FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 376, 9 June 1928, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By "THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” OUT OF ORDER “8.K.” has a grievance: "Finding the penny-in-the-slot telephone box in my district out of order, I had a brainwave, and set off for the post and telegraph office a hundred yards further down the street. However, they could not raise the number I wanted, and I prepared to depart. Imagine my astonishment when X was met with a demand for 4d, which the assistant said was the regulation fee. In the end I had to pay. Now, even if I had got the number I wanted, do you think it a fair thing that I should have had to pay four times the slot phone fee when said slot phone was out of order?” * * * THE FLAPPER “Flapper,” according to Mrs. Stanley Baldwin, wife of the Prime Minister of England, is a “silly word.” It is certainly a vei'y old one, although it has been given an entirely new meaning in recent years. Dean Swift, the great ISth century satirist, uses it in “Gulliver’s Travels” to describe a functionary among the Laputans, whose duty was to flap around to remind him of something forgotten. The L.O.M. wishes he had a “flapper” (in the Laputan sense) to remind him when he leaves umbrellas and parcels In the trams, not to mention the other hun dred and one sins of omission to which man is heir. " BUCKLEY’S CHANCE ” The elusive escapee from the Mt. Eden gaol who has been leading the police a merry chase is not the only Buckley who has escaped from durance vile. In the eai’ly days of the convict settlement of Port Philip, in New South Wales, a gigantic convict named Buckley eluded his guards, took to the bush, and was neyer recaptured. At least, not in the strict sense of the word. Many years after, a party of explorers came across a tribe of blacks in the among whom was a shaggy giant, whose bronzed skin could not disguise the fact that he was a white man. With the passing of the years, he had completely forgotten his mother tongue, and could not speak a word of English. Buckley went back to civilisation, was given a free pardon, and became a successful settler in the new colony. APPLES FOR ROYALTY Sir James Parr will shortly be left with a pretty problem on his hands when the 1,000,000 th case of New Zealand apples is delivered at the High Commissioner’s Office in London. For it is Sir James’s delicate duty to decide whether the apples shall be presented to the Duchess of York or the Prince of Wales. There is no Princess of Wales yet, so that it looks as If the “Little Duchess” has first claim on this novel addition to the Royal dessert. Certainly, It will come through more formal channels than did the small basket of fruit which an enthusiastic Maoriland fruitgrower threw Into the Royal car in one of the outback districts during the Duke and Duchess of York’s tour last year, to the consternation of the Scotland Yard men, who had visions of some infernal machine being hurled at the Royal party. * * * WHEN THE ICE BREAKS The public sweepstakes on the breaking of the ice on the Yukon this year were bigger than ever. The sweep at Fairbanks, Alaska, was worth £IO,OOO, and was shared by a woman and two men, who guessed the exact time of the ice moving. The Yukon sweep at Dawson was worth £1,400. There is much excitement when Spring draws near. All along the Yukon the people bet when the great ice-break will occur, and Immense sums In the aggregate are won and lost at the whim of Jack Frost. At Dawson they cut a hole in the ice In the middle of the Yukon and erect a pole four inches thick and twenty feet high. This freezes solid. They then fasten one end of a wire cable to the top of the pole and the other end to an electric stop clock on the shore, set to standard time. The moment the ice moves the pole, the clock stops, and that moment marks the record of the beginning of the ice-break and decides all bets. As soon as the clock stops a steam whistle is blown, and everyone knows the hour and minute of the running. In the pool, each number represents a minute of the hour, and the investor who gets ihe minute shown by the stop clock as the flood reaches Daw * n is given the purse. One year the engineer of a river steamboat invested one dollar, and guessed the day, hour and minute. He “scooped” the lot. All work is suspended and the people gather on the river banks as the ice shows signs of breaking. When the whistle blows the city “goes mad.” The same betting goes on at Fairbanks, which now has by far the larger pool. The time there is the exact minute the ice tears away the bridge across the Chena River, in the heart of the dam —which it does every year, breaking the posts as if they were matches. HOT SPRINGS AMID ICE Reference to Alaska invites comparison with New Zealand. That icehound land has its Rotoruas! There are hot springs in Alaska—boiling water bubbling out of the beds of glaciers! Scalding baths in hot water from Mother Earth’s own tank, almost in the shadow of the North Pole! They are to be found from the islands cf the Panhandle to the very edge of the Arctic. In these thermal regions are many wonders. In one district, with snow and ice all around, there is a farm which has a chicken and pig shed about 400 ft in length. When business was booming its owner kept there 650 hens, 50 ducks and 70 pigs, as well as horses and cows. The sheds were built into a hill whence came a hot spring, and the ground was so hot that it kept stock in comfosj throughout the igintea. ~~