FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 132, 25 August 1927, Page 10

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN”

DANCING BATHERS Naughty, naughty Dixieland! You really ought to know You shouldn’t cause a scandal As you did a while ago. The council closed the portals Of your “Cabaret de Dance," But subsequently voted You should have another chance. 'Wicked, wicked Dixieland! You really must behave. You say that every “ Charleston ” Should, be followed by a bathe. The dancing hall’s a better thing For those who leant to spoon Than splashing in the briny 'Neath the glitter of the moon. Noble, noble Dixieland! I earnestly beseech You'll give the council access To the harbour and the beach; Instead, of being nasty You should SAVE the fatted calf, And honour Mister Baildon With the Order of the Bath. —B. C. H. “ CANTERBURY ” LAMB A short while back there were complaints of Argentine butter being passed off in London under a brand suggesting that it had come from New Zealand. Now it is announced that the best Australian lamb is never sold as such, the wraps and labels being changed in order to obtain 2d a lb. more as “Canterbury” lamb. It is suggested that this is not going far enough. The Australians should further advertise the resources of their prolific country by obtaining photographs of the best New Zealand landscape scenery and publishing them abroad as views of the Great Australian Desert. Likewise, pictures of the Wanganui River and the Milford Sounds as the River Yarra and Botany Bay, respectively, might help to stimulate a slack tourist traffic. GAMES AND GAMBLING A Wellington magistrate has dismissed informations under the Gaming Act against people who conducted what is known as the “rabbit game,” stating that as far back as memory went such games had been a recognised diversion at fairs and shows. There has been terrific activity of late in seeking to prove certain forms of public amusement as games of chance, and the law has not by any means been consistent. A couple of weeks ago, two men were convicted of having kept “a common gaming house,” because they had conducted euchre tournaments. Yet euchre tournaments continue to be held. Only this week the results of one were reported in the newspapers, with the names of the winners of “valuable prizes.” The only difference in the two cases was that in one cash prizes were given and the promoters were making a cash profit, while in the other the prizes were not cash (though they cost money and had a cash value), and the profits were probably devoted to some fund, instead of to the pockets of the promoters. There is no prosecution in these cases —and one wonders why, if euchre is held to be a game of chance in one case, it is not so in another.

A HUMAN ENGINE A young man advertises for a job on a dairy farm, wages no object, and offers £lO for it. His only stipulation is that the farm must be near Auckland, so that he can attend an engineering school at night. If this young man can rise at 4 a.m., milk the cows, do the routine work of a farm-hand, milk the cows again in the evening, and then trot gaily off to night-school, he is just the sort of young man that farmers don’t want, it a farm-hand has so much surplus energy at the end of his day’s toil, the “cockies” will consider that he ought to be out digging post-holes by moonlight, not wasting good time fooling around with engines. CONQUEROR OF MALARIA There will be universal thanks that Sir Donald Ross, recently seriously ill In London, has been spared for further useful service in the cause of humanity. Sir Donald Ross is the British physician who must rank with such men as Pasteur and Lister as having been born to bless the world. He it was who discovered the life history of the malaria parasite in mosquitoes—a discovery which showe the source of man’s infection, and has been responsible for the saving of countless thousands of lives. But for this discovery the construction of the Panama Canal would have been impossible, and life would he unendurable for the white man in many places now habitable by the destruction of the mosquito and the consequent abolition of malaria. Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1902, and was knighted in 1911. He is 70 years of age, ~ -— ___