FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 756, 31 August 1929, Page 10

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

STAPLE EXPORTS A mitigating circumstance in a case concerning a dog which bit a cyclist’s trousers was that the dog is being sent to Fiji. We export butter, wool, and hides— All excellent commodities,And many trifling things besides, Among which cheerful oddities Include a dog that rushes out And bites with baleful glee— A type they well might do without In Fiji. Their trousers bitten, men—l’ve found— Get breezier and breezier, So will they greet the exiled hound With joy in Polynesia? Ere passing time that point decides, This fact appeals to me— They’ll have to move with cautious strides In Fiji. McSHOVEL. VEST POCKET One of those most useful objects, a vest-pocket camera, has been presented to a Pukekohe lady as a token of goodwill from her friends. The only point which this column would like elucidated is whereabouts a lady stows a vest-pocket camera. If the vest is what our overt glances see in shop-windows at sale times, the process of producing the v.p.k. should be conducted, so to speak, in camera, AWHEEL \ The well-worn path of those who have walked, cycled, and pushed perambulators round the world is now being followed by one Campbell, an exsoldier who is on the Aorangi, coming to New Zealand to -do another stage of his round the world bicycling trip. Thus one man goes round the world on a bicycle while others do so in a Zeppelin. It is all very contradictory. Perhaps the men who bicycle and walk are driven to the open road by love affairs or the like. It is stated that Alain Gerbault, the French voyager who recently sailed round the world in a 30-foot sloop, did so because he had been rejected by Suzanne Lenglen. His was a Love game. SAD Petty larceny is discovered in a grand manner at Taumarunui, where the processes of the courts have been in motion for some little time discussing the case of two young men charged with stealing a corkscrew and a table knife valued in all at one shilling. To help elucidate the matter five witnesses from the back country had to spend four days in Taumarunui. Adding to this the cost of having the court sitting and the jurymen fed, it may be seen that it would have been a good deal better for the taxpayer had the beneficent State bought a new corkscrew and a new table knife and presented them to the injured party. Such a course, however, would not have satisfied New Zealand’s passion for justice. Incidentally the said passion is not satisfied yet. The case was dismissed. * * * THE REFEREE If “Farmer” Vance, who has been appointed to referee some wrestling events next Monday, does not command respect in the ring, the amiable tendencies he has revealed during the current wrestling season will have been revealed in vain. The “farmer,” who presumably in the past has had some remote connection with the soil, has an impressive way with him. His figure may not be the slender schoolgirl type which is sometimes exalted as the ideal, but there is nevertheless something about it which attracts attention, and when the muscular rustic starts to wave those long arms of his, people sit up and take notice. Auckland football referees who are cognisant of the deficiencies in their technique are advised to watch the jolly “farmer” in action next Monday. They may learn something. WELCOME

The Look-out Man has been wondering if the talking pictures will be able to give us still more realistic presentations of the tumultuous and spectacular welcomes given by New York to such heroes as Lindbergh and other transatlantic flyers. The screen has made the showers of “ticker tape” and confetti an almost familiar spectacle. Besides tape and confetti the heroes, of course, get something more—usually the freedom of the city, and perhaps a small “snifter” with the Mayor, who is reputed to be lenient in his views toward the Eighteenth Amendment. This recalls that not long ago Manning, the ship’s officer who was hero of the “Florida” rescue some months back, appeared in a New York court to testify for a friend charged with speeding. When the friend was fined, hero Manning remarked: “Five months ago Mayor Walker gave me the keys to the city of New York. But I guess they are no good here.”