“MR PUNCH” CALLS.

Shannon News, 29 July 1924, Page 1

“MR PUNCH” CALLS.

AUSTRALIA AT WEMBLEY. CRICKET AND' SYDNEY HARBOUR In the sixth of a delightful series of rambles round Wembley, . under the title “Pioneers of Empire,” “Evoe,” in London “Punch,” describes his visit with an artist, to the Australian Pavilion. The article, which is rich in humour, with an ■ undercurrent of the knowledge of Australian life, is as follows: O, land where I should always choose On fancy’s feet to roam, (And bask in. sunshine .beautiful With cricketiers and wine and wool, And wallabies and kangaroos, J , And never more come home. —Poems of Emmie Grant. Australia is also there. A little less magnificent than Canada outside, she has designed the ceiling of her pavilion within, by the help of good lighting and yellow paint and gold, so that if gives the largest-possible effect of summer in a grey and misty land. I told the representative of Australia that we had been to see Canada last week. “See what?” he said. "Canada.” “What’s that?” “That great big kind of Greek building a little higher up the lake. You must have seen it. Opposite the toffee stand.” ' “I think I know what you mean,” he said. “So that’s Canada. Well, what about it?”

‘’Notching,” I replied; “only they had some wonderful apples there.” "Apples,” he said, “Do they have apples in Canada? How large?” “About as big as melons, I should say, the biggest ones.’.’ “The biggest apples in Australia,” he said, “are the size of large pumpkins.” And he took the illustrator and' me to an apple-sorting machine, which mechanically divided the continual stream of apples poured into it, so that the large ones,which were as big as pumpkins, fell into one compartment and th e small ones, no bigger than coconuts, into another. . “That’s how we have to deal with apples in Australia,” he observed. “We see,” we said. In another place, stuffed, stood a white hen, a white Australian hen, which holds the world’s record for egg-laying, surrounded by some of the eggs which she has laid. “Did she lay to the last?” I inquired, sympathetically. “Yes,” he replied, raising his hat a little; “she died at her post.” "I thought, perhaps, it might be a mechanical lien,” I said, “layipg synthetic eggs by electricity. They do marvellous things by electricity in the Canadian Pavilion, you know.” He gave me a withering look aid led us on to another part of the hall, where actual wheat was shown growing, and shown harvested, and shown threshed; and whpre the grain was ground into flour and flour baked, into pastries and cakes, and the cakes filled with sultanas, which were the dried grapes of Australian vines.

“You have rather large grapes in Australia, haven’t you?” I hazarded. “I seem to remember some kind of chant or slogan about the size of Australian grapes.” He reluctantly confessed that Australian grapes were the largest in the world, and then pointed to the restaurant, in which it will be possible to eat Australian mutton, and cakes and pastries made of Australian 1 flour, interspersed with Australian sultanas, and to drink Australian wine. “I seem to have read about that too,” I assured him, “or else I have seen pictures about it somewhere. Rather red and full-bodied, isn’t .it?” But lie tOld me there were light white wines in Australia as well. Excellent light white wines. "How light?” I asked. '‘H'fve you ever seen a kangaroo jump?” ho replied. Then he showed us one of the machines with which the Australians shear their sheep. Six merino sheep, I understand, will be shorn mechanically i\t Wembley every day. Noti the same sheep. There is a Limit to the reproductive power even, of Australian wool. It takes three minutes to shear a sheep by means of this wonderful apparatus, and it can be so nicely adjusted that it will cut the hair of the human head. “You can try it if you like,” said our friend.

I was a little nervous myself, but the illustrator is a man whom nothing daunts. He said that as a demonstration of Imperial progress he would be perfectly willing tlo allow me to oper-

ate; so the electric current was switched on and I did my best to give him the now fashionable shingle coiffure; and’they promised to treasure one or two of his curls amongst the vast exhibits of raw wool, in glass cases which decorate the centre of the Australian hall.

A model exhibition .of timber-cut-ting attracted our attention next, and I commented On the fact that in tim-ber-cutting, at any rate, Canada compared very favourably with the Antipodes,

\ “It looks like a big pencil-sharpen-er,” suggested the illustrator, examining the sawmill which cuts the eucalpytus logs by electricity and, delivers them to a model electric train.

“Itf is a pencil-sharpener,” said our guide. "We are obliged to make and sharpen enormous pencils Jn Australia, you know.” , “What for?” I inquired.

“Tcj keep the scores of the Australian batsmen, in the test matches,” he said. ■■ ■■:■■■■■ "

, I gave him best there. But I pointed out that in Canada (as I said last week) we had seen a whole ranch and its outfitemade of butter.

“We have something of that sort here, too,” he said. “I have forgottcii what it is for the moment. Either an Australian dairy farm—or, ho, it's a model of the. Melbourne Cricket Ground with tile Australian eleven fielding.” w “All in butter?" I asked. “All except the fieldsmen’s fingers," he replied.

The illustrator suggested; that perhaps I would now like to go and look quietly at some pots of Australian honey and jam while he drew a picture of the pencil-sharpening machine.. But I did not get much comfort there, for 1 observed, close by, a large map of Australia, into which a young lady was painting a map of Europe in red and picking out the parts where Australia overlapped Europe in gold. When we had left the hall, however, a rather bright idea came to me, and I turned back to our guide and said*’

“They have a very beautiful model of Quebec Harbour in the dJanadian pavilion. Do any of the Australian harbours, at Sydney or elsewhere, compare with that?”

He was so staggered that! we had got half-way to Malaya before he could even pick ,up a lump of Australian coal. It was only afterwards that the illustrator remembered we had not asked him anything about our prospects of employment if we emigrated to the Antipodes. Perhaps it was just as well. He would only have found some sharp retort. > One has to get up almost as early to beat these. Australian fellows with repartee as to beat them with cricket bats or bayonets. But at any rate w.o went away quite certain which is the most wonderful and enterprising of the Overseas Dominions—Austranada,