FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 556, 8 January 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

THE CHAMPION

All apple-eating competition was held at the Chinese picnic last Sunday. The winner was Chan Gue Gun.

O weep for all the Jonathans And firm-fleshed Stunners, too. That note are only pips and cores Through the victory of Gue.

Those pretty fruits that now arc gone Can never learn the joys Of staring from shop windows At the greedy mouths of boys.

O weep, alack! their glmry gone — They had so little fun: The masticated apples That «u|fc the name of Gun.

But, ah! thfre is one happy thought—--3 Tis said the doctors ran, When home upon the victor’s chair They brought the smiling Chan.

—TAMERLANE. OUT FOR TWO The Maungakiekie cricket team scored two in a third grade match at Otahuhu on Saturday, this total having been determined after an examination of the original tally of three. It should certainly have been easy enough, under the circumstances, to keep check on the score. It is a happening that should make Australia take heart of grace. However, even Maungakiekie need not take its failure too much to heart. There are over 60 instances (says Wisden) of sides being dismissed for no runs at all. In 1877 the Auckland Domain was the scene of a collapse almost as bad, when Canterbury dismissed the local side for 13 runs. Earlier still, in 1863, Auckland dismissed Wellington for 22, and then scored the same small total itself.

AT CRIPPLE CREEK

The romantic rise of the late Tex Rickard was inseparably associated with the success of Dempsey. Whatever Rickard’s success had been before the Dempsey era, they paled before his triumphs in matching Dempsey with such celebrities as Carpentier and Firpo. Which recalls that when the second American fleet visited Auckland a few years ago, one of the battleships brought with it a lean and athleticlooking lieutenant named Tom Hill. Hill was the son of a mine-owner at Cripple Creek, Colorado, and he saw Dempsey fight his first fight, with an ore-sorter from a neighbouring mine. Dempsey was then an ore-sorter himself, and on the pay-roll of Hill’s father.

NEWS IN PICTURES

Rivalry among three great pictorial weeklies is recalled by the death of Mr. G. Holt-Thomas, a founder of

“The Bystander.” His father, having been associated with the “Illustrated London News” when that fine production had the field to itself, broke away and published “The Graphic,” of which “The Bystander” was an offThe “News” had already developed a theatrical and social auxiliary in “The Sketch.” Meanwhile, “The Sphere” had been formed, and from this “The Tatler,” a society journal on the lines of “The Sketch” and

“The Bystander” duly followed. The three periodicals and their “pups” have in their day accomplished some fine feats. The “News” has had some of the ablest artists in England on its staff. Before the day of the camera, topical events had to be depicted by these men. Some of the finest pictorial records of the Maori wars are preserved in the files of the London illustrated press.