FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 140, 3 September 1927, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN

SEE —SAW The forgetfulness of these mediums is perfectly exasperating. They recount the future and fortell the past with such amazing infidelity that a "miss in balk” tears the cloth. The “medium” of Carter the Great is due for punishment. With great success, she recited the appellation of a gentleman in the audience at His Majesty’s and told him he was fiddling while his Rome burned—otherwise,.that his house was afire. It was, too —and it is stated on the most reliable information that nobody knew that Nero was attending the Colosseum that evening, and that there was no telephone nearer than the manager’s office in any case. Yet, despite this signal success, the “medium” failed to mediumise the fact that Carter’s costly motor-car was to become a. total wreck at Takanini, at “Three O’clock in the Morning,” a few days later. It is understood that the lady’s excuse that her prescience was either clouded by a sunspot or rendered iridescent by the opacity of the moon being further opaqued by atmospheric influence attributable to an imperfect horizontation of the Milky Way has been disregarded by Mr. Carter, and that the culprit wili furnish the material for to-night’s anotomical dissertation on “Sawing a Woman in Two.” LAWS LAUGHED A T There are two laws which'the people of this country treat with contempt: one is that against bookmaking, and the other that which prohibits liquor in no-liceuce areas. Bookmakers who elect to be tried by the Supreme Court are invariably found not guilty on the clearest possible evidence of their guilt; and juries regard sly-grog selling in no-licenced areas in almost as brightly lenient a light. Could anything be more illustrative of the legislative humbug of this country than the public condemnation of a just and upright judge? These are the remarks to the jury of the judge who tried the case of a man from Taumarunul, who was charged with keeping liquor for sale in a prohibited area: “Nothing is more demoralising to a community than a law which is regarded with contempt and leads to underhand dealing, hypocrisy and deceit.” I-lis Honour added (as his position, required, of course) that whatever one thought of the liquor laws, it was the business of the Court to administer them. The jury showed what they thought by taking only ten minutes to bring in a verdict of not guilty. Parliament is being petitioned to allow the taking of a poll in the King Country for the restoration of licences, people who hate humbug hoping that restoration will do away with the “underhand dealing, hypocrisy and deceit” so caustically commented ujjon by his Honour.

JACK AND BIS MASTER Is Jack as good as his master? In Australia he is very much better. The tale is told of the struggling New South Wales grazier who, unable to afford accommodation for the shearing on the scale demanded by the Rural Workers’ Accommodation Act, shifted his family into some huts and offered his very comfortable old homestead for the use of the men. The inspector paid a visit and condemned the residence as unfit for the requirements of shearers. The upshot hasn’t been reported, but it is quite probable that the poor grazier had to shear the sheep himself. Australia used to be termed “The Workers’ Paradise.” Looks as if it is regaining the title. “Palaces for the People”' should be the slogan of the Australian worker.