FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 296, 6 March 1928, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” QUICK FLIGHT Another Australian has achieved distinction in the air. Captain S. Neale flew from Brisbane to Melbourne, a distance of 1,100 miles, in 111 hours. He made one short stop, at Sydney, to take in petrol. Who will be the New Zealander to make the flight from New Zealand to Australia? And is interest in the as yet unachieved Tasman flight altogether dead on this side? A. USE FOR THE BATH Sydney is having a thorough clean-up, even to personal details. It has now been ordered that every house shall instal a bath, where one is lacking. This recalls the protest of an Auckland slum landlord, three or four years ago, when Auckland’s slumdom received its periodical publicity: “It’s waste of money putting in baths for the poor,” he declared. “They only use them for keeping coals in.” it appeared this really was the case in one household. But one swallow doesn’t make a summer—and most of the poor in slumdom didn’t have any coals to store in the bath, anyway. They used the back fences for fuel that winter. * * * “GET TOGETHER” The “Get Together” movement has spread to Samoa. The Administration gathered 30 disaffected natives together (it was absurdly reported that they had been “arrested”), and placed them in a nice, safe place, protected by armed bluejackets. Then, having been got together, they were addressed by the Administrator, Sir George Richardson. It was reported that Sir George had made quite an impression. It shows the value of taking lessons (self-taught) in elocution—Sir George was said by the newspapers, at the time of his accession to the throne of Samoa, to have acquired the voice of command by walking to a lonely spot on the seashore at Gibraltar and ordering the rocks to form fours and shoulder a-a-a-rr-m-ms. Anyhow, Sir George isn’t lacking in initiative. When he can’t get an audience he rounds one up. • * * BIG THINGS Auckland gardeners who specialise in vegetables will have to invent some taller tales to relate in train and tram on their way to the city if they wish to compete with the Sydneysiders. A Sydney newspaper publishes a list of giant garden products grown across the Tasman, including a 371 b cabbage; a 1601 b pumpkin, “which two boys scooped out and used as a boat in a local pond” a 281 b cauliflower; a 41b mushroom; 31b tomatoes, and sunflowers measuring 20Jin in diameter. One would hesitate to challenge the truth of these claims; but how vegetables do grow! The L.O.M. met a proud suburban amateur in the train one morning who told him that he had dug a potato from his patch that weighed “just on 2Jlb.” That same evening that same gardener met the L.O.M. agfiin and (apparently forgetting the morning’s conversation), he retold the tale. The potato liad grown to s|lb since morning! Perhaps next day it filled a sack.

D’ANNUNZIO The picturesque Gabriele D'Annunzio is seriously ill. May his romantic figure be spared in a world growing drab! Poet and warrior, he has blended the incompatibles, and but for one tragic passage of vainglorious ingratitude he might have been Well, let it be forgotten—the woman is dead. But the true Gabriele is the D’Annunzio who flew out from Italy and over the enemies of Italy in Vienna. Instead of dropping bombs, he dropped poems! There were those who said they were more deadly than bombs, but that was jest. And it was the same gallant Gabriele, a new Garibaldi, who, with his patriot volunteers, seized Piume, (whose future fate was, in his opinion, being too slowly deliberated by the Peace Conference) and swore it should be for ever Italian D’Annunzio was so wrath with the Italian Government not having annexed Fiume that he declared himself administrator and the Fiume territory “in a state of war” with Italy. “Fiume or death!” cried Gabriele. The Italian Government responded by blockading the port and starving the gallant filibuster into submission. Later, Fiume became an independent State under a delimited Italian-Yugoslavian commission. This notwithstanding, Italy made D'Annunzio a prince.