FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 186, 27 October 1927, Page 10

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN” OUR J.P.'S Scene, a Courthouse. A Justice of the Peace on the Bench: J.P.: These men who can’t pay their debts should not get into debt. Order for the amount claimed, with costs, to be paid at the rate of £1 a week, in default imprisonment. Scene, another Courthouse, with another J.P. (It is a maintenance case): J.P.: What! This fellow £4 10s in arrears. Been out of work? Nonsense —lots of work about! Shouldn’t incur these responsibilities if he can’t get work. Men must pay their liabilities—three months’ imprisonment! Scene, Annual Meeting of the Justices of the Peace Association: Balance sheet of association is read — and “concern is expressed therein at the number of subscriptions in arrears—l 37, amounting to £79 10s.” “Yes; .men must pay their liabilities!” MUSICAL TRANSMISSIONS Another restriction has been placed against the use of the telephone by the tyrants who control it. The wire must not be used “for the purpose of transmitting musical items.” Now here arises an exasperating point —- an agonising point, it may well be, to some of tender heart. Angeline is in the habit of ringing-up her Aubrey several times during the day, to hear spoken and to speak those tender verbal delicacies so exquisitely thrilling to those in their indescribably ecstatic situation. Dare any churl deny that the voice of Angeline is the sublimest music,) that her every sentence is a song, that her tender tale is “the sweetest story ever told?” Go to, fellow, an you so venture! Truly is the voice of Angeline “a musical item,” and, as a law-abiding citizen, Aubrey may not receive it, nor may Angeline transmit it, over the wire. Ah, the world is very cruel to lovers. * * * SHORT XOTICE Young doctors who join the salaried staff of public hospitals have, it appears, a habit of leaving whenever it suits them witnout giving notice sufficient to ensure their being replaced. Bitter complaint was made at the last Canterbury Hospital Board meeting concerning this lack of consideration by young men who use the hospitals as places wherein to gather valuable experience that will later bring the guineas tumbling in. One doctor insisted on leaving at 4S hours’ notice. It was sugges--.. that these free-and-easy young gentlemen be made to give one month’s notice, but the chairman explained the difficulty: There was not enough of them to fill the demand; so they refuse to sign any contract —and as soon as a better appointment is offered or there is a practice going cheap, off they go. It doesn’t show much gratitude to the hospital which has afforded them facilities for training, or much concern for the patients they were treating—but there you are! One member of the board was old-fashioned enough to exclaim: “Surely these young gentlemen should observe the unwritten law of honour!” Perhaps the “young gentlemen” are oecasonailly conscience-stricken. If so they think of the fees awaiting them outside and may pleasantly murmur, with Tennyson: “But the jingling of the guinea heals the hurt that honour feels." A more healing physic than their own!

A CALL TO GENEROUS YOUTH Where there Is poverty among the clergy, and a dearth of candidates for Service within the Church, such as referred to by the Anglican Synod last week, special interest centres in the appeal for recruits. Bishop Welldon, for instance, writes in “T.P:’s” and “Cassell’s Weekly” on “The Church As A Career,” and makes a “Call to Generous Youth.” He admits the poverty of the clergy to be a sad fact, but points out that men do not enter the Church to amass fortunes. And what should the Church be? This is what Bishop Welldon says: “At home no less than abroad the Church will deserve respect if she proves herself the great agent in the moral elevation of the people. She must be foremost In the causes of temperance and purity; then will she attract all such souls as long to see the nation delivered from the twin curses of drink and lust. I cannot for a moment allow that the Church Is bound to hold herself aloof from social reforms. She should lift her voice, and she ought to have lifted it long ago, for good housing, for healthy conditions of labour, for a just remuneration of the working class, for constant recognition of the humanitarian duty as opposed to laissez faire in the domain of industry.”