FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 794, 15 October 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

"THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

GLASSED IN A glassed-in car to enable women to combine motoring and has appeared in England: How sweet will be my morning spin when Grace and Arabella Are basking in a glassed-in coach like that of Cinderella, Their comely backs demurely bared, white arms divinely gleaming, And through the prisms violet rays benevolently streaming. I hope when such things come to pass, these maids (still in the plural) Will not choose highways too remote or districts merely rural, Though, on the other hand, perhaps, in thoroughfares congested By pressmen and photographers the twain might be molested. MORAL People who drive in glassed-in cars to sun their marrow bones Should bow to folk in other cars, and never pick up stones. SQUIDGE. • * * GOING UP? A newspaper heading; "The Lure of Flying.” Six hundred applications have been received for 21 vacancies on the mechanical staff of the New Zealand Air Force. Lure of flying, indeed, yet only the other day w 6 learned of a court-martial in England over the case of an air force mechanic who had the effrontery to fly a plane. The truth is that, allowing for a certain few who have hopes of graduating into the skies by this route, most of the 600 are at present in uncongenial occupations (if any) and are merely obeying the current impulse which drives flaming youth toward a gasoline engine just as in another period of history it drove him to the sea. The only regrettable feature of the mechanical impulse today is that it rarely drives white-hot enthusiasts toward tractors and milking machines. A COT CASE

To ordinary readers with whom sentiment* is the spice of life one of the most charming features of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald’s visit to Washington will be the fact that lie was entertained by President and Mrs. Hoover in “the Blue • room.” Memories of a song which mentioned something about “your wee head upon my knee” are at once recalled. The fact is, though, that there are blue, green, red, and perhaps even lavender rooms in an Auckland hotel which has just spent a lot of money on improvements. The effect is very fine. Any American tourist who coines here prating about the low quality of New Zealand caravanserais will be met by the L.O.M. with a pitying smile and taken on a personally conducted tour o£ this latest demonstration of our taste in elegance. There are private bathrooms and modern plumbing, and incidental evidence that the twin bed mode is progressing, even in our taverns. Possibly it is a graceful tribute to the star spangled manner. Once a v troop of American tourists arrived aj a modern Wanganui hotel and were duly accommodated. Soon a spectre in horn rims and pyjamas waddled down the stairs. He wanted a “cart”. It took some time for him to explain that by “cart” he meant “cot.” He hadn’t slept in a double bed for 25 years, and he wasn’t going to start in Wanganui. If the trouble he experienced then was any criterion of what was coming to him in even less enlightened communities, he must have had a great deal of trouble keeping his record intact. ALL WRESTLERS TOGETHER A contributor’s jocular reference to the wrestling boom is a reminder that there really is such a thing, with an interest to more people than the wrestlers who wrestle and the crowds who go to see them doing it. Near the Leys Institute the other day a passer-by saw energetic youth posed in classic attitudes on the turf. The separate pairs w*ere struggling to apply all the wrestling theory at their disposal, and were confident that the} 7, had Boston crabs, airplane spins and crucifix grips all thoroughly mastered. Many mothers will shudder to hear this jargon bandied about among their offspring, but perhaps the fever will be transient, and will be thrown off when the craze has subsided locally and the wrestling fraternity is pursuing the harvest elsewhere. In the meantime three-year-olds will continue to apply lieadlocks to their Teddy bears with intense ferocity. * * * HARD BOILED! The latest instance of touching fidelity to a sacred belief is tbe case of the Auckland minister. who a few days ago had his child baptised in authentic water of Jordan. The sprinkled moisture was dipped from the sacred river by the proud father last time he was on a world tour. If the sight of the Jordan aroused in him anj c sense of irreligious aisappoiutment. he was far too saintly to say so. But lie admits with charming candour that he had the water sterilised before the christening.