FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 616, 19 March 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

RAKE'S PROGRESS Anyone who drives a car while intoxicated is deemed to be on scratch for the first event. —Mr. F. H. Levien, S.M., at the Court yesterday. The nervous tippler toes the line: His first important match, He runs with speed and judgvnenf fine, And wins hands dozen—from scratch. The gears roll by. The ancient chap Is old, and nearly “ blind”; But far from spent. His handicap Is Half-a-mile Behind! — BUNG-O.

AMENDMENT In view of the interest in test cricket, it is suggested that before the 1930 series comes round the muchdiscussed injunction on the platforms of Auckland tramcars be amended to read: “Don’t talk to the Motorman. But for Heaven’s sake, tell him the cricket score.” GRACEFUL LOSERS Stormy scenes followed a football match at Shanghai when a Chinese Soccer team was beaten by a British regimental team, the crowd making an assault on the referee and on the winners. It is a whimsical reflection that after a game designed in the first place to promote racial concord, the soldiery from which the winning team was drawn should be called out to quell the riots. Still, these things happen in China, and happenings at Shanghai show up the Melbourne cricket barrackers as tame and orderly by comparison. Perhaps it is just as well that Chinese supporters were in a minority when the Chinese Soccer team toured New Zealand a few years back. Bven now there are people who swear that reprisals were conducted by their laundrymen. * * * THE SEVEN SEAS A query that tells its own story:—Dear Look-out Man: Can any of your readers give me the exact classification of the poetic phrase, “The Seven Seas,” which decorates The Sun’s informative shipping page—the best display of maritime news in the Dominion. In a fierce waterfront argument on the question the other day I quoted this list from a British writer: North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific. South Pacific, Arctic Ocean, Indian Ocean, Antarctic Ocean —and was howled down by New Zaland knowalls. But can anyone give a better classification, or quote the original authority for the alluring term, “The Seven Seas?”—Yours, Old Shell-Back.

FLYING SQUADS. For all the horror seemingly inspired in the breast of the cable-man by the activities of “flying squads” of bogus voters at Irish elections, this is not the first occasion in history when a name on the register—whether Irish or otherwise —meant a vote at the ballotbox, and the tombs in the graveyards have been ransacked to fill up the lists, Tf the sheeted dead did not gibber in the streets, they at least helped to put down the hydra-head of faction by plumping for a free and United Ireland. If the election is conducted in the proper spirit, each side is aware the other practises this pleasant stratagem, and neither seriously objects. Suppose the spirit of the contest is proper to the occasion, then mild deception can be regarded in the temper of the American gambler’s remark to a fussy interloper who pointed out that his opponent was taking cards from the bottom of the pack. “What of it,” said the American. “Isn’t it his deal?”

TIIE IRREPRESSIBLE BOY The irrepressible small boy has been figuring a lot in the news lately, first through the actions, verging on serious crime, of a youth who put detonators on the railway line near Pahiatua, and next through the derailment of a train by bolts placed on the Main Trunk line near Malaroa. Kvery grown man will recall the thrill he got through watching a tram or railway train run over a penny, and the youthful conception of a locomotive's invincible power probably has a lot to do with the tests submitted by the embryo trainwreckers in the cases noted. People who condemn crossing signals and wigwags that go wrong often do so unjustly, as more often than not it is the inevitable boy who has set the bells ringing by placing a wire rod across both lines of rail, thus establishing a circuit. After that the trouble begins, for whereas an engine travelling over the line breaks the circuit on the other side of the crossing, the small boy invariably omits to make his iron rod perform the same function. Of minor jests one recalls that played on an Auckland lawyer who loved to entertain. His dog was peculiarly sensitive to the notes of a bugle, and one day when a great visiting songstress was ! a. guest, the notes of a bugle rang out clearly from behind the hedge at the i back, and the dog did not stop howling until nightfall. _ , r ....