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Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 529, 5 December 1928, Page 10

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By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

POLITICAL TEXXIS “The Prime Minister and the Hon. K. S. Williams played tennis before the opening of the current session.” — Parliamentary news item. Your serve! Good hall. "Who cares if cruel fate Returns me"to the level of the herd* I’d rather play a match with such a mate • .4s old K.S. — he’s very easy meat— Thau worry just because I’ve had the bird. That's, four to love. I lead. Koio come on, Ken , It’s evident your mind's not on the game. Another double. That makes nine or ten. Ha-ha! A noble drive, adroitly placed; It cannot help you greatly, all the same. That’s set, and time is getting on; so come , . JT 7 . To politics and parties give a thought The whips are beating on the party drum. Thanks for the game—but hoic I wish A chance d to whack Sir Joseph out of court! UMP TEEK-LOVE. * * ♦ getting in early Mr. H. M. Rushworth did not waste much time in “breaking his duck in the House. Possibly he was anxious to seize the opportunity, lest his twovote margin be impaired before N lie had another chance. The type of highly-educated Englishman which Mr. Rushworth represents was once common in the New Zealand Legislature: hut it has been rare in recent years, a new generation of politicians having arisen. Noted earlier examples of brilliant English University men were Alfred Domett and William Fox. Sir William Herries, -who held the Bay of Plenty seat for over twenty years, was another Englishman of culture. Of late yea.rs an Oxford or Cambridge accent in the House has been a rarity. * * * DEPRESSION Mr. Stanlej B. Turner, a visitor, of London, says the Lancashire textile industry is undergoing a period of depression, the chief reason being women’s fashions. “Women are wearing so little these days,” he said. . - In Africa a skirt of beads Is ail the modest dcmsel needs. And now our latest modes acclaim That ladies here must wear the same. AVhen that happens, the stagnation in Lancashire will be complete. THESE EXCUSES When a ship’s steward, charged at the court yesterday with the theft of a hurricane lamp, was accosted by a policeman, he disclaimed all knowledge of the article in his possession. He was in his cups at the time, and escaped with a 10s fine. But his plea carries the ring of an old army tale, about the man who was seen leaving a Q.M. store behind the lines with a bag of flour on his shoulder. “What are you doing with that flour?” he was asked, and promptly replied, in surprised accents: “Now, starve the crows, who put that there?” Delinquents caught red-handqd must rely on a ready tongue. A swagger camped beside a big New Zealand run was bending over a freshly-slain sheep when the indignant squatter accosted him. “Well, it went for me. I had to kill it,” was his aggrieved explanation.

SKINNED !

By yesterday's English mail came an unusually fat copy of that great political newspaper, “The Spectator/’ The paper Is celebrating its centenary, and this accounts for the bulk of the number. Its first editor, Rintoul, was a friend of Lord Pajimure, after whom the Auckland suburban settlement of Panmure was named. By allowing him to write in the columns of his paper, Rintoul helped to break tho social ostracism of Edward Gibbon Wakefield, whose abduction of a 16-year-old heiress had been followed by a spell In Newgate. Through “The Spectator,” Wakefield ardently advocated colonial reform, and was instrumental in having New Zealand added to the possessions of the Crown as a self-governing country. Rintoul's association with his polemics is commemorated by a street in Wellington, but the rather dingy thoroughfare is now better known because it leads to Athletic Park. Much later, as editor of "The Spectator,” came the great St. Loe Strachey. Brilliant though he was. Strachey had none of the eccentricities often associated with genius. In deportment and speech, as in literary style, he was impeccable. Consequently he never forgot a visit to New York, when a bunch of Interviewers badgered bim as the steamer lay in quarantine off Manhattan. Reminding them that “dog didn’t eat dog," Strachey secured immunity from interviews. But during the evening he admired the New York sunset, and said it even surpassed, the sunsets seen from Venice. It was* too much for one scribe, and next day his paper ran a streamer heading in letters two inches deep: “Editor Strachey Says New York -Skins Venice.”