From The Watch Tower

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 761, 6 September 1929, Page 8

From The Watch Tower

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

SATISFIED! It was the duty of New Zealanders who went abroad to correct the selfsatisfaction which was the untravelled New Zealander’s greatest fault.—Dr. Wylie, a New Zealand doctor, speaking in Sydney. I’ve never stopped in a Bond Street shop, Or bathed in the broad Zambesi, Or felt the sting of a wind a-wing In latitudes cold and breezy. Nor have I beheld the rolling veld, And yet—l’m perfectly easy. If given the cash, no doubt I’d smash All records in hitting the highway. I’d book a berth to the ends of the earth And travel each storied by-way. And in languorous motion each heaving ocean Would carry me idly my way. But the glorious ease of picking up fees And piling up heaps of treasure Eludes me yet, so I cannot get The happier mode of leisure. My ambit reaches to North Shore beaches And that’s where I take my pleasure. No doubt it’s queer to be anchored here Where penury clogs one’s action, But will it help if 1 whine and yelp And envy the luckier faction? No, Doctor Wylie, please leave me entirely Alone—with my satisfaction. BEOWULF. ♦ * * FREE FOR ALL That must have been a hectic party at Te Kauwhata recently, in which people sailed in and out, pushing, punching, hacking, and biting, all with such enthusiasm that a witness in the subsequent court proceedings was led to remark that it was just like a football scrum. This may either be a serious reflection on our footballers, or a compliment to their virility. One thing appears to have been certain at Te Kauwhata. There was no imaginary line. TARANAKI WOOD As a few brief reminiscences at a luncheon yesterday disclosed, there is no more venerated figure in the annals of dairying than Chew Chong, the astute Chinese who pioneered the dairy factory business in Eltham. Chew Chong had a store on a site very close to the leading Eltham business now operated by Mr. C. A. Wilkinson, the Very independent M.P. In those dark days Taranaki pastures were not what they are today, and many a farmer subsisted only by gathering fungus, the famous Taranaki wood, and selling it to Chew Chong and his brethren. Then Chew Chong had an inspiration, and set up the forerunner of modern co-operative dairy factories. From this small seed developed Taranaki’s preeminence in the cheese and butter fields. Though he was an Asiatic, Chew Chong was also a “white man” in all that the term implies. a * * MEET THE CHUKOR -The chukor, being a breed of partridge, presumably follows the engaging habit of partridges in roosting in the open in a ring, all members of the somnolent covey turning their heads outward so that the approach of an enemy may wake them. People who arrived in New Zealand a hundred years ago, and found the country teeming with game quite obligingly willing to sit still and be shot at, would have scorned the idea of bringing in chukors, quail, pheasants, or anything else. There was plenty to spare then, but things are different now. Down in the Rangitikei district there was a cheery old priest who liked to draw a bead on an occasional feather. “Yes, you may shoot over my property,” one farmer told him, “but do not on any account shoot any of the hens.” Later the crestfallen padre returned. “I have a confession to make,” said he, and he opened his bag and showed a deceased bird. “I have shot a hen,” he said, “but I could hardly help it. It rose out of the scrub and before I realised it was not a pheasant I had shot it.” Curiously enough the “hen” he had shot was a weka, and wekas cannot fly. BEFORE THE MAST The untimely death of Ronald Walker, journalist, of Hobart Town, in the rigging of a Finnish sailing ship, will not encourage other newspaper men to strike for the bounding main as a means of finding colour and copy. Melbourne journalists, in particular, have set a fashion in this respect. The first notable example ,vas Dale Collins, author of “Ordeal,” who found a place in the complement of the Chicago cement millionaire, McGowan’s, trim craft, the Speejacks. Collins got to England on the Speejacks, •whose cruise evidently was not without minor discords, as later the McGowans were divorced. After Collins came Max Murray, who worked his way to America, up the Mississippi, across the Atlantic, and then home. In "The World’s Backdoors” he described his experi nees interestingly. Still another Melbourne scribe took the sea trail on the windjammer Herzegovin Cecile, which engaged in an excitingrace home with South Australian wheat. Last of the several who have hit the ocean trail, poor Walker, peace to his ashes, has a lonely grave in the South Pacific.