FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 771, 18 September 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

•‘THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

THE FIRST SWT. I/ He cantered to the crater's edge, A muscular Apollo. We watched with admiration, though We did not dare to follow. All undismayed, although he’d made A stir at Takapuna, He started in as If to swim Toward a distant schooner. “What was it like?” we asked when back He came with motions frisky. “The w-water’s f-f-fine", he said, and made A bee line for the whisky. | XOBLE PILE Out of consideration for the architectural features of the post office, the Transport Board is abandoning its plan to build a shelter along the front of tile building. The motives behind the board’s decision are indeed commendable, but unless the little wartlike domes on the roof can be considered decorative, this to many people will be the first intimation that the post office had any architectural features to worry about. * SOMEONE MUST WASH THEM The burning problem of whether washing up plates is pantrymaids’ work, or really the task of kitchen hands, has been taken to another stage by the Arbitration Court, with the result that the existing order as observed locally may be upset. How this will react for the ordinary diner is not yet clear. Meals may go up in price. The proprietors of restaurants may add an Arbitration Court impost to the price of tea in town. If so, that will be all to the encouragement of domesticity. Men who hitherto were detained at the office will go home to a tea table where the pantry-maid and the kitchen-maid are one, and there is no possibility of beneficent intervention by the Arbitration Court or the Inspector of Awards. STATESMAN’S DAUGHTER With customary flamboyance, New York is preparing to welcome sobersided Ishbel MacDonald, hostess of No. 10 Downing Street, with a scale of entertainment to which the retiring girl is a complete stranger. From all appearances, her visit to America may leave her so little time to herself that it may be more embarrassing than otherwise. It is interesting to reflect that both the daughters of two of England’s leading statesmen are quiet and reserved. Megan Lloyd George, even with the dignity of a Liberal back-bencher to maintain, is little more, outwardly exuberant than Mr. Ramsay MacDonald’s daughterhostess, to whom Oliver Baldwin, the Labourite son of the late Prime Minister, once let it be rumoured that he was betrothed—all part of a deliberate plan to annoy his father. AT WE ST ELLA If the settlers on the subdivided Westella Estate, near Feilding, are living in temporary shacks because they have no money to build houses, their establishments must be in sharp contrast to the Westella homestead, a. very fine private residence. With few exceptions, Westella, the home of the Levin family, is without peer among country homes on the West Coast; but in Hawke’s Bay, the Wairarapa, and Canterbury there may be many homesteads as elaborately planned and as prettily situated. In districts where smaller holdings are the rule, even comfortably situated farmers seem to be more modest in their tastes. But without doubt, the character of the station dwellings lends much of its charm to the countryside in the noted sheep districts. MEANS TO AX EXP Opossums may be dispatched from this mortal coil in various ways, ail of them fairly painful to the opossum. Hence it is at first sight difficult to see why a fastidious Ministry should object to poison as a lethal agent. When one was young, of course, anything was good enough for an opossum. To locate an opossum up an isolated tree, from which there was little prospect of its escape, was the height of adventure. If in this case there was no such deadly weapon as au airgun handy, stones or even sticks would do. Even so, the odds were usually on the opossum, which somehow or other usually managed to elude its tormentors. Today the opossum is hunted more systematically, and once the steel jaws of the traps close, escape is virtually impossible, even though it may be hours before the trapper arrives on his rounds. Since the fur-bearing possibilities of the bright-eyed creature are becoming more and more realised, it is natural that such an asset should be shown reasonable consideration. But in that case, poison might be thought the easiest aud most painless method. There are evidently all sorts of associated problems. Perhaps the pelts of poisoned opossums are not so easily converted into fur coats bearing mysteriously exotic names.