FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 649, 29 April 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN,” BY REQUEST? “I have a husky throat/’ protested Sir Harry Lauder to a small patient in the Public Hospital, who wanted to be entertained. “If I sing, I shall sound like a cow.” The child persisted, so Sir Harry resigned himself to several minutes’ vigorous “mooing”: “Sing us ‘Roamin’ in the Gloomin'j We would simply love you to.” “But, bairnie, I’m so hoarse the day, I’d sound just like a coo.” “Well, sing ‘I Love a Lassie,’ Or a bit of ‘Fou the Noo Or ‘Bonnie Maggie Tamson . . Oh, please, Sir Harry, do.” Then, redolent of farmyards. Came a sound entirely new . . . They could not force the bard to sing, But they encored his “moo.” —Squidge. NOVEL “Bootlegger Shot,” says a newspaper heading. It is more often the bootlegger’s clients who are in that condition. STATISTICS In view of the disclosure that the ballot papers to be used in Wednesday’s election would stretch from the city as far as Manurewa, a few more statistics may be of interest. The ballot-boxes, placed on top of one another, would reach as high as the Mount Eden reservoir. The number of “tickets” formed among the candidates would carry the population of Auckland free on the trams for a month. The sixty-seven candidates for the City Council, if placed end to end, would reach as far as the Whau. LOCAL FAUNA. How blithely hoots the morepork in the vice-regal forest hard by Waterloo Quadrant, and how adroitly the opossum raids the orchards of the good people in St. Stephen’s Avenue. Notice of the occurrence of these retiring creatures in the places indicated shows that in the midst of our populous city we are still not so far from the woodland glades and the pleasures of the bright, open spaces. Parnell and Remuera residents might take to trapping opossums, a nice side-line to operations on the stock exchange or deals in real estate. Yet may no adverse fate bring upon any suburban stroller the experience of a policeman in a southern town. He was walking under a shop verandah one black midnight when an opossum dropped down on him from the roof. He struck out with his truncheon, but hit nothing, and then and there decided that the Evil One was upon him. The little beast left marks for life upon his face and neck. MICE Harrowing tales are current of a plague of mice in and about the city. A peculiar feature thereof is the diminutive physique of the abundant animals. They are reputed to be hardly any bigger than a bumble bee, but many times more voracious, and capable of making enormous inroads into even the most robust commissariat. The tale is told of a housewife who opened a disused bin and found five of these tiny creatures gambolling in the bottom of it. Lacking any other antidote she resourcefully plied them with insecticide, but this ingenious method failed to produce the desired results and they had to stay in the bin until lunch time brought the simultaneous appearance of a husband and a rolling pin. HAWAIIAN'S BITE That the national tendencies of Hawaiians embrace more than huladancing, surf-riding, or singing soft melodies on the beach at Waikiki, is suggested by the nature of the attack recently made upon a Wanganui motorist by a Hawaiian who appeared before the local court. In the general mauling the motorist suffered bites upon the face and back, which suggests that the contest was not under strict Marquess of Queensberry rules. It must have gone even better than the recent “Newton Donnybrook,” wherein a gentleman crossed the road once to return with a damaged eye, twice to return with it partly blacked, and a third time to return with it blacked completely. Meanwhile, the three trips had cost his opponent his false teeth. There is a tale still current in the South of a player who was ordered off in one of the sanguinary matches of the bad old days. The discomfited gladiator, who had been selected from a seething mass of combatants, walked slowly from the field, and then seemed to recollect something. He turned and approached the referee. “Before Igo off, -whose ear is this?” A player had to be a real he-man to be ordered off in those days.