FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 622, 26 March 1929, Page 10

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

ALAS. POOR SNICK Gloom has been cast over the Wanganui Fire Brigade by the death of Snick, the brigade’s mascot, who was wont to run before the engine and bark, thus warning the public. Recently he lagged, and was run over. You’ve heard about a doo called Tray And other noble hounds, Blit here's a more pathetic lay. The tale of Snick , who loved to play, And led the engine, on its way, Emitting warning sounds. The townsmen all admired the trick, The mascot diel his stuff. By barking loud end running quick Before the car. Alas, poor Snick! A heavy meal impaired his "nick." He wasn’t quick enough. McShovex.. THE GRAPPLER Even Portland, Ore., a city of that Pacific coast which gave the world brutal sea captains (so they say) and lumbermen with hearts and heads and muscles as hard as flint, thinks Pat McCarthy an exhilarating wrestler. So Auckland and Portland, Ore., are one, and if McCarthy and Kilonis got to kicking and biting one another there, even Portland, Ore., might he thrilled, and letters and leaderettes might appear in the papers. But “Pat” is too good a name, or too mild a name, for a wrestler with a reputation to live up to. McCarthy should change his name to “Butcher” or “Hell-fire,” or some other stimulating title. He cannot take the best of all titles, which is copyrighted by a new collegiate wrestler called Sonnenberg. The exact definition of a “collegiate wrestler” is obscure, but the gentleman is known as “Dynamite Gus.”

AN “UNKNOWN SOLDIER ” To-day, the body of Marshal Focb, the greatest soldier of his time, will be entombed beside the dust of Napoleon, one of the greatest soldiers of all time, in the majestic tomb in the historic Invalides, fronting the Champ de Mars, near the heart of Paris, and within bugle-call of garrison troops on parade. The association of their fame in the eternal rest of comrades in genius recalls the not generally known fact that the more vivid, more romantic life and career of the audacious Corsican have inspired the writing of 40,000 books on his adventures and abasement. And the end of his story is still far off. In writing the forty-thousand-and-oneth volume the famous Russian novelist, M. Dmitri S. Merzhkovsky, starts with this confessional tribute to the memory of the elusive Emperor: “For more than a hundreds years the mystery of Napoleon has been growing greater. Yet, however strange it may seem, Napoleon is unknown. Forty thousand volumes are as forty thousand tombstones, and beneath them lies ‘the Unknown Soldier.’ ”

'‘HAIL. FELLOW!” Russell Owen, the first reporter to have all Antarctica as his “beat,’-’ is the fresh-faced and keen-looking young man in the accompanying picture. A crack reporter on the staff of the New York “Times,” Owen first distinguished himself by the colour, vigour and accuracy of his stories during and after the first Lindbergh flight from New York to Paris. Now his circle of readers numbers millions, because newspapers and Press agen-

cies throughout the world are subscribing to the syndicate which is issuing his stories of the Byrd expedition and its experiences. But there have been mild suggestions that Owen is over-colouring his copy, investing Byrd with a glamour he does not yet possess. Thus the following burlesque in an American paper, the “New Yorker,” makes amusing reading:

“HAIL, FELLOW, THAR SHE ' BLOWS! Correspondence from Our Reporter covering the Staten Island expedition. By wireless to the “New Yorker Times” Company, and by wireless right back to the correspondent, collect. Copyright by the “ New Yorker Times” Company, as if anyone cared. On Board the Naptha launch “City of Over Ten Thousand ,” in sight of Staten Island. ... I wish I could tell you something of the spirit that prevails on board. No sacrifice is too great for the boys to make, and they do it with a grin a mile long on their faces, too. Well, perhaps not quite a mile, but an awfully long grin, anyway. Just to show you what I mean, old Lummy (“Arthur”) Welsbach, the. cook, is at this moment sticking toothpicks into the potatoes to make little men out of them, and the laugh that will greet this prank is as good as given, written up, and wirelessed already. Yesterday we saw some gulls, but we just laughed it off. “All in the day’s work,” the captain sajd, and he was given a rousing cheer. The men would do anything for the captain, and the captain would do anything for the men, and the men would do anything for the men, and the captain would do anything for the captain. There, that about cleans that up. And what a relief, you, may be surei*!