FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 130, 23 August 1927, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN

A REVIEWER ASTRAY

In spite of the ambassadorial efforts of the All Blacks, the League team and the New Zealand cricketers, some Englishmen of intelligence cannot refrain from associating New Zealand with Australia. The “Observer,” in a recent review of Mrs. Devanny’s “Old Savage and Other Stories,” heads it, “Stories of Australian Life.” In one of his inspired moments the reviewer writes: “Each tale is excellent. They are played out in the Australian colonies. The author knows the scene thoroughly, and the people who pass through these pages are made to live.” The problems that puzzle a Thomas Hardy yeoman still vex the Australasian miner. But the methods of solving the riddle differ with the two climes. The book is to be recommended for its unaffected veracity,” says the review, and may we add that the reviewer is to be condemned for his unaffected ignorance.

FERDINAND SPEAKS. Ex-King Ferdinand of Bulgaria who possessed so many uncomplimentary nicknames when the war was in progress is writing his memoirs in which he promises some new information on the origin of the World Wari He recently gave a newspaper-man an interview at Coburg

ROSALIND WITH A CREASE

Recently the Sydney University students played “As You Like It” in modern clothes. One of the newspapers headed its notice “As You Won’t Like It.” Small wonder. There was a wireless set under the trees In the Forest of Arden; Touchstone wore “plus fours” and carried golf clubs, and there was a gay tennis party on Duke Frederick’s lawn. It must have looked like an attempt at musical comedy without music. The thought of Rosalind with a crease down the front of her trousers is a terrifying one and we hope that Mr. Alan Wilkie, whp occasionally gives pastoral performances of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” will not be influenced by the new movement into presenting us with a shingled Titania in a tennis frock. DEAR RATS Rats are bringing as high a price in Sydney as they did in the siege of Paris. The Sydneyites do not eat them, however. Knowing the rats to be plague-disseminators, they destroy them whenever and wherever possible. They don’t have miles of rough stone fences for them to breed in as we do in Auckland. The Sydney City Council has a rat-catching department, employing nine expert trappers. During the year, they set 47,000 traps, but caught only 3.500 rats, which worked out at 12s 6d a rat. Still, it was money well spent, for it is known that constant warfare against the rodents has very greatly dimi»ished their numbers, thereby diminishing the dangers of plague. One remembers the plague scare in Australia many years ago as great fun. The Melbourne City Council offered Is for every rat, dead or alive, and thousand of boys went gaily forth to earn good pocket-money, armed with pea-rifles, air-rifles, catapults, traps, poison—-and even lines with tiny hooks embedded in cheese, to “fish” down drains. Rats arrived at the Melbourne Town Hall literally by the ton—aud the price fell to 6d; then to 3d. It was a glorious campaign while it lasted, and many a boy who took part in it may be said to have made a successful start in commercial life as a rat-catcher. OUR FIRST PLUNKET BABY In case the moot point should ever arise as to who was New Zealand’s first Plunket baby it is just as well to settle it. The young man in question was the Hon. Brinsley Plunket, second son of Lord and Lady Plunket (now Lady Victoria Braithwaite). Brinsley Plunket has just announced his engagement in England to Miss Aileen Guinness, eldest daughter of the Hon. Ernest and Mrs. Guinness, of stout fame, and a wealthy grandchild of Lord Iveagh. In making a rich marriage Brinsley Plunket has followed the example of his brother, the present Lord Plunket. He married the widow of the late Captain Barnato, and a daughter of Fannie Ward, the veteran American actress. Lady Plunket is now to all intents and purposes a millionairess. Brinsley Plunket’s father had not been long in residence in Auckland when he decided to give a dinner party. The occasion is memorable in the annals of the Plunket family, because of the part Brinsley played in treacling the door-handles of Government House. Sir Joseph Ward, who was then Prime Minister, might possibly recall the incident. Brinsley Plunket spent three years in New Zealand farming on the Canterbury property of his brother-in-law, Captain Tahu Rhodes. He made a short stay in Auckland in 1924 before returning to England, via New York. When Lady Victoria Braithwaite inaugurated the Truhy King Hospital in London she met with considerable opposition from certain quarters, medical in the main. The high regard in which the Plunket work is now held in almost every civilised country in the world, however, says something for the faith of l he pioneers of this great social movement.