FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 219, 5 December 1927, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN” THE DUCK TEAM Marton seems a very healthy place lor ''ducks.” In a cricket match there on Saturday one senior team was dismissed for a total of one run, and as it does not take more than one batsman to make one run, ten must have made “ducks.” A duck dinner should be provided for these batsmen at Christmas—with leather dumplings. "LISTEE TO THE NIGHTINGALE “Mac’s” protest: “Dear L.0.M,,- —I for one protest against the introduction of the nightingale to this country. Haven’t we got pests enough? What with alleged “musical” and “vocal” competitions, wireless loud-speakers, gramophones by purchase without deposit, and piano-players with “word rolls" which encourage the voiceless to believe they can sing, the reasonable man who requires some time in which to read or think is nearly driven out of his mind. On referring to my encyclopaedia, I find the nightingale described as a bird of the thrush family, ‘famous for its sustained and varied song, indulged in far into the night as by day.’ That’s a nice sort of bird to have around! Next door to where I live there is a lady who thinks she can sing, a thought that is most agonisingly given utterance to—‘indulged in far into the night, as well as by day.’ It is against the law to shoot her; but so far there Is no law against shooting nightingales. I’m going to ‘indulge’ In a gun, and sit up with it ‘far into the night.’ ” * * * AN EMPLOYERS PARADISE Taranaki must be a veritable paradise for the farmer. In the hearing of a claim in the Supreme Court at New Plymouth, ne farmer said that a real good man for labouring among the cows and things could be obtained for £ 2 a week. Another said he employed a share milker, whose wife, daughter and two sons all assisted him, at £4 a week. He considered that the work was light, however. Having regard to the featherweight proportions of the pay, it ought to be. This “drift to the city” is a very regrettable thing, isn’t it? The farmers wh pay £2 a week to real good labourers and £ 4 to whole families can’t account for it. * * * GAS! TN PEACE ANI) W,4 Tf Ditvinoff announces he has signed the adhesion by the Soviet of the Protocol condeming the use of poisongas in war. The Bolshevists are so busy in manufacturing poison-gas for their “peaceful penetration" propaganda in other countries that they are afraid they will be at a disadvantage if it comes to conflict. This notwithstanding, the barbarity of piosonous gases should be sufficiently evident to civilised nations. At all events, they should not need a Soviet to point it out. It is not the immediate affects of this vile weapon that are so dreadful. Men “gassed” in the war are dying even to-day, after surviving years of misery, with lungs that have been ruined by their experience on poisoned fields. The further we get away from that last war, the better we see the horrors of it, and the more we realise its futility and its damnable stupidity. But there are still those who advocate war—those who have never experienced it.

THE SUPER-PATRIOT TXie Premier of Poland, Marshal Pilsudski, describes Professor Waldemaras, of Lithuania, as “a madman and an insane super-patriot, who was originally a Russian, then a German, and finally, only a few years ago, a Lithuanian.” Apparently the more profitable the nationality, the more perferviod the patriotism. Walderparas could not get a premiership in Russia or in Germany, but he became Premier of Lithuania, and now he is mobilising troops to show how patriotic he is. One patriotic American expressed his regrets that he only had one life to offer for his Country. Other patriots at various times have been perfectly willing to offer many lives for their countries—other people’s lives. When a great writer described patriotism as “the last refuge of the scoundrel,” he must have had gentlemen like the Russian-German-Lithuan-ian, 'Waldemaras, in mind. There are three kinds of patriotism; that which serves pride or vanity, that which serves the pockets, and that which serves country. The third is very rare.