FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 330, 16 April 1928, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

RIOTOUS FLOWERS Flowers in Albert Park are reported to be “riotous.” With the Police Station so near at hand, they had better have a care. Rioting cannot be tolerated in Albert Park. LOOK-OUT! With cars travelling six abreast outside the main exit gate at Avondale racecourse on Saturday, pedestrians had to exercise considerable ingenuity and acrobatic skill to avoid being reduced to the condition alleged to be that of some of the horses competing that day—“dead.” Horses that are “dead” the first day are often miraculously resurrected on the second day of a meeting, when the “tote” promises bigger dividends; but there is no resurrection for a motor-slain pedestrian. It may be suggested, therefore, that the traffic authorities see to it on Wednesday that the pedestrian gets a chance at the torbarrier. THE GAOL TREATMENT In an age when penologists condemn prisons, excepting as a last resort for the confirmed criminal, and as the worst possible place to send those with any hope of reform, the enlightened law of this country continues to send dipsomaniacs to gaol on a wholesale scale. If the reason is that there is nowhere else to send them (and what about “The Island”?), the sooner a “somewhere else” is provided the better. Last week a man whose irresistible desire for drink led him to steal whisky was said by the prosecuting sub-inspector to be a man who would “do anything for drink.” “Once he is away from it,” added the sub-inspector, “he is a good man and an excellent worker.” This “good man and excellent worker,” admittedly a victim to what medical opinion recognises as a definite disease, was sent to gaol for a month. The system that treats disease in this way is itself drunk. * * * THE “ MELBOURNE ”

Only yesterday, it seems, the Australian cruiser Melbourne was a smart and modern vessel —sister to the Sydney, which smashed the Emden in the memorable engagement off Cocos Island. Now she is to be sold (to the breakers, it is presumed), and her officers and crew will join the new cruiser Australia, now being completed at Glasgow. The Melbourne is well remembered in Auckland. On one occasion she was on her way here from Sydney when she received the S.O.S. from the American-owned sailer Helen B. Sterling, which was foundering in the Pacific. . Changing her course, the Melbourne rushed away to the rescue at 25 knots an hour in the face of a howling gale, and reached the distressed vessel just in time to rescue the crew before she sank. The shipwrecked mariners were brought to Auckland, among those miraculously preserved from the, claws of the sea being the wife and little son of Captain Harris, master of the Helen B. Sterling. Auckland gave cheers to the Melbourne and received the distressed mariners with warm and comforting arms.

OUR FRIEND THE KAISER

When Baron Huehnefeld went out of his way a while back, before reaching Ireland to embark on his Atlantic flight in the Bremen, to fly over Doom and drop flowers for the ex-Kaiser, he should have accompanied the bouquet with a book—Maximilian Harden’s posthumous, “From Versailles to Versailles,” for instance. This work of Germany’s most famous journalist, recently published, has some nice things to say about “Our Friend, the Kaiser.” Harden pictures Wilhelm as a strutting, fretting, ranting actor, always elbowing his way to the one - of all places he did not belong—the centre of the stage. “Thus he swaggered for thirty years. He felt that everything in the world could be decided by his imperial and royal wisdom—how hieroglyphics were to be deciphered, a subway to be built, the Bible explained; how Mozart’s Sarastro or Wagner’s Amfortas should be costumed; how a Dreadnought or destroyer should be constructed, a monument set up,” children educated, physical and psychical hygiene advanced ; how women ought to behave j and labourers go about their daily task.” All tliis, adds Harden, went I hand in hand with incessant sabrerattling, militaristic posturing, bombastic speechmaking, which made all : the rest of the world uneasy and susj picious. In France, Britain, Russia, everywhere, people shook their heads as they watched Wilhelm’s antics and said to' each other each time another torrent of fiery words poured from his lips; “This man means war. He means to conquer the world.” And the Governments beyond Germany’s borders, feel- | ing quite as uncomfortable as the i man in the street, took their measures j accordingly. Yet Wilhelm, as Harden points out, persisted in flaunting himi self before the world as a lover of ! peace. Upon this phase of Wilhelm’s I play-acting Harden pours a veritable of .vitriolic ridicule.