FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 632, 8 April 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By "THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” THE REVELATION A man who bought a cheap ChesterHeld found that among the assorted stuffing were an old dress shirt, a copy of the “War Cry,” and seven pairs of pants. A War Cry that's a compliment. I vote — An ancient shirt, and seven pairs of “trou Sitting beneath him on his Chesterfield, And his Chesterfield is valueless cnoiv. —O. K. OMAR. HE KNEW HIS STUFF There is apparently no limit to the curious things that may happen on trams. Witness the confusion of a young matron with her well-coached offspring on a Dominion Road car. The conductor put the usual question, but before the mother could answer it her son piped up: “I’m two on the ears, but I’m three at home.” The appropriate penalty for this engaging candour was doubtless exacted later. MR. A ND MRS. MALAPROP The City Council’s doubts about the practicability of involved Maori names are totally unwarranted from an aesthetic viewpoint. But coming down to brass tacks, objections are evident. The L.O.M. has a friend who has an aunt who has lived in New Zealand all her life, but the best she can do with ’’Hihitahi” is “Hitti-titti.” Of course, this applies to other words than Maori words. There is an eminent gentleman in this city who has never been known yet to get “antirrhinums” right, and usually contents himself with “anti-geraniums.” * * * THROUGH BEER TO POWER News that. Prime Minister Baldwin intends to placate the British farmer by reducing the beer duty has a pleasant flavour, suggesting that the roast beef of old England and the nut-brown ale (also of old England) still go together. But why limit the rejoicing to farmers, who are surely not the only thirsty folk in Britain ? By the narrow view of topers beer may still have a lot to do with the sum of human happiness, and the quality of the beer sold at a tavern at the top of it is supposed to have much to do with the current of humanity that flows up a certain hill in Auckland at favoured hours of the day. Someone once remarked that a man who worked opposite this caravanserai was getting fat. “No wonder he’s getting fat,” said an envious true believer. “He works opposite the best beer in Auckland.” BY “ WIRELESS' ’ A group of people stood outside a chemist s shop in Lower Queen Street and gazed with deep interest into the interior. People do not look into the lnE *ide of a chemist’s shop for nothing, and a few leading questions revealed that a girl had been knocked down by a car, though not seriously hurt. The source of this intelligence was a taxi-driver, which prompts comment on the fact that certain citv occupations favour the use of a “wireless" system as mysteriously efficient as any used by naked savages in the jungle. An old injunction to the curious was: “If you want to know anything, ask a policeman,” but it is just a question whether taxi-men and tram conductors are not more informative, their tongues not being sealed by official tendencies toward reticence. A few minutes’ thought impresses one with the conviction that there are few things more efficient in a quiet way than the “tramway wireless” upon which the suburbs depend for their news until the evening papers come out.

* at & S- =». m m as % rfr ts rfr LISTENING TO THE BAND Much praise might well be lavished upon that admirable organisation, the Auckland Municipal Band. It has its constant followers, and no handful at that. The sixpenny seats for the Sullivan programme were well lifted on Saturday night, but one is puzzled to know who the mysterious beings are for whom the front row of the centre circle seems always to be reserved on these occasions. Councillors, perhaps, or bandsmen’s wives. But they never seem to appear, to claim the bounty of a favoured view. The wives might, perhaps, be justified in staying at home, yet two red-coated bandsmen from another band—the Salvation Army—drifted in on Saturday, so they, at least, were not above taking a busman’s holiday, and presumablyenjoyed the performance, even down to the second cornet, shaking his instrument in the meditative but purposeful way that bandsmen do. Sullivan played by the Auckland Municipal Band becomes a greater joy than ever. Consequently! it is difficult to understand people paying for shilling seats and then spending the evening glued to book or newspaper, as one couple were on Saturday^