FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 619, 22 March 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN."

THE PADRE The Rev. Jasper Calder, City Missioner, won the 50 yards “Old” Old Boys’ race at the King’s College sports yesterday. Most gifted padre, well we knew You ivere a incut of many talents, 'Whose chivalry might well subdue The dimmer light of lesser gallants, And who, with word and handsome deed To every man’s a friend in need With rocky pulpit as your perch On Rangitoto’s stony margin You roped the yachtshmen in for church A triumph that needs no enlargin'. Yachtsman and minstrel, horseman too, A versatile Christian, you. Most gratitude of all you earn As friend to hungry men in winter, And hoio with mild surprise we learn You’re also an accomplished sprinter. It’s true, the race was rather short. Still, Jasper, you’re a dead-game sport. — McSHOVEL. THE GENTLER WAY One of those curious things that turn the heads of cable sub-editors prematurely grey, and make them lined old men instead of the smoothfaced, beaming gentlemen they might normally be, happened yesterday in connection with the report of 17, och’s death. It happened that the actual announcement of the great soldier’s end came via Eastern, while subsequent comment came via the “drop copy” Pacific route, and reached the newspaper offices first. Cable subeditors thus found themselves in possession of momentous tidings before official intimation had been given. They did not, however, fall into the error committed by a Hawke’s Bay paper when King Edward died. This sheet came out on the day of mourning with the only reference to the national loss in its sportiug columns, where there was a small paragraph to say the Ascot races had been postponed on account of the King’s death. THE SEVEN SEAS From “Sou’ Spainer”: The interesting controversy taking place in the columns of The Sun regarding the meaning of the term “The Seven Seas,” has caused more than passing interest. Allow me to venture an opinion. Everyone who takes an interest in nautical matters will know that the expression dates back to the dawn of history. It was used by Marco Polo (see page 116, chapter 3, Munich edition) and as that great traveller made his journeyings about the year 1300 the term could only include the then known seas. At the end of Chapter 4 we get Marco Polo’s definition of the Seven Seas: “Aegean, Tyrrhenian, Adriatic, Marmora, Inland (now known as the Mediterranean), The Sea of Egypt (now known as the Red Sea) and the Sea of Oil (now known as the Black Sea). If lurcher proof is wanted that the definition of Marco Polo is correct, one has only to read the Life and Voyages of Vasco de Gama. The definition of be Seven Seas is given on page 56 (Oxford edition, 1858), and is exactly as stated above, only that the names are as we now know them. Again we find the definition giv.en in Pepy’s Diary (page 97), Cassel’s edition, and it cmly includes the above. Your correspondent “Shellback” is obviously wrong in including the North and South Pacific Oceans, because these oceans were not discovered until several hundreds of years after the term was in use. There is another expression oftimes used by nautical writers, “The Five Oceans.” This is meant to include the North and South Atlantics, the North and South Pacifies, and the Indian Oceans. For a sailorman to describe any of the above seas as “oceans,” or any of the oceans as “seas,” would be as ridiculous as the deckhand of a steamer trying to tell an old Sou’ Spainer how he furled the Cutty Sark’s skysail in a gale of wind off the Horn.

“SHEER” Expressing dissatisfaction with some of the by-roads in Devonport borough, motorists complain of a “sheer drop of six or seven inches.” Interview with a motorist who survived some of the dangers; “The perils of the road were frightful. As I gazed into some of the potholes, great depressions of two inches or even more in depth, I was overcome with dizziness. Further on I encountered cracks in the road, yawning chasms half an inch wide, and at least a yard in length. After passing more ‘sheer drops’ of anything up to six inches —the recollection of which still makes me shudder —I negotiated terrific boulders at least two inches in diameter. At last I reached the comparative smoothness of the concrete, though there was still a long descent of at least ten feet on to the vehicular ferrry boat, followed by the perilous harbour crossing, in which the craft encountered mountainous waves nearly a foot high.”