FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 51, 23 May 1927, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By the LOOK-O'JT MAN UP GOES BUTTER! The London market is a long way oft, hut it affects the New Zealand housewife very closely. She is informed that the retail price of butter is increased by Id. a lb., and has it given as a reason that there is a rise on the London market and that “there are favourable prospects for higher prices in the immediate future.” That “favourable" has a very satirical sound in the ears of the mother with four or five little mouths to feed. Medical men tell mothers that butter is as good as cod-liver oil (and much nicer) for their children, but the prospect of them obtaining a sufficiency of it at Is 8d a lb. is most “unfavourable.” One can sympathise with the prayer of the little girl, after a tea of “bread and scrape”—“Give us this day our daily bread —and, please, God, put plenty of butter on it, too.” AN “IMPOSSIBLE” JOP. Does Commissioner Mellveney (who is sending additional detectives to Auckland to “clean up” this allegedly wicked city) read Auckland’s morning newspaper? If so, what will be think of the announcement by that paper’s Hamilton correspondent, that “the police now state it is impossible to capture Scott?” This escaped prisoner gave five constables and several assisting natives the slip nicely the other day, and it is said that since his escape two years ago, he has been seen on numerous occasions in the Whatawhata and Koromatua districts, near Hamilton, but has always proved too elusive for police parties sent out to catch him. Scott is apparently a rather harmless sort of fellow, whose depredations are confined to the robbing of hen-roosts and kitchen larders. But the question the public want an assurance on is, if Scott were a desperate character, with a revolver at each hip and a rifle slung over his shoulder, would the police still find his capture “impossible?” PAYING THE WHALES The Ross Sea whales have found an unexpected ally in the Congregational Union of Australia and New Zealand, which has carried a resolution deploring their wholesale destruction, and asking that the permits to foreign companies to slay them indiscriminately be cancelled. This just shows that Congregationalists are true Christians and love their enemies, for it must not be forgotten what a dirty trick the whale played upon the prophet, Jonah. New Zealand might be a lot better olf, by the way, with a fewer Jonahs, and its political Jonahs in particular. It would not be a bad idea to send a Parliamentary party to

the Ross Sea. SNAKES! The death last week of C. J. French, snake-expert from South Africa, from the bite of a black snake at Adelaide Zoo, recalls a famous Australian character, Morrissey. He knew all about snakes; they were at once his pets and his living, but between snakes and “tanglefoot” Morrissey sometimes became very mixed. One day a Melbourne policeman arrested Morrissey and took him and his carpet bag to Russell Street lock-up and charged him with drunkenness. There were half-a-dozen policemen there who knew not Morrissey. “What have you got in that bag?” demanded the chargesergeant. “Fin’ out yersel’ ” hiccoughed Morrissey. One of the police opened the bag. Then six snakes glided from it —and six policemen fought in the narrow doorway to be first out. Morrissey re-impris-oned his snakes and laughed himself sober. Next day the police “put in a good word” for him, and he was “convicted and discharged.” Poor Morrissey! A snake got him, too, in the finish.

THE PROUD HEIRLOOMS GO One by one the proud heirlooms of England leave the land. Romney pictures sold at Christies last week for 38,600 guineas were largely purchased for America, which seems to be securing every worth-while British art gem and historical relic outside State ownership. One asks, “Why are English families selling these precious heirlooms of their country’s genius—is there a declining pride of race and pride in the race’s achievement?” The bitter answer is, “No; they are selling their treasures because they have been taxed down to the point of poverty to enable Britain to pay her war debt to America.” Thus do the Americans get their money and their treasures both.”