FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 429, 10 August 1928, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” AND THE FROTH The American gallon contains 231 cubic inches; The British Imperial gallon is 277.41 S cubic inches. The Nerv Zealand pint, as most frothblowers can tell you, is frequently half a pint. AMUSEMENT TAX An Indian conjuror who usually gives performances to amuse school children entertained a boardinghouse the other evening. It was a “double” turn and part of the act was a bottle of whisky. Two Justices of the Peace who heard reports of the “show” decided that it was worth £.2 amusement tax. SOCKS SOCKED Reported that a boxer in Melbourne fights under the name of Kid Socks. A sporting paper facetiously told of the socks that Socks received when he was defeated recently. The L.O.M. has been wondering if this Kid Socks is in the true line of descent from the famous Kid Boots. IN HIDING An English peer with a taste for astrology has predicted the date of the end of the world as being only a few days off. When his London house was visited by a reporter from a big metropolitan daily it was discovered that the peer was not staying there, and no details were available. “We really don’t know where his lordship is,” say members of the household. That is a pity. It would be interesting to discover the spot chosen by him in which to meet his end. RECIPROCITY In the words of the stage landlady, golfers are “not to be put upon.” It will be remembered that at One Tree Hill recently a predatory seagull enjoyed, as an hors d’oeuvre, a nice clean golf ball. Acting on the good old eye-for-an-eye principle, a woman player in Christchurch has taken reprisals by killing a thrush with a screaming drive into the rough. We are left to guess whether the bird died of laughing or whether it was struck by the ball. SOMETHING LACKINGLondon, in Ontario, Canada, has its own River Thames, Covent Garden market, its Blackfriars, Vanxhall and Westminster Bridges, Oxford Street, Regent Street, Pall Mall, and Cheapside. Still it cannot offer the spectacle that Empire tourists travel from all parts of the world to see: Stanley, Ramsay and David strolling arm in arm over Westminster Bridge after a heavy day at the House. DREAD THOUGHT If the whole of the sky at night were completely studded with full moons, the, illumination on the earth would be half that produced by ordinary sunlight. That being the case, it is hardly worth while doing it. Not only that, we must bear in mind this elementary proportional problem: If one moon inspires 5,000,000 poets, how many poets will be moved to doggerel under the influence of a skyful of moons?

PRINCESS PAT Lady Patricia Ramsay, daughter of the Duke of Connaught, and formerly the much-loved “Princess Pat,” has for a long time cherished a secret which was known to a few of her friends only. She has been developing talent as an artist. Now she must feel confident of her abilities, for she recently held a public exhibition of her pictures in London. She has been in Bermuda and Ceylon, and brought back with her from the West Indies some remarkable studies of fish under water. ORKNEYS IN PLEDGE

The contemplated visit to the Orkney Islands by the King’s third son has drawn attention to this northern territory, and historians have unearthed the fact that they are not really part of the British Empire. Originally they were not Scottish, but Norwegian, with a population essentially Scandinavian in origin and sentiment, but Scotland took them in 1468 in pawn for the payment by the King of Denmark of his daughter Margaret’s dowry to James 111. The money was never paid, so Scotland kept the islands, but as late as 1668 plenipotentiaries assembled at Breda to discuss tbe matter, and decided not only that the right of redemption had not lapsed, but that it could not legally be taken away. The original sum, plus interest for four and a-half centuries, might well be more than any country would care to pay for the islands, but only a few years since so great a legal authority as Lord Salvesen expressed an opinion that they remained merely an unredeemed pledge with Uncle Britain.