FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 337, 24 April 1928, Page 10

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By "THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” LOOKIXG FOR SOHETHIXG CIVIL Commander Daniel, who was dis- ; missed from the Royal OaJ; over the : row with Rear-Admiral Collard. in- | tends looking for some civil occupa- \ tion. After his experience with the Navy something more civil appeals to him. Still, there should be more | civility in the Navy for the future. | LETEL-CROSSIXG AGAIX The red roll of the railways nas had another name added to it. This time it is the level-crossing at New Lynn that has secured a victim, an old man having his neck broken by an engine. Those who control our railways should be compelled to live where they have to pass over levelcrossings every day. It would not be j long before they discovered it was ! not quite so “impossible” as they for- ; merly thought to do away with these death-traps. * * * j THE DULL DRIVER : Mr. Justice Frazer, sitting in the! ; Arbitration Court, expressed astonish- j | ment when an employer described an j : employee as “a dull boy, and suited j only for driving a car.” “Is it wise j to allow a dull boy to drive around the j busy streets?” queried his Honour, j The advantage of placing a slow boy j in a fast car, of course, would he that i Ihe would make life cease to be dull i for pedestrians. * * * i “ THE SEA HATH ITS CHARMS ” j Sea trips are provocative of romance. When the stomach recovers from its mal de mer, the heart often becomes affected. In the last trip of the Esperance Bay, which brought immigrants from England to Australia, three young English lassies forgot their Wows to the men already awaiting them in Australia and decided to marry men they met on the voyage. O, fatal” propinquity —especially on board ship! “This sort of thing happens on nearly every voyage of the Esperance Bay,” says a Sydney paper. “It will soon be called ‘the love ship.’ Something ought to be ! done about it.” It will be very re- | markable if something is not done | about it by the prospective husbands i at the Australian end who have been | thus jilted en voyage—especially if I they have advanced the passagemoney to their false fiancees. SIR ALFRED LANGLER Death removed a kindly soul in Sir Alfred Langler, late chief of the “West ! Australian,” whose will has just been \ proved for £40,000. The L.O.M. met j him in Melbourne, when Sir Alfred [ (then, plain “Mr.”) was an inmate of | a private hospital, having had the mis- \ fortune to break an ankle while on a j trip to the Victorian capital. He bore | his affliction with great cheerfulness, and from his bed defied idleness with a great deal of work. Starting his career as a reporter at Plymouth, England, young Langler went to Australia in 1890, to join the editorial staff of ( “The Register,” Adelaide. He became j a member of the literary staff of the Perth “West Australian” in 1895, later being appointed editor of that paper and eventually associated with the | i management. When Sir Winthrop Hackett, the principal proprietor, died, in 1916, Mr. Langler was made one of the executors of his will, and he became editor-in-chief and a director of the "West Australian” and the “Western Mail.” Later he became sole executor of the Hackett Estate and the chief directing brain of its newspapers. He was a considerate employer and greatly liked by his staff.

A MISSING LIFEBOAT Though fears have been expressed for the safety of Mr. and Mrs. Hercomb and Captain Bugg, the adventurous trio which left Calcutta for Australia in a 30-foot ship’s lifeboat on January 6, the chances are that the party is still afloat. A lifeboat cannot sink, even though it fills with water, and it will not “turn turtle.” The only danger to its occupants would he to be cast unawares on the rocks, so that, unless such a tragedy has happened, there is every likelihood of their turning up. Some exceedingly long voyages have been made in open boats that were not com{' able for safety with the ship’s lifeboats of to-day—witness the case of Captain Bligh, when cast adrift from the Bounty in the South Seas, with 18 loyal sailors, in 1788. Bligh navigated his frail craft for several thousands of miles, landing at Timor, near Java, after being seven weeks afloat. A more recent case is that of the crew of the Tvevossu, wrecked in the Indian Ocean, who sailed thousands of miles to Mauritius. Captain Voss voyaged around the world (alone most of the time) in the Tillikum—an old Indian canoe fashioned out of a log. There are many other such instances, so that the safety of a wellequipped lifeboat need not be despaired of.