FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 745, 19 August 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By "THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” ROAD SONG There has lately been a number of prosecutions laid agaipst speedingmotorists. Sunshine, the surge of power— A roadster fleet and trim; An engine that, at 60 miles an hour, Will sing a soothing hymn. Concrete, a clean white road— And half an inch to spare Between my speedster and a wagon’s load. But who am I to care? .. Sixty—the trees all blend, A rearward-flying mass. Ah, may there be no speed traps at the end When I step on the gasl RIKKO. HEROINE A potent drug is heroin. If any base fellow were found smuggling it over the Auckland wharves he would be clapped into the darkest dungeon in Mount Eden. Imagine, then, the hue and cry when French police recently seized 4001bs of the mischievous commodity from diplomatically immune trunks on the way to the Afghan Legation in Paris. The usually immaculate New York “Times” seized the opportunity to contribute to the great anthology of typographical errors the following headline: —“Afghan heroine found in trunk.” SPARE PRESSURE City dwellers who suffer from insomnia, and who at the same time practise the somewhat discredited habit of going to bed early, must find the King’s Wharf power-station a wonderful anodyne. The station suffers from the anatomical necessity of blowing off steam round about 10 or 11 o’clock each evening. On a moonlit night the steam is quite pretty. We wish that could be said of the accompanying noise. It is unfortunate that the business of blowing off steam, whether human or mechanical, cannot be managed quietly. * * * RETREAT Fastidious patrons of the hill at Eden Park have no heed of the sensitive feelings that may possibly lie hidden somewhere in the rugged breasts of footballers. If there is no prospect of a keen finish, the exhilarating finale that they love, they stream away in hundreds, in a manner that would make stage players retire to the wings and weep. But footballers are made of sterner stuff. As well that newspaper men are equally hard-boiled, for those who left early seemed, in many cases, to leave their newspapers as well, and one unfeeling incendiarist even showed his contempt by gathering the papers into a heap and setting fire to them. But if a newspaper man should be sensitive, there is this consolation—that all those discarded sheets are paid for. Newsboys give no “tick.” They, too, are hard-boiled. INTO THE VOID A nasty feeling, to step over into a void 70ft or SOft deep, as the caretaker of a city building did when he stepped absently through the open lift gate on the fifth floor the other day. As most people know, the nervous shock of simply walking over an unexpected step is sufficiently jarring. In the major case referred to, few come through to tell what the sensation is like. But after the gate, which the victim in this instance managed to clutch, there is always the wire rope of the lift. The Look-out Man has an acquaintance who stepped into a liftwell on a fourth floor. He swung wildly, grabbed and held the wire, and checked his fall sufficiently to escape with two broken legs. His palms were seared and burned to the bone, and his hair, brown at the time of the accident, turned snow white within a matter of days. WASH DAY The joy of owning a dog lies largely in bathing it. Even the most gifted animals get a little soiled at times. Hence the spare hours of the dogowner’s week-end are frequently devoted to giving Fido his weekly tub. If he also happens to be a car-owner, and the Baby Rolls is likewise due for its toilet, that complicates matters, particularly since the car will stand still and be hosed, while the dog will not. As a matter of fact, a prime difficulty of washing the dog is a tub to wash him in. At least one Aucklander solves the problem by making use of the stream in the Domain, whither he wanders each Sunday morning, with the dog, which knows what is coming, led by one hand, and a piece of soap in the other. An expansion of this idea along practical lines might see the Domain rivulet turned into a public laundry after the best Continental style. Our ancestors were so primitive. Perhaps they washed their clothes in the old Ligar Canal that flowed down Queen Street.