FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 653, 3 May 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

By

THE BAY OFF A champion egg-laying duck at Mount Albert broke a wonderful sequence by not laying on Anzac Day. Let Romans eulogise the sacred geese Whose anserine alarms the city saved. Here is a bird, that serves the arts of peace , Yet with a proper reticence behaved , And with a fine regard for Anzac Day In reverent silence sat—but did not lay. Thundered the roar of ceremonial gun, Swelled the deep anthem on tlic vibrant But hushed and solemn was the mallard's No strident quack, was tolerated there , Where Orpington or Wyandotte might cluck In foolish ecstasy , not so the duck. This patriotic matron—sing her praise , Accord the bird her rightful meed, I beg, Habitually she lays and lays and lays , But on the day of rest withholds her egg. Bet chores enslave, the, baser type of folk, But she will still disdain the common yolk. —T, TOHEKOA. THEN AND NOW Times have changed. In 1860, after staying as the guest of Sir "George Grey at Kawau, Sir John Gorst wrote: “All the rocks near Kawau at low water are covered with succulent oysters. Armed with hammers to open the oysters, and with slices of bread and butter, we used to obtain our oyster luncheons.’’ To-day in the Police Court a man was fined £2 for surreptitiously knocking oysters off a rock at Oneroa. ♦ * * OLD WOMAN’S TALK The Auckland-Wbangarei express had just pulled into Newmarket for the back-shunt to the North line. A bright you-ng man smoking serenely in the corner seat remarked cheerily: “It looks as if we are going to have a fine-weather trip to Tauranga.” “Heavens, man, you are on the wrong train,” said one of two men across the corridor. “You are oil to Whangarei. The Tauranga express left five minutes ago!” The bright young man thought he had better get off, and did so. “Why can’t the department mark the destination of its trains more clearly,” he railed. Old woman’s talk, to be dismissed as such. But even old women have tongues to ask questions with, even if they have no eyes with which to read. KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY Striking testimonials to the loyalty of one’s colleague are those documents that insurance companies require filled in before a life policy is issued. Death before dishonour is a precept unthought of when a friend brings one of these along. “Do you know Mr. So and So?” The answer is a written strongly, in a firm hand. “Is he a fit subject for a life insurance?” Most assuredly. “Is he of a temperate disposition?” Absolutely! “Have you ever seen him the worse for liquor?” NEVER!!! A life-long reputation for veracity having been thus imperilled in the sacred cause of friendship, the discussion turned on insurance generally. Then to insurance and suicides. The successful canvasser waxed reminiscent about the Smallfield ease, that -went all the way from Hamilton to the Privy Council, and cost the parties thousands of pounds. Then he mentioned the case of a young man he insured for £I,OOO. The beneficiaries were his fiancee and his brother, in equal portions, but when the policyholder committed suicide the pair decided to get married, and thus kept the four-figure nest-egg intact. POOR RETURNS

It’s not all beer and skittles, as the old saying has it, being a cracksman these days. That, at any rate, must b,e Inferred from the results of two recent efforts. A "thief entered a butcher’s shop at Albany, and finding an empty till, had to restrict his attentions to sausages, of which he carried away several strings. The gentleman reported yesterday as having ransacked a house at Epsom the other afternoon made a total haul of one shilling. He overlooked some notes, and wisely decided that some athletic cups were better left as they stood. Athletic cups these days are not always what they seem, and in any case, the rascal found walking down an Epsom street with an armful of glistening gauds would invite Immediate attention. Incidentally, there are few moments finer than those in which the long-armed law returns stolen property to a cracksman’s victim. A friend had his pocketbook rifled by the shrewd folk who haunt dressingrooms and sports pavilions, and months later was advised by the police that the malefactor had been tracked down. In the dock the man was ordered to return the stolen £2, and did so at the rate of something like sixpence a month. The loser’s first exhilaration quickly passed when he found that the periodical instalments were barely large enough to buy him a beer.