FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 480, 9 October 1928, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By "THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” BRAVE FELLOW Replying to a r.iissioner’s sermon on the potency of claret cup, a correspondent says that he has been to dances and drunk claret cup. We admire a man who can make a confession like that. MANNERS AND MODES Mauve and blue-grey are to be the fashionable shades In men’s wear this summer. The L.O.M. had been treasuring some suits slightly tinged with green in the hope that they might be the dernier cri this season. Light green with straps of fresh-coloured cloth under the lapels will have to be fashionable for him in any case. BEFORE, OR AFTER? It has been suggested lately that motorists applying for licences as drivers should pass a medical examination as one of their tests. There is no other way of discovering whether an applicant is subject to epileptic fits for example. We suppose that it really is better to have a medical examination before getting the licence instead of afterward, as at present. * * » THE THIRSTY HOUR Telephone operators in New York make a charge for telling the time and keep a record of inquiries, which are included in the subscribers’ accounts. It has been found that most people want to know the time between five and six in the evening. f? these figures were compiled in New Zealand, we could understand it, but why should it be so in New York? SPEED People who complain that a really high-speed American tourist will “do” Paris in a week-end and London in a Saturday afternoon should be interested to learn that hustle, like charity, can begin at home. One American tourist has just “done” the whole of his homeland in under eighteen hours, having flown from Los Angeles to New York in 17 hours 58 minutes. It sounds as though the world’s record for a bit of a spot like the British Isles will shortly be a matter of seconds. THE DIM IT In the letters of Guiseppe Verdi, the composer, which have been published in Italy, there is one replying to a young man who demanded repayment of the expense he incurred in going to see “Aida” when it was produced in 1872. He abused the opera roundly, prophesying that it would “rot away in the library,” and asked for a sum covering his train fare, his seat, and his supper! And Verdi actually paid it, exacting a promise, however, that the young man would never attend another opera of his. FOOTBADE STAMPS

With such Rugby keenness in South Africa and New Zealand, one would not be surprised if an issue of stamps were made with the thoughtful profile of a scrum half as its main feature. But Uruguay, with a South American flourish, has been first in the field. The little republic was so delighted with its football victory at the 1924 Olympic Games, that three “Victory” stamps were issued. Uruguay has just beaten the Argentine in the Holland Olympiad. A stamp again forms the sequel, and, like most sequels, it is a sorry affair, with its rustic goal-posts, a poised football on the crossbar, on which is perched a wild fowl, that, happily, “never was on sea or land.”

-rr yj~ rlt r/~ rr r '~ ~' r ROMANCE AND FINANCE Alfred Loewenstein’s career may point a moral after having adorned a tale; but how very rarely does it happen that a great financial magnate lives and looks the part. Possibly Sir David Yule controlled unostentatiously interests much greater than those of Loewenstein, yet how unsatisfying his career was to a public which longs for magnates whose apparatus is that of the Count of Monte Cristo. Smalley once said of Ogden Mills that he was much more like an Oxford professor than a financier, though he had been to no university and had lived through rough times. Harriman’s extraordinary qualities were hidden beneath a personality al most insignificant in appearance save for the ample head and burning eyes. There is very little of the magnifico about Henry Ford, and none at all about the Rockefellers. Morgan was the strong, rugged man, but if it were not for an occasional Rhodes or Loewenstein, where would the world find its beloved “romance”! in the realms of finance?