NEAR AND FAR

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 87, 3 December 1931, Page 4

NEAR AND FAR

Why Shaw's Plays Are Acted. Mr. George Bernard Shaw gave the f ollowing explanation of why his pluys are so frequently" acted at a rally in support of the'. National Theatre movement in Malvern, England, recently. Mr. Shaw said that if he were to show his professional aecounts, people would be surprised to learn how much money he got from little bodies^*of players who went about in mining villages. The charges for admission were probably 2d and 6d. For performing a play of his they had to play him 9d. Some dramatists, said Mr. Shaw, demanded £5 5s and the result was that their plays were not performed. He took his 9d, touched his hat and tfrusted for a renewal of favours, Popu]ar Innovation. Some thrilling scenes were enacted during the steer-riding eompetition at the Waikato A. and P. 'Association's show. Cowboy yells and shrieks of merriment greeted the riders as they attempted to maintain their seats on bucking steeds, 'the enthusiasm of the big crowd being kept at high pitch throughout. The event attracted some twenty riders from all parts, entries being received from as far as Wellington. L. Clarkin, of Hamilton, the winner, received the plaudits of the crowd for a very clever exhibition of auding. Buckjumping on outlaw horses also created keen interest. Undoubtedly the innovations yere extremely popular. Gruesome Love Potion. Almost unbelievable superstition was f ound in Zipser Neudorf, Gzechoslovakia. A widow named Andrejcak, who had a love aifairs with a railroad employee, Joseph Koery, thought she detected signs that her admirer's affeetion was cooling. On the advice of a gipsy she went one night to the cemetery and disinterred the body of a child vdxich had been buried the day before. A gendarme meeting her accidentally on her way home arrested her. On her confession that she intended to use the body for secret ceremonies incidental to the preparatibn of a love potion, hoth she and the gipsy who had advised her were committed for trial, Black Girl qs Saint. A black saint will be added to the calendar if the eff orts of the Primate of Madagasear (Bishop Fouriander) to secure the beatification and subsequent canonisation of a young Madagascan girl are suecessful. The girl, Victoria Rosoamanarivo, was born in 1848, the daughter of a high-placed Madagascan family. At the age of 18 she was eonverted by French missionaries, who were admitted to the country by the King. When she refused to change her faith she was turned into a slave and underwent terrible suffering. Later she married the son of the Prime Minister, Prince Radriake, . She died in 1894.

Earning Their Education. Two bell boys on the Matson steamer Sierra, which arrived at Auckland from Sydney recently, are ipaklng the trip in order to earn money to allow them to complete their college education. When they are not on duty, they oceupy their time in "swatting." An older member of the crew of the Ship remembers that a lad who years ago made several trips as a bell boy on a steamer so that he might be ahle to finish his college course in1 San Franeisco, is now a vice-president of one of the biggest steel corporations in the world. Lost a Wheel. A Wanganui motorist who returned recently from the Taranaki district relates that he saw a most unusual incident on the main road a couple of miles north of Stratford. He was following another car when suddenly one of the back wheels of the car in front of him came off. The wheel and tyre, carried by the momentum induced by the pace travelled, leapt up a 6ft bank and bounded over a hedge on top, disappearing from view. The car was pulled up some distance further on after zig-zagging across the road, and the driver was much puzzled when he searched the roadside for the missing wheele. He was great■y relieved when informed by the Manganui motorist that he would find ;he wheel in the phdddcK behind the ledge, and after a short search reiovered both wheel and tyre.

i Loxtg-Distance Memory. Recently a Wellington resident was strolling along a street when his eye jfell on a face that made him recall sonleone whom he had known many j years before. He stopped the man and j called him by name, asking him at the same time if he did not hail from Timaru. The other replied he had lived _ there 50 years ago, but had not visited there since. His questioner then said that he remembered him as a message boy attaehed to the Post Office. The other then admitted that such was the case, but said that he could not return the compliment In tbe matter of recalling faces he had not beheld for 50 years. But it was the interrogator's turn for a surprise when, on asking his companion how his father was, he was informed that he was nearly 100 years of age, and could still read without the aid of spectacles. A New Broom, Comic literature is rich with stqries and pictures of absent-minded men, the majority of these, of course, being professors, due, no doubt, to thc foundation story laid down by some ingenious taleteller in the ninth century and copied ever since (says the Christchurch Times). You hardly ever read comic bits about absentnunded women, although one has heard of one lady who left her baby on a bargain counter, picking up a pareel and tenderly wheeling it home in the perambulator. The latest and the trfiest'is about the crach crbquet . player. Happily the croquet club to which ' she belongs is under a mile ffom her own home and she always walks to the lawns carrying her mallet. On a recent day, being about tb play in some championships, she opened the cupboard under the stairs and rfeached for her mallet. When she had wdlked the mile to the lawns her friends naturally asked her what she was going to do with the broom £he was carrying. It was not till tiiat moment she noted that she had xrought a broom instead of a mallet from home to grass,