who have purchased the use of a suite is that the piece of deck surrounding the suite is one's own for the time being, so the common herd keeps off the grass. Quite possibly, however, the compaaiy made him a present of these quarters.

No point is better stressed by dietetians than that of insisting on regular hours for meals, so that the new local idea of broadcasting concerts while the MASTICATE evening meal is on has TO MTL'SIC. a hygienic aspect. However sharp set the homecoming person is he will wait until the digestive opening chorus of the radio tells him it is time to attack, the soup. A radio fanatic tells M.A.T. that erne may now perform a solo with the soup beautifully accompanied by soulful music. Formerly it was considered a handicap to be nmsical with soup, but the radio programme at meals has altered all that. Families hold soup choruses, many obtaining that tremolo effect sto admired by many diners. Dietetians have in many ages insisted on mathematical order during the masticatory process. The -great Gladstone, who lived to be over eighty and Avho even then did not die of dieting, insistod on biting every mouthful thirty-six times. Rather a dismal thing to do, one has always • thought. Had the G.O.M. lived in theae better "days of radio programmes at meals he might have raised the number of chews per mouthful to fortyeight, for he could hiwe masticated in waltz time, or chewed his oihop to a jazz measure, or champed his porterhouse steak to the enlivening strains of the Garrison Band. The j radio fanatic, who is growing fat on this new gastronomy, says there is sometimes a little misunderstanding at dianer time. The machine is nearest his own ear, so that a conversation intended to include himself may be going on at the southern end of the table, to which he may reply by doing a, breakdown with his feet under the mahogony, humming "Turn-turn-tu-tum-tum-diddlc-ah-hay.-" He adds the new music at meals idea inchioes one to masticate to music even the toughest steak.- It has an economic as well as hygilenic aspect, and he hopes to profit by it when his new teeth come home.

Exhilarating as it is to know that new cinematograms of New ZeaJand cities will be taken to show the world that we are getting on, it iis profoundly disALL TALKIE, appointing to know that they will not be all talkie. The progress of a place is measured by its people and the progress of Bts people by its persons. Thus a moving picture of Queen Street in its newest bricks and concrete is relatively meaningless without talking pictures of the MJP.'s responsible for aSI our progress. Undoubtedly besides pictures of the cities "there must be pictures of our incomparable scenic marvels. What could be more fitting than oratorical bouts between rival ,jU.P.'s in the kauri forests of the North? It could be left to the people of the world who have the advantage of seeing them to decide which of the speakers planted the kauris. Rather feeble, one thinks, to make a motion pic&urc of a new bit of railway or the destruction of some already made without hearing a»t the same time the oratorical curse or blessing of officials. One is entitled to believe that the people of the world are just as interested in our men as in our fish, and in our women as in our deer.

That cheerful old scientist, S?r William Arbuthnot Lane, is always holding; out hope to his fellow men. He mentioned liately that if we only lived as simply THE ZULU as the Zulus many of us SOCIETY, would live beyond the hundred mark, as so many of these big, black, bounding persons do. But Sir William doesn't tell us if he intends to begin in London a Society for the Promulgation of Zulu Simplicity. For instance, no Hayfair gentleman would think of inviting his feilows to a tribal beer drink, the whole bwcoraing inebriated prior to a "smelling out" affair ending in massacre. It is not "done in London; Again, a Zulu Society in Auckland would hardly gain the footing that would make it looked up to. If a man desiring to add to the number of his wives offered a father ten bullocks for No. 10 it would be considered unusual. Auckland society, seeking simplicity and long life, is invited to sit round its comical grass huts and masticate, raw maize. Pc&ople with false dentures would be unavailable The method of settling inter-tribal affairs would pall after a while. Anyone who has seen a Zulu impi marching with shields and assegais in wedge formation to end a family squabble would admit that as a recipe for loner jgf u among British people it has its faults. One of tho dearest wishes of the Zulu is to kill a man early in life so as to gain a reputation for vmlity. Intending white centenarians who take Dr. Lane's advice to live simply and for a hundred years will note this pleasant little trait ot the Zulu character and act accordingly.