“IN VINO VERITAS”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 38, 7 May 1927, Page 22 (Supplement)

“IN VINO VERITAS”

IF TRUTH WENT ON THE SPREE!

“ What is truth” asked Pontius Pilate, and there were none could answer him. Then said Pilate, “What I have written I have written.” But in any case, there are many people to whom the truth is not palatable, and it is extremely impolite on occasions. American papers are notoriously “strangers to the truth” in many cases, but, on the other hand, some of them are truthful to the point of brutality —and they don’t care whom it hurts. Generally speaking, the English press has a decidedly healthy objection to exposing the sins or private shortcomings of citizens to the public gaze, and even the most flagrant breaches of honesty or morality are tolerantly and charitably presented. But if Truth were to get drunk, newspaper readers in some English cities might find diversion, if not comfort, thinking of their own sins, in reading thusly of people they know: A Good Riddance The too-long-delayed demise of Mr. P. Q. Greedygrab took place yesterday at his ostentatious and garish residence in Crook Street. Greedygrab was in his 96th year. The son of a noted crook and wife-poisoner, Graball, at an early age showed that he had inherited in an aggravated form the vices of his sinful sire. He was apprenticed to a lawyer, and in those early years he learned all the joints of low legal cunning, which enabled him to keep out of gaol for the whole of his swindling career. His first big financial coup was in the famous Widow and

Orphan Swindle, in which some hundreds of widows and fatherless children were rapaciously and heartlessly robbed of their all. So complete was his legal position that he was not even prosecuted. Next he scoped £50,000 out of the salting of the All Gold Quartz mine, and again, though his bank balance swelled by the amount stated, he was immune from the law. Followed a series of bogus company promotions in which he was the hidden director, and although some of his tools went to gaol, he remained “within the law.” More Log-rolling News comes from our political investigator that Mr. Foolem is bent in submitting a Bill for the Diversion of the Tank Stream, so as to turn the water from off the fertile plains of this magnificent district into his own arid and ugly area, for which constituency he was elected by the combined votes of all the horse-thieves, cattle-duffers, sheep-stealers and loafers with which that lawless district is crammed, to the eternal disgrace of the nation. Needless to say, this is a palpable and glaring piece of logrolling for which the dishonourable member for Crookton is being well bribed by a syndicate of swindling land sharks with which this paper will scathingly deal in a future issue. Promoted to “Professor” There must be a sad shortage of talent in this city when the board. of the Society for the Acquisition of the Arts has seen fit to appoint that idle muttonhead, Headley de Vacuum as Professor of Exterior Knowledge at the local academy. Professor of "Interior” know-

ledge would be more in the line of de Vacuum, whose gluttinous habits well fit him as an authority on roast pig, soups, stews, ice-creams and alcohol —particularly the latter, which he consumes by the bai-rel. As for matters that matter, de Vacuum can charitably be classed as a gigantic but hollow monument of perpetual ignorance and general asininitv. He can be trusted to turn out pupils who will

become due discredits to this unfortunate city and improper advertisements of their maundering master. “The Royal Divorce” Last night we were submitted to the painful infliction of listening to an alleged performance of “A Royal Divorce ” at the Thunder Theatre, with Stanley Strutter as Napoleon Bonaparte and Susie Swank as Josephine. There is not the slightest doubt that this Josephine ought to be divorced—from the stage. It was the flabbiest portrayal by a fifth-rate mummer of a character which calls for portrayal by a real actress that we have ever seen. The lady Is old enough to be a grandmother for a start, and ugly as an ape, but these are by no means the worst of her defects as an actress. In charitjn we will spare her criticism of these. Regarding the man in the case, he was even worse, if that were possible. He might have passed in the characterisatin of a cross between Falstaff and the Flying Dutchman, if such a character could be evolved, but he would not pass muster even as a lunatic asylum Napoleon. As for the supporting caste, they looked and acted as if they had been selected from the most abandoned inmates of a Chinese opium joint. That any such incredibly Inane combination of alleged artists should have the effrontery to come to a city accustomed to the best the world offers in stagecraft is an astounding insult to the intelligence of its inhabitants, and it is little wonder that last night’s applause consisted principally of rotten eggs, after the audience were enabled to seek the shops at the first interval. —F.U.

The Neighbours Knew Miss Flatt- • Im son- you don't think much ofmv voice professor. The people next door say I ought to go abroad to sturtv ” door." ° r: " YeS ' bUt 1 don,t •ive next