FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 284, 21 February 1928, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By "THE LOOK-OUT MAN.’ 1

| IN SAMOA i In view of the seriousness of the native discontent, the warships Dunedin and Diomede have been dispatched to Samoa. Mr. A. L. Braisbv, Commissioner of Police in Samoa, arrived by the ; Tofua yesterday on four months’ | furlough. Samoan Arithmetic: Two warships equal one police commissioner. COULD NOT SWIM The terrible list of drownings in New Zealand this summer was added to on Sunday by a fatality at Stanley Bay, when a 16-year-old boy perished. He was not able to swim—yet he ventured out in a canvas canoe! When the canoe capsized, the inevitable happened. Drownings are known in New Zealand as “the national death.” Every such death is an added argument for the compulsory teaching of swimming at schools. But there is very little effort to teach the young how to swim —in fact, in Auckland swimming is posivitively discouraged by a municipality which closes its baths more than it opens them. Meanwhile, boys who | cannot swim venture into deep water and are drowned. A HUMANE PARTY

Air. H. E. Holland declares that the Labour Party intends to cut out the middleman —“as far as humanely possible.” Political gas will be administered as an anaesthetic preliminary to the operation, it is presumed. THIRSTY BEACHES

Those who swim at the municipal baths now must go home with saltencrusted heads, for they are not permitted to use the fresh-waler showers. The showers have been cut off, also all the water taps have been removed from the beaches, and the pipes sealed. If you emerge from the brine after taking your dip as “dry” as the proverbial wooden god, through having inadvertently taken a few mouthfuls of salt water, you can walk a mile or two to the nearest , shop and pay sixpence for a glass of lemonade. If you haven’t got sixpence, you can continue thirsty, and meditate upon the manifest excellencies of your civic administration. Of i course, some selfish people refuse to allow the salt to remain in their hair. I They go home and wash it out, and so the water is used just the same. I The only thing for the authorities do, therefore, is to cut off the supply |at private houses. This would be an j excellent joke with 'which to cap the j humour of the water-supply (situation.

RISOTTO He is undoubtedly a great man, that Mussolini. He dosed his opponents with castor oil to make them see the error of their ways, and now, seated firmly in his dictator’s chair, he prescribes rice for the multitude of whom he is beloved. “Rice Day” was observed throughout Italy yesterday, and Mussolini provided supplies for the poor. He has pronounced rice to be more nutritious aiyl cheaper than the national spaghetti, and, with an eye to business, he sees in the increased consumption of the snowy grain (which grows prolifically in Italy) a factor that will abolish the need for importing wheat. Therefore newspapers, doctors, and priests are preaching “Eat More Rice,” and hotels and restaurants are puttingrice free on every menu. The L.O.M. has a friend who raves to this very day about risotto, prepared in the Italian w T ay. Risotto is cooked rice, to which is added tomatoes, and every rime the L.O.M.’s friend describes it he ejaculates “dee-licious,” rolls his eyes, and makes an involuntary swallowing motion. It must be good; and since rice and tomatoes are now cheap in Auckland, it shall be tried in at least one other Auckland home this week.

| SHARKS! i Timid bathers attain the speed of 'arrows when somebody calls “Shark!” ! from the safety of the silvery sands. • On the coast of North Auckland, however, sharks are things of beauty and i joys forever, absolutely worshipped in i fact. T_'p at Russell or at Whangaroa they are always catching the world’s record shark. They got another at Whangaroa on Saturday—a thresher, weighing S32lb, which is just about the weight of a decent bullock. It measured 16ft in length and- had a girth of 6ft. Still, this was only a wee chappie, compared with some sharks elsewhere. The Greenland shark, for f instance, measures 26ft in length. He is a whale-eater. He has a big brother, the whale shark (Rhinodon typicus), which measures up to 60ft —an amiable chap this, with minute teeth, guaranteed not to bite human beings unless very hungry. It is suggested that the species should be propagated by the Government hatcheries for release on our coasts. It would prove a great attraction for tourists, who naturally ; tire of catching mere 16-footers*