FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 360, 22 May 1928, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

THE PACIFIST A Christchurch father, seeking exemption from military service for his son, told the Magistrate that if he saw his wife and children about to be murdered, he would not assail the murderer —as much as he loved them, he would rather see them go than face God as a murderer. “Greater love hath no man !” We have known rats to fight for their young; a hen defending her chickens is a heroine, compared with some pacifists. BERT’S JOKE

Bert Hinkler detests “shop talk,” says the Sydney “Sun.” Once, at the Aero Club, after listening to a lot of it, he slipped into the conversation by remarking: “I’ve Just been examining a wonderful piece of mechanism for renovating certain delicate steel tools, used by engineers in airplane factories. Marvellous, the way it works.” “And how does it work?” demanded one of the party. “Well,” said Hinkler, “by means of a pedal attachment, a lever converts a vertical reciprocating motion into circular movement. The principal part of the machine is a stone disc that rotates in a vertical plane. Power is applied through the axis of the disc, work is done on the periphery, and the hardest steel may be reduced by mere impact to any shape.” “By George!” gasped the questioner in amazement. “And what do you call the tiling?” “A grindstone,” grinned Bert, as he made for the door. A FORD PORTRAIT “Mr. Ford’s figure as 1 see it in the newspapers remains pretty much the same as it was ten years ago,” says Mr. T. P. O’Connor, who visited Ford at his works in Detroit a decade ago. “He is just above the middle height. The thing that most strikes you about his figure is its extraordinary slimness and alertness, and about the face —though there is a trace of his Irish ancestry—the main suggestion is that it is a true and almost universal American type—keen, tranquil, good-humoured and above all quite simple. The eyes are bright and kindly; the mouth, though firm, not severe. In short, Mr. Ford looks like the typical business man—very eager, almost, as it were, intentionally commonplace, quite unpretentious. His conversation was on the same lilies. His sentences came out as casually as in a conversation about the most insignificant things. There was almost a startling contrast between the greatness of the man and his work and the gigantic and noisy building around him—a scene that suggested nothing of any similarity between his mighty genius and his mighty works.” WHEN QUERY DIES Apropos of the determination expressed in the new school syllabus to ease down on grammatical rules, this excerpt from an article in “T.P.’s” on classical education by the Rt. Hon. Sir Rennell Rodd, is of interest: “Ail of us who have had children of our own are aware how, at a certain age, a thirst for instruction manifests itself. Questions are asked incessantly, revealing that the desire to know is instinctive. Children want to learn about the world in which they live and the people that inhabit it, the constitution of the earth and the forces of nature. If the questions which present themselves to their inquiring minds or which they actually formulate are riot answered, and if instead at the commencement of the educational period they are to be in the main intellectually disciplined by being compelled to assimilate grammatical rules of a dead language which means nothing to them and hinges on to nothing in their previous experience, the probability is that the majority will become recalcitrant to all instruction and that the unsatisfied instinct for investigation will die of inanition.” * * * TONTINE INSURANCE Interest attaches to the Christchurch case in which tontine insurance was under discussion, from the fact that the system of insurance is now illegal in this country, for reasons which are obvious. Tontine insurance owes its name to its originator, an Italian named Lorenzo Tonti. The main idea is that a number of persons contribute to a fund with which property is bought; the income is portioned between them, but as each one dies, his share is divided between the others, until the whole is enjoyed by the last survivor. In 1869 a loan was raised in France by a tontine. A number of persons paid 300 livres each, and the survivor of them received ultimately an income of 73,500 livres. After this there were a number of private tontines in France. In Great Britain, toward the end of the 19th century, the Government raised money by means of tOTitines, and the idea also found favour in the United States. A sensational novel had the tontine for its theme—with the villain murdering his fellow-holders of the policy until he came to the last survivor except himself. Then came the tug-of-war! Its Incentive to criminal practices, and the fact that it is really a gamble on life, probably influenced the abolition of the tontine in New Zealand. In the Christchurch case referred to, 200 people originally subscribed to the insurance scheme, which was promoted 20 years ago. None of these was murdered, the survivors preferring to go to the Court to settle legally the details of what has become an illegal scheme,