FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 440, 23 August 1928, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN." NO SENSE OF HUMOUR All audience composed largely of schoolboys attended the sessions in Parliament on Tuesday. The debate failed to interest them and they soon became restive. We must deplore the gravity of the rising generation. It is alarming to think that we may be evolving a race wholly deficient in a sense of humour. X X X Anxiety is being expressed in Australia about a referendum shortly to be taken. Oiie paper fears that some of those who go to the poll to record their votes for Prohibition or Continuance will become careless and will mark their papers simply XXX. This is significant. The tellers of votes, at all events, would not be troubled in deciding which side the voters favoured. CRUELTY Lady Cory took her toy dog to a meeting of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals held in London on Tuesday. The meeting was extremely rowdy, speeches being interrupted and the proceedings terminating in a general uproar. And the poor dog was forced to • stay all. the time —a case for the S.P.C.A. surely! 1 * * ... ' BRAVO “ MNEMOSYNE” The All Blacks are one down on the South African test matches, but it is pleasant to reflect that one New Zealand bulldog has held his Own on tour. The All Blacks bullie, “Mnemosyne,” recently won several prizes at the New South Wales championship show, and something should be done perhaps In the way of a civic reception when the “champ” returns home. His name might be changed temporarily, say, to Horace, in order to avoid Mayoral embarrassment. TELLING THE TALE “The stock excuse,” so called by Mr. W. R. McKean, S.M., is being so done to death by Auckland thieves that the city magistrates refuse to take any notice of it. “No, I didn’t steal it, sir. I bought it from a man in the street.” The honour of New Zealand’s criminal class demands the exercise of some originality and the evolution of a new tale that will attract magistrates. Judging by the number of times the old story has been told in the last two or three months, the streets of Auckland must be thronged with the undetected thieves who have palmed off their booty to “innocent” men.

A,-'.-.-A. USELESS A cup presented by Mr. W. S. Wilson for competition among boys’ and girls’ agricultural clubs has been won this year by Master H. Willis, of Matapu School, Taranaki, with a crop of mangels. The lad is to be presented with an engraved gold medal by the Agricultural Department and a photograph of the cup. What’s the use of that?- He should get the cup, having won it. It has been held by experts that it is well-nigh impossible to pawn the photograph o,f a cup. AN HEROIC RESCUE Early this week when a Hamilton shopkeeper was dressing the front of her women’s clothing shop, a wax model overbalanced and smashed the plate-glass window. The borough traffic inspector saw the model from a point some distance away, and thinking it was a woman who had fainted he ran to the rescue. In lifting up the model he cut his finger severely with a piece of glass. This reminds us of a perfectly true story of an air raid in London. Bombs were dropping in the shopping centres and the plate-glass windows of one of the great emporia were smashed to pieces. Many had been injured in the explosion, and were removed to hospital. A belated ambulance-wagon came tearing round the corner. Two Australian soldiers, possessing the irrepressible sense of humour that belonged generally, to the A.1.E., dashed into the open windows and tenderly carried out a spread-eagled wax figure. The ambulance men sympathetically watched the model placed within their vehicle and started off again for headquarters. What the doctors on duty said to them when they arrived with their Tussaud patient can be imagined without a resultant brain-storm.