From The Watch Tower

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 758, 3 September 1929, Page 8

From The Watch Tower

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

THE CLOUD Farmers throughout the country are complaining o£ the super-tax instituted by the Government in the Budget proposals. The lambs of spring are bounding: With half their usual vim. The nags their teeth are grounding With eyes grown wan and dim. The cows are ruminating As they sadly chew the cud, And the flowers are hesitating Ere they burst out into bud. The little pigs are grunting In a dismal minor key, And where they laid ten eggs before The hens are laying three. The ducks are swimming to and fro With pessimistic quacks. For a cloud has come upon them, A.nd its name is super-tax. B. BOVRIL. CHEERS The first official train ran over the new Westfield deviation late on Sunday night. This does much to relieve fears that the work, like the Palmerston North deviation and the RotoruaTaupo railway, would be abandoned. CONFETTI ' It is heartening for those who have “A precious little thing called Love” on the gramophone to learn from a Sydney cable that this elegant piece of syncopation is favoured by Communists. At least, it was this refrain that the orchestra gaily went on playing after larrikins had burst in on the party with a shower of wooden blocks. Apparently the selection of this particular piece of music led to a genuine misconception. In the liberal ideal of the Communist such a tune might be substituted for the “Wedding March.” It was a ripe occasion for “Irish confetti.” TIME PLEASE

Noted that a handsome marble clock a modest six feet or so in diameter has been hoisted into position on the new Civic Theatre building. Here, at any rate, there will be less excuse than ever for people to arrive late and either block the view while finding their seats or make such a clatter that other patrons cannot hear what is going on. Yet if clocks alone represented complete insurance against this form of barbarism, Auckland should be completely immune from it. Boon Queen Street will look’ like one great cloekmaker's advertisement. If we have no time to spare, at least there are plenty of timepieces to inform us of the fact. CLIPPED The pathetic results of a conscientious film censor’s efforts to do the right thing by the talking pictures are now becoming evident. If the sequence suddenly becomes incomplete and a promising piece of dialogue ends in mid-air, the knowing picturegoer will rightly infer that the guardian of public morals has been at work. Dramatic or artistic considerations are cheerily ignored; but if a gap should exist, the picturegoer can often fill it by examining the “stills” posted outside the theatre. For what satisfaction it gives him, he can thus obtain a hint of what the censor’s sensitive soul has baulked at. GRETA PASTURES Most travellers by road between Blenheim and Christchui’ch remember Greta Greek, where an accident lias occurred. Winding through a narrow ravine, the road crosses and re-crosses the stream. The locality gives its name to Greta paddocks station, owned by Mr. N. D. Campbell. Farther on is Davaar, Sir Charles Campbell’s property. Sir Charles, the 12th baronet, is connected with a famous Canterbury subdivision through his mother. Sara, Lady Campbell, of Cheviot Hills, who was the daughter of the late Hon. William (“Ready Money”) Robinson, a man who at one time had tremendous landed interests in the South Island. The famous Cheviot subdivision, brought about by the Liberal Government in the nineties, made his estate wealthier than ever. DUTY FREE

The old maxim, “Never trust a sailor,” has been given a new interpretation by Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., who told a man at the court yesterday that he might be sure anything purchased from a sailor had had no duty paid on it. The contraband in this instance was cigarettes. It is especially tempting for the man who gets through his packet a day to learn that cigarettes may be bought from some shrewd mariner for perhaps fourpence under the ruling rate. The quality of the article does not necessarily enter into the question. It is sufficient that most people scent a bargain as soon as a nautical man appears with something to sell, and that is why the shrewd vendor who goes from door to door with rolls of shoddy takes care to equip himself with a yachting cap, even if his experience of the sea is no more extensive than an occasional Sunday launch trip to Waiheke.