FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 836, 3 December 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

OIL. TO BE A FIREMAN! Mount Eden firemen are to be allowed to play billiards on Sundays between noon and 3 p.m. A dissenting councillor said it was a pleasure not to hear the click of balls. Mount Eden is a borough Most competently ruled By councillors so thorough And admirably schooled That lapses from its pious And saintly path are rare ; But now, oh Norn’ de Dios '. The snake has entered there. Instead of peaceful quiet On Sundays there will reign The dreadful sounds* of riot. “They’re potting them, again!'' Each thoroughfare and by-way Will throb with pagan din, As firemen in their sly way Pursue the paths of sin. With deafening concussion The balls will crash and roll From baulk to distant cushion, From spot toward the goal, And stirred by every cannon The burgesses will plot To reimpose the ban on This rowdy game, lest anon Mount Eden goes to pot! FAME IN ONE JUMP The true perils of the prize-ring are illustrated by a happening in America. “Tuffy” Griffin has emerged from the obscurity that formerly shrouded him, and has come to the front by defeating Paolino Uzcudun. Even so, it is doubtful whether he would have won so much valuable prominence had two officials of the fight not thoughtfully quarrelled and killed each other. Apparently this is what is meant by the heavy-weight “elimination series.’’ CABBAGE PATCH To cast cabbages among a group of Chinese would ordinarily sound a degree worse than carrying coals to Newcastle; yet that is precisely what Russians are doing in the war in Manchuria. They are taking cabbages aloft and dropping them over the Chinese lines instead of bombs. This strange action is attributed by independent observers to the belief that the Russians are not taking the war very seriously. On the other hand, it is quite possible that that is just what they are doing. Apart altogether from the damage a well and trulyaimed cabbage with a good heart could do when dropped from a couple of thousand feet, the selection of cabbages, above all things, is an irony -which should have terribly depressing effects on such a nation as the Chinese.

SOLO One of the dangers of conducting a column which represents for the most part an effort to drag a little humour by way of consolation from the sorrows and tragedies of the day’s news is that once in a while one may he taken seriously, and suspected of having a shot at someone’s pet scheme for the reformation of the universe. Nothing is further from the purpose of this column. The ideals behind the reforms are sacred here, even if the occasional foibles and shams by which the reforms express themselves are not. It is perhaps unfortunate that things like alcohol chocolates lend themselves so aptly to a little gentle kidding, but that just appears to be the way of things in a badly ordered world. An irresistible opportunity of the same sort occurs in the announcement that the bar on the Maloio was opened as • soon as the U.S. luxury ship was a suitable distance from “the good, dry land”: Aboard that stout craft, the Maloio, Though cold are the blizzards that blow, lo, —■ In chill winds or hot You may ring for a spot And carol the Froth blowers’ solo. * • NINETY PER CENT. One of the male officials at the interhouse girls’ sports confides that one of the curious differences between the male athlete and his female counterpart is that the skirted one can only with the greatest difficulty be restrained from “breaking” at the starts of races. Male performers realise that they have little chance of heating the pistol, any way, so are content to wait for the gun. Not so with the girls, -who, according to this authority (who for obvious reasons prefers to remain anonymous), are off the mark as soon after the “ready, set,” as convenient. He considers it is just feminine over-eagerness showing itself. The girls, he says, are setting the young men of Auckland a lesson in the way they turn out for training both on the tracks and in squad drill. The efficient parade of the girls at Carlaw Park impressed everyone last Saturday. This was not accomplished by haphazard preparation. Many of the girls turned out at 6 a.m. every morning for weeks, and were ready for training again in the evening. A military expert says the standard of marching with some of the squads was 90 per cent, efficient —a percentage that only a very few tip-top military units ever achieve.