From The Watch Tower

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 757, 2 September 1929, Page 8

From The Watch Tower

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

SAFE Leading citizens of the four centres will confer at a long-distance “telephone conference” to be arranged by the Hon. J. B. Donald to celebrate the improvement in toll communications. Tinkle, tinkle, little bell, The conference is on. And here’s the order paper For the delegates to con. First a few well-chosen words—- “ We’re gathered here today. . . .” Followed by some loud applause Three hundred miles away. “Hello, hello,’’ hear them cry Along the leagues of wire, Piping up to prove the line Is worthy of its hire. How they’ll all enjoy the sport, Conferring at their ease, Using toll, while you and I Subscribe the bureau fees! —RIKKO. RECORD Jabbing, prodding, goading a man into wakefulness, keeping him without sleep for days at a time, was a refined form of torture once in great favour among experts. Today people torture themselves to break records. The latest victim is an American solo flyer who crashed, apparently asleep, after actually breaking the record. There is yet no sign that these practices will spread to New Zealand. The petrol for the dual-control endurance tests is fed in from a plane above by means of a tube. Sometimes the people in the lower plane get drenched with petrol, but that is all part of the fun. The record now stands at something over 400 hours. The element of monotony has arrived, and soon such tests will be at one in the public mind with flagpole sittings, dance marathons and long distance pianothumping. TRAFFIC Auckland traffic conditions are considered by many good judges to be a severe test of a motorist’s capacity to avoid trouble. This is a statement intended to reflect no discredit whatever on the admirable people who control the traffic. But the simple fact is that places like Queen Street, Broadway, Karangahape Road and Symonds Street are good places to be out of during their congested periods. It is on record that a young plutocrat from Wellington came up here a few months ago to display his immense new Continental sports car at race time. But he found that handling a car with a long wheelbase In city traffic was too much of a strain on the nerves, and ultimately was reduced to using a “baby” car loaned him by a friend. His plight recalls the formula employed by an ingenious traffic officer to people who seemed clumsy In the traffic. “And how do you like being in Auckland,” he would say pleasantly. POCKET BOROUGHS One by one the outer local bodies have been absorbed by greater Auckland. The observation is prompted by the note that Mr. W. J. Parker, a veteran resident, was once a member of the old Remuera Town Board. Even Remuera could not survive in stately isolation. It joined the city in 1915, at a period when a whole flock of the suburban councils were giving up the ghost. Auckland city was originally bounded by Stanley Street, Symonds Street, Karangahape Road and Franklin Road. Then the urban districts of Ponsonby, Karangahape and Grafton united with the city in 1882. There were no further acquisitions until 1913, when Parnell and Arch Hill started a movement which continued with the absorption of Grey Lynn, Remuera, Eden Terrace, Epsom, Point Chevalier and, later, Avondale and Tamaki. The interesting feature of such a process is that ultimately the old boundaries are lost. Few presentday Aucklanders know the location of Arch Hill or Eden Terrace, except in the most general terms. WITH MUCH PRAISE Harbour bridge or do harbour bridge, there is a satisfaction setting forth across the Waitemata on a fine sunny morning, more particularly if the crossing is effected in a comfortable car, with the prospect of a day’s easy motoring ahead. The prospect may not always he genial in the realisation, for there are two roads to the North, and one of them is a trap for the young and inexperienced. Add to this the mutual embarrassment of asking the way from a man who turns out to he afflicted with the world’s worst stutter, and it may be seen that even a fine spring morning has its disabilities. But given the right conditions, the beautiful North repays all this. With a harbour bridge offering quicker access to the pretty glens round Silverdale, it is possible to picture the Whangaparaoa peninsula and adjacent beaches as a new popular playground for Auckland. That will be a fine thing for Auckland, but not necessarily for the present charm of the neighbourhood. It is a pity that popularity always has to be followed by. a train of tea rooms, ice cream booths, and filling stations, besides relics of an even less picturesque character.