The Passing Show.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20260, 31 July 1937, Page 15 (Supplement)

The Passing Show.

Comment and Criticism

(By “Free Lance.”)

AT THE SUGGESTION of the Bishop of Wellington circulars are to be sent to children asking them what they think about religion, sex, drink and gambling. This will be good news to fathers whose offspring usually ask them what THEY think about these matters. • • • Japan again seems to be collecting China. The outlook at present is undoubtedly All Black. • • • • “ I am an uncompromising Socialist,” declared Mr Semple In Sydney. Well, well. Who’d have suspected it? • * • • Springboks should be pronounced “Springbuks” I am informed. It doesn't matter. It’s the “spring” in them that counts. Mussolini has been urging us to prefer facts to fiction. All right, but personally I would rather read one of these modern thriller yams than live one. • • • • A huge octopus was reported to have come ashore at Wellington. Can this be at long last the financial one we heard so much about in the last election campaign ? • • • • Extract from Waikato Hunt report: “A hare was afoot from the bush but it ran the wrong way to the school and the hounds were called off.” As a non-hunter I submit the hare ran the right way. • * • • Tenants as well as owners are liable for land tax, according to a recent ruling. I cannot confirm the rumour that trades people, refuse collectors and travelling salesmen who visit a property will also be roped • • • • “ You give the Labour Party ten years with a guaranteed price and you won’t have a mortgage on your farm,” says Mr J. G. Barclay, M.P. I understand Mr F. W. Doidge heartily approves this statement with a slight alteration—delete the words “a mortgage on.” A sidelight of General Goering’s economy campaign is the collection by hairdressers annually of 295 tons of men’s hair for manufacture into felts and carpets. But aren’t they killing the goose that lays the golden egg? You see, recently Dr. Goebbels urged more marriages and more babies. And the more married men they get the less hair can be garnered.

The explanation is clear. The Spring boks came from the South African Union and unity is strength. The Polar Sea is 3000 feet deeper than was formerly believed. That is the sort oi information that leaves me cold. • • • • The first year’s operation of the Dairy Industry Account will close to-night. The battle for the balance will commence on Monday. • • • • Quite a lot of discussion centred around the problem of backward children at the recent Education Conference. Yet most parents I have struck are more ooncemed over the problem of forward children. News item (19C7): "The Non-Intervention Committee is understood to have reached an agreement. To mark the occasion a holiday has been declared throughout the world.” • • • • I notice that the British Supplementary Estimates include a small item of £IB,OOO for alterations to 10 Downing Street. I shudder to think what Earl Baldwin must have had to put up with all those years. • • • • It waa all very well for the cable message to state that the lady Borotra married is a good tennis player, but it may f»ot mean much. I married a lady who is not a good golfer, and it doesn’t mean much—• cooking. • • • • In New Zealand a happy medium has been struck between peasantry and a class of wealthy and privileged landowners, states a Southern professor. As the Irishman remarked: “ Neither one thing nor the other and a little bit of each.” • • • • He saw the match, dined in town, spent the evening with the boys and then, about midnight, surprised us all by saying that he must get home and explain to the wife. “ Explain? ” said Jim. “ Explain what? " And the dear old chap said he wouldn’t know, till he got home. You know it’s wonderful what football can do. For instance—last Wednesday. Two of my farmer friends dropped in and were so interested in the match that wo got through the early lunch, all the afternoon and most of the evening before they remembered to mention the compensated price issue.