FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 123, 15 August 1927, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By ‘‘THE LOOK-OUT MAN” ALLOTTING THE BURDEN A uuniDer of the workers eligaged at Arapuui were treated at the Waikato Hospital during the three years from 1924 to 1927, and only £BSO was collected out of a total of £1,806 due in fees. The Waikato Hospital Board has declared It to be most unfair to expect the Waikato to stand the loss, as the men were engaged in a work which was to supply Auckland with power, and it is going to ask the Government to make up the deficit. It Is understood that the Waikato Hospital Board has In view the presentation of a bill for £7,567 to the merchants of Tooley Street, this being the cost to the board of treating a large number of workers in the dairying industry over a number of years—on the ground that these workers had been engaged in the production of butter for Eugand! ■■HARO TO PATCH" The outcry against the slaughter of whales in the Ross Sea was very popular, in which connection it is interesting to note that the whalers were Norwegians. But it is “quite all right” for New Zealanders to slaughter them. In ten weeks, 3S fine whales were taken off Cape Brett, as they passed north. The whales that escaped the harpoon are expected to return South in about four weeks’ time. “It will take at least two months for these monsters to pass Cape Brett,” writes a correspondent. “When they return, .they will be accompanied by their calves, and this is the time when they are hard to catch, as they are on the alert all the time, protecting their young.” What becomes of the little calves when their parents have been slaughtered Is not revealed. Perhaps they, too, are converted into oil —even a baby whale would yield a gallon or two. Or are they left to become the prey of the savage swordfish, which afterwards become the prey of the gentle angler? THE TOTE FOR REVENUE The Government of New Zealand is making such a good thing out of the totalisator, that it is not strange it is quoted elsewhere when Governments find themselves pushed for revenue. The Labour Government of Victoria, for instance, Is short of the needful, and people over there are asking why it doesn’t introduce the tote and make a monopoly of betting, as is done in the islands where they prohibit the bookmaker by law, and licence him by periodical fines. Victoria is the only State of the Commonwealth which has not the totalisator operating on its racecourses; but in most of the States the bookmaker is allowed to operate, too —and the bookmaker gets most of the business. The Victorian Government has the matter “under consideration.” Victoria has a rather tender public conscience, however, and the establishment by the State of such direct encouragement to gambling as is the totalisator might easily wreck a Labour Government, which holds a precarious footing in what is probably the most conservative portion of Australia.

POE A, S A PROPHET Lindbergh’s crossing of the Atlantic recalls a more or less successful hoax perpetrated by no less a person than Edgar Allan Poe, which appeared in the New York “Sun” in 1844. Meant to be satirical, it was nevertheless prophecy. It was headed; “Astounding News by Express, via Norfolk!” “The Atlantic Crossed in Three Days!” “Signal Triumph of Mr. Mouck Mason’s Flying Machine!” The report began with these sentences; —"The great trouble is at length solved! The air, as well as the earth and the ocean, has been subdued by science, and will become a common and convenient highway for mankind. The Atlantic has been actually crossed in a balloon.” Poe described how Monck Mason and Robert Holland, aeronauts, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, author, and others—in all eight persons—accomplished the journey in 75 hours from shore to shore. A journal was kept by Ainsworth; and Poe’s report concludes with the sentence; “This is unquestionably the most stupendous, the most interesting, and the most important undertaking ever accomplished, or even attempted, by man. What magnificent events may ensue it would he useless now to think of determining.” The report is known now as “The Balloon Hoax” (though it is not clear that many persons were credulous enough to believe it), and it has been reprinted with Poe’s prose works