FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 684, 8 June 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN,” TAKING THE SALUTE On arriving at the reception given him by the United Party, Sir Joseph Ward was greeted by a squad of trumpeters. Trumpeter, what are you sounding nowf Stables, lights-out, or reveille, A clarion call, or a warbled note, The latest from Tin-pan alley t No, a thousand times, no. Not this does my bugle blow, But the cheerful hoot of a strong salute At a red-hot U.P. rally. Trumpeter, blow from your bugle's - throat An echoing cadence mellow. The guest tonight is Sir Joseph Ward, So blow like merry hell-oh. Yes, you'd be surprised. We having him canonised. The praises biota of good Saint Joe, A right-down, regular fellow. — B-FLAT. * * • SIMPLE FARE A current controversy centres round the question o£ whether or not Maoris ate moas. This seems to be comparatively unimportant beside the larger question of whether moas ate Maoris. GHOST-LAYER “Belmont”: To your rhyme in last evening’s Watch Tower I would suggest the following addition, as some small recognition of the Takapuna Traffic Officer’s versatility: Ghost or speedster, thief or spieler, Don’t get frightened, send for Wheeler. • • * MAGPIES An agreeable bird is the magpie, if only for the reason that its contrasting plumage allows ingenious sports writers to christen as "magpies” all football teams that have black and white for their colours. And why not? But it makes the heart bleed to note that an unwitting dealer has been prosecuted for offering one of the birds for Sale. As counsel for the acclimatisation society sapiently said: If he didn’t know they were protected, why didn’t he look at the Act? He could have seen it in black and white. DIPLOMACY “I’d like to be a diplomat, And with the envoys stand, A-wetting of my whistle in A desiccated land.” A jingler sitting in an arid newspaper office, while round the corner in the Siamese embassy were diplomats sinking them with gusto, would naturally feel impelled to write something of the sort. Dry Washington, America’s political capital, has its very wet spots, each of them the residence of a foreign ambassador, whose home is his castle, and a castle where the tipples of his native land may be imbibed at will. Perhaps this accounts for the social popularity of ambassadors in Washington. The late Japanese ambassador, Prince Matsudaira, was especially popular with the menfolk, for fie had his gin made specially by Gordon, at 60 proof. The Belgian Prince de Ligne was also very popular, though recently he committed the solecism of having a prominent publisher, who did not know his capacity, run out of a party for wining well rather than wisely. Still, it is cheering to see that good citizens, of the United States don’t want to see Sir Esme Howard and his staff put on to water and ginger ale with the noble self-abnegation proposed by Sir Esme. SOME SCRIBES There was once an age when journalism as a profession was very circumscribed. The sub-editor was a shaggy individual whose waking hours were divided between calisthenics with a blue pencil and more strenuous exercises with a pint glass. The reporter of the day had an equal talent for imbibing facts and ale. If anything, his devotion to the latter was the greater. Journalism was a close profession, but now almost anyone can be a journalist. Even one of the present New Zealand Cabinet Ministers was nominated as a journalist. Let him be nameless. It might prejudice a promising career. But hear what Mr. Stanley Baldwin said at a dinner of the Newspaper Press Fund, a fund for journalists on whom fortune and editors have not smiled. Said Mr. Baldwin: “I ask myself what is a journalist and who is going to benefit from the fund, and I learn that in your charter is comprised the whole class of those contributing to the press. Conceive, gentlemen, with what pleasure I come here, feeling that if I am able to draw on my overdraft to help the fund, I may be helping Mr. Lloyd George a little in his old age.” Mr. Lloyd George’s harvest from journalism is modestly computed to be £25,000 a year. No wonder there was laughter An brackets after Mr. Baldwin’s sally. Perhaps in present circumstances he might have been delighted to be a journalist hmiself.