FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 422, 2 August 1928, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” ■JA m ; FEELS AT HOME “New Zealand is very beautiful—it reminds us all of our own Japan,” said the polite Idzumo midshipman. Should he go down Taupo way when the earthquakes are moving, he Avould feel more at home than ever. ABERDEEN ISM One of the latest from Aberdeen: An Aberdonian Avho travelled to the Continent for the Voronoff treatment took a single ticket in the optimistic belief that he would be able to return on the half-rates for children. KIND TREATMENT “As I opened the door, she threw the sugar basin at me,” said a witness in an application for a separtaion order. What’s he Avorrying about? It was a sweet welcome. DRY FARMERS When the Auckland Agricultural and Pastoral Association entertained Sir John Russell at lunch yesterday ample provision was made for those who did not have prohibition scruples. However, the speeches started with tragic suddenness, and the result was that no one had courage to lead the bottle-broaching. When the guests arose not one bottle had been opened. Auckland farmers have a dry way with them. ■* * * "PIN OUT!” The Soviet has decided to organise national games in Russia. The Spartaklads, as they are to be called, will be held In Moscow. It is confidently predicted that all records will be broken in putting the bomb. A pleasing thought is that, in memory of a great man, one race is to be called the mile trotsky. SHARING THE BEAME We learn that the Czechs are partly responsible for New Zealand’s withdrawal from the Davis Cup contest in which our team stood an excellent chance of getting into the European semi-finals. Dominion tennis players Avill still feel that most of the checks came from the New Zealand Lawn Tennis Association, which refused to send cheques to assist the team in travelling to Prague. BISHOP GOLENSO How many of us know that we have just celebrated the anniversary of the birthday of John William Colenso, Bishop of Natal, who died in 1883? Yet 60 years ago he audited the Scriptures and started the most famous religious controversy in living memory. He went through the Pentateuch in the spirit of a chartered accountant and claimed to have discovered implications that: The average Hebrew family included 42 boys. Tbe mother of Moses must have been 256 years old when he was born. 603,350 warriors assembled in a court where there was only room for 5,000. At the second Passover the priests sr/;rificed 50,000 lambs at the rate of 400 a minute.

SEND FOR MR. REDMAN Scene: The same lamp-post as last time. Time: 6.5 p.m. Brown: D’yer know Robinson? Smith: Yes. Brown: Well, what’s his name? Smith (puzzling hard) : Tha’s queer. I’ve forgotten it. CHINESE WHILE YOU WAIT Writing of men gifted with the ability to assimilate innumerable foreign languages (apropos of Sir George Grierson, 0.M.), Mr. T. P. O’Connor recalls his acquaintance with Dr. Jeremiah Curtin, who was born in tbe city of Milwaukee, of poor Irish parents. “I believe at one time his mother made her living as a laundress,” writes “Tay Pay.” “He had the good luck to be related to Governor Curtin, of Pennsylvania, a great figure in American life of his day, whom I had the pleasure of knowing in his later years; and Governor Curtin took his young relative to St. Petersburg when he was appointed ambassador in tbat city. This gave the final incentive to the younger Curtin to become a linguist, and soon he knew Russian perfectly; from that he went off to Polish; and then to a score of other languages. ‘I suppose,’ I said to him, ‘you have had a run through the Chinese classics?’ The question but almost ironical in spirit; but I got the astounding reply that he had just had a dash through most of the Chinese classics. ‘Do you mean to say,’ I asked, ‘that you learned Chinese in a few months? All the men I know tell me that it takes seven years to know the rudiments of Chinese; at the end of 14 they" find how little they know; and after 21 years they have some smatterings of the language.’ ‘Oh, that is an entire mistake,’ said Curtin. ‘lf you will give me a quarter of an hour some day, I will teach you all the rudiments of the Chinese language.’ But I never got this quarter of an hour’s lesson.”