FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 233, 21 December 1927, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN” SOMETHING FREE A Christcliurcli tobacconist advertised that he would give Jib. tobacco free to each of the first 100 customers who came to Iliis s! t p the next morning. Thousands waited for the shop to open next day—there was a special excursion from Dunedin! MEAT AND DRINK A sigh of relief goes up from the residents of Paeroa. They have a brewery down there, and, strangely enough, a butcher’s shop was run in conjunction with it. This “double event” was condemned by the health authorities, and there was a pained suspense. Now it is announced that the beer is not affected by the proximity of meat, but that the meat is injured by the heat of brewing. To those good Paeroa people to whom beer is “both meat and drink,” the news comes as glad tidings, indeed, and they return to their mugs with increased “appetites.” MONEY .1 A I) SPORT, In. past years, people speculated on the result of a world championship sculling race for months previous to the event. Goodsell and Barry are to try conclusions again in a few duys, and no one seems to care sixpence about it. There is decided public apathy even in Vancouver, where the scullers are in training, “due to tin commercial aspects of the event.” What killed bicycle racing, the sport that was for a space the sport of a'l sports? “The commercial aspects,” ty which riders were “squared” and rode “dead” and the bookmakers robbed the public. This is a commercial age, and it is difficult to conduct any sport in which the financial aspect does not largely enter, if it does not actually predominate. The dollar rules the world and governs all therein. THE “CUTTY SARK” • l Memories of the old clipper ships are recalled by cabled Hews of the death of Captain Andrew Shewan, aged 78, formerly commander of the Lammermuir. “His death,” states the cable message "leaves - Captain Woodget, aged 94, who commanded the famous Cutty Sark, as the last survivor of the famous clipper captains.” The Lammermuir was a smart packet, which once made the voyage from London to Adelaide in 85 days; but some of the most famous passages on record were made by the Cutty Sark. Her best four passages between England and Australia were 72, 73, 72 and 76 days respectively, and inyseven passages she averaged only 73J days. In fact, hep sailing performances were far superior to any other of the famous wool clippers, for the average of all her passages from 1874 to 1890 was only 77 days from port to port. When the war broke out in 1914, the Cutty Sark, then 45 years of age, was in the possession of Portugese owners. However, she came back into British hands, and is said now to be lying in Falmouth Harbour, still quite fit to renew her ocean voyaging, despite the fact that it is 58 years since she was built.

SNEAK THIEVES AT BATHS Summer brings the bathers out again, and it also brings the sneakthieves, who rob the bathers’ clothes —and sometimes take the clothes also. The Parnell Baths are said to have received the attentions of these sneakthieves recently. Bathers, of course, should leave their money and valuables at the office where they pay for admission, and if anyone is ever caught “going through” clothing in the dressing sheds, it would be a good' plan to three-parts drown him before handing him over to the police. That would be his last appearance as a baths-thief. * * * THE HASTINGS POLICE JIOA. T There has been a grim silence ou the question of teetdlalism in police circles at Hastings since the “cold tea case,” in which there was raised the unexpected defence that the two bottles which a local resident was accused of purchasing from an hotel after hours contained, not beer, but cold tea. Three weeks have passed, and the case has not again been called in court. It is said that the bottles were sent away for their contents to be analysed, but that the analyst’s report has not been received. Is it really necessary for a Government analyst to • decide between the two beverages? Surely any efficient judge of beer could say if it were beer, or any efficient teetotaller could say if it were tea? There is the difficulty, of course, that the beer-drinker might fear poisoning from the tea, while the teetotaller perhaps shudders at the risk that he might really taste beer. Meanwhile the people of Hastings continue to laugh at their “best joke of the year”—and four policemen have been transferred from Hastings to less humorous districts.