FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 558, 10 January 1929, Page 6

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

THE APPEAL From a news item; Competition among the deep sea fishing resorts is keen. Mr. Zane Grey has caught seven mako and three swordfish off Whitianga, and declares that he likes Whitianga better than Russell. You put us in “The Angler’s Eldorado” Pictured our glories with the printed word. And now , because you’ve landed seven Off Wliitianga, Russell gets the bird. Won’t you come bach to Orapukapuka? To Kororareka be firmly true ? Surely that which you called so fine a looker —► This jjeerless spot—still cuts some ice with you. Don’t let the blandishments of Whitianga Or hauls of minnows that insult the scale Your Faith corrupt. Come, most accomplished angler; Come, Mr. Grey, and don’t forget your “kale.” The swordfish in the south are undernourished; We’ll promise you a far superior line. And—if you spurn this offer we have flourished — Fisherman’s Luck, O fickle Zane, be thine ! HONE HEKE. BLACK WEDNESDAY January 9 will go clown as a black day In the annals of an Auckland cordial firm. In the morning one of its trucks was hit by a train at the Argyle Street crossing, Mount Albert, and later in the day another of its trucks went over a bank near Otorohanga. There must be something in this telepathy business, after all. LONG AGO He was fishing for “spotties” under the Central Wharf. “The place is not what it was,” he said. “Why, when I was a snooker, I used to wag it from school to come down on to the old Queen Street Wharf, and I’d land ten or a dozen schnapper in an hour. Then I’d take them up to the boardin’ houses, and sell them. Why, those days you’d see shoals of fish a foot thick and a hundred yards loiig, at every full tide. And to-day what happens? I sat here all day yesterday for a gurnet and a trevalli. It’s those blasted trawlers, that’s what it is.” Then he got a bite, and was to busy playing a six-inch “spotty” to devote further time to conversation. VIKINGS OF TO-DAY ■ The successful termination of the yacht Victory’s cruise to Norfolk Island recalls some other noted longdistance'voyages, in small craft. One tragic Auckland venture was that of the small vessel Pandora. Neither boat nor crew was ever heard of again. Closely associated with the Waitemata were Conor O’Brien, the bearded Irishman who took the Free State flag round the world in the Saoirse, and G. H. P. Mulhauser, who also called here in his smart craft, the Amaryllis. Both these navigators had trouble with their crews. Mulhauser found Auckland the perfect haven, and wanted to sell his boat and stay here. He failed to find a buyer, and after a long stay went on to complete the circuit of the globe. Not long afterwards he died in most tragic fashion, and his account of the cruise was finished by other hands. O’Brien also wrote a book. Quite recently he was married. There will be no more world cruises for him.

WAR ON ALSATIANS Give a dog a bad name, and anything may happen. The Alsatian has hitherto been reckoned an exclusive pet. If Sir Thomas Mackenzie has his way, it will be excluded altogether, thus carrying the proud boast of Alsatian owners to its logical conclusion. Sir Thomas, whose dislike of the Alsatian is hearty enough to suggest that he must have been bitten by one while abroad, denounces the Alsatian as a direct descendant of the wolf. There is no suggestion which kindles fiercer resentment in the breast of the Alsatian-lover, who points to the fact that the handsome beasts hre simply a German type of sheepdog. One remarkable thing about them-—whatever the rights or wrongs of their alleged capacity for mischief —is that they are used in Germany as guides for blind soldiers. After training, they carry out this task” with wonderful intelligence, negotiating their charges over crossings, flights of steps, and other obstructions. In New Zealand the wave of Alsatian popularity has hardly begun, hut some tall prices have been given. Over £IOO was paid for an Alsatianj pup by a resident of Napier. Some ' sort of compensation w mid he de- j manded by these people if -Sir| Thomas MacKenzie’s anti-Alsatian Bill went through.