FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 428, 9 August 1928, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

"THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

HARDLY NECESSARY Cinemas used in British schools must use only non-inflammable films. A splendid idea, but surely modern love scenes are not part of the stereotyped educational film. A GLIMPSE OF THE OBVIOUS “Gentlemen,” says a notice on the new ferry wharf at Devonport, "will not crush on the gangway.” That is true. If they did, they wouldn’t be, would they? SELF-IMPORTANCE While the number of deaths from influenza in Britain in the first 20 weeks of this year shows a great decrease on last year, the mortality due to measles is much higher. That explains why the measle we saw last week looked so smug and self-satis-fied. TRADITIONAL TEMPER In a recent separation order case the wife complained that her husband, who was an ex-sergeant-major, frightened her with fits of bad temper, which leads us to the interesting question debated at the war with much picturesque imagery and fluency: "Should sergeant-majors marry?”

FRANCE AND TELEPHONES It Is stimulating to national pride to know that New Zealand has more automatic telephone exchanges than France. But let us not be too contemptuous of little France. She may have fewer automatic telephone exchanges; but it should be remembered that in spite of falling birth-rate, she still has a lead in population. She has Debussy, and a platoon of minor musicians to soothe her troubled spirits in this terrible hour. Anyway, automatic telephones sometimes go wrong. SPAIN IN N.Z. A presumably ardent Don Juan was fined the other day for twanging a later-than-midnight. serenade on a stringed instrument. New Zealand is becoming more Spanish every day. Onions have gone up in price and only yesterday the L.O.M. read of an Invercargill man who was worsted in a fight with a bull. Also as he sits in the Watch Tower in the early morning the rattle of castanets is positively affrighting. The unimaginative would say it was teeth chattering in the cold, but the L.O.M. prefers to think of it as a subconscious manifestation of the spirit of old Madrid. WIRELESS (?)

It requires 100,000,000 miles ,of wire to run the world’s telephones. Of this wire mileage some 68,000,000 are found in North America. Germany with 10,000,000 has the second greatest mileage, and Great Britain comes third with 7,000,000; Canada with 3,500,000 is fourth. The L.O.M. classes himself as fifth with 3,499,999 miles of wire he pulled out of his radio set last evening.

THAT SUNSHINE APPEAL Waterloo may have been won on the playing fields of Eton, as Wellington said, but mercifully these supreme tests of healthiness are rare. There are battles, however, to be fought every day, if the L.O.M. may be platitudinous for a moment, and none of these is more important than the combat waged on behalf of children against health-sapping environment. There are many frail children in the community who need attention if they are ever to grow to robust maturity, and no organisation in Auckland realises this more than the Play and Recreation Association. Much has been done, but there is much more to do. There are children who need sunshine, and it is almost criminal to demand that they be cooped up in the ordinary schools among more robust companions. They need a Sunshine School, and they will have one in Nelson Street if the public gives adequate support to the appeal which is to be made to-morrow by the Play and Recreation Association. A sum of £2,000 is needed to make the old Nelson Street School suitable for occupation, and every Aucklander who passes in a contribution, however small, will have that glowing feeling of righteousness that comes to all doers of truly good deeds.