FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 852, 21 December 1929, Page 10

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” BEACH BOUND

Clothes make the man, as anyone can Who visits any bathing: heach on Sundays. For there a man must stand as nature built and planned— Though he may be an awful dog on Mondays. A successful dea! in notes won’t help him when he floats, If he should carry everything' before him, And a Parliamentary seat will not keep him on his feet When a mighty wave is coming down to floor him. The most commanding figure lacks a certain air and vigour When it does that shelly passage to the water, And it’s hard to keep our pride when we do the seaweed slide, And pass it off with dignity and hauteur. So if ever you’re in doubt that truth will always out, To go a-bathing is a happy plan. And I think you will agree as you sit beside the sea. That the proper study of mankind is man. DICK. WHITTINGTON. * * * TRUCKERS’ TROUBLES To realise the true depth of feeling of which a farmer is capable it is necessary to hear him discussing that complex process, the trucking of stock. A friend reports having listened in on a telephone conversation of this character the other day. It was a hotel telephone, and the gentlemam’s conversation was interminable. Furthermore, he was not quite certain of his aspirates. To hear him insisting that 50 sheep should be trucked in a “Hell” truck was, according to our informant, quite worth the inconvenience of the delay. HAND QF VULCAN Familiar features of the City scene are changed almost overnight by the magic wand or assiduous pick and shovel of the road-breaker and navvy, the real “men who get things done.” Latest object of their attentions has been that busy little by-way, Vulcan Lane. A. busy place, Vulcan Lane, and for more reasons than one. First, it gives access to a whole warren of office buildings. Next, it is a popular street with those who meditate and lubricate in peace and quiet. Vulcan Lane and its taverns have seen history come and go. Now the massive old buildings along one side have gone, and instead there is a bargain area, and a street twice as wide. It is a great improvement, a much-needed civic amenity. There is only one defect in the new Vulcan Lane. It is no longer a lane. * * • PEELERS There may be nothing finer than ,a coat of tan, but nothing is worse than a peeling nose. All handsome men are said in the “Bronzo” advertisements to be slightly sunburnt, but a slight touch of sunburn can mar the whole world’s skin. We are reminded of this by certain disastrous sequels to the orgy of sun-bathing last weekend. The difficulty about sun tan is that it cannot always be made to stick. It has a tendency to go through welldefined stages. First, the ruddy hue immediately after application. Next, the departure of the inflamed look and the appearance of a reasonable shade of tan. Third, the departure of the tan and the appearance of a leprous mottling, coupled with pronounced peeling. Discouraged members of the sun tan cult are now plucking little shreds of skin from their features. There is even a danger that the everalert Health Department may consign some of the worst victims to Mokogai. SCHOOL ENDOWMENTS Wealthy endowments for public schools in New Zealand were rare. Few legislators were farsighted enough to see the benefits they would confer on posterity if they tucked away a few acres for future use in the sacred cause of education These thoughts might have been inspired by the remarks of Archbishop Averill I when he deplored the absence of endowments for the support of King’s College. The two outstanding examples of well-endowed schools in the Dominion are Christ’s College and Wanganui Collegiate School, and of these Wanganui got its liberal endowment in a very curious way. An area of then useless but now valuable swamp and sand hill country was ser. aside by Sir George Grey. It was for a school for the sons of impecunious New Zealanders, and at one stage the endowment was actually dedicated to tlie maintenance of an “industrial school,” which is a very different thing from the Wanganui Collegiate School of today. Fortunately (or unfortunately, as some think) the school fell into wise hands, which shaped its future along the sound channels of an English public school. Wanganui is today in every respect the equal of the larger English public schools, the only fly in the ointment being the Education Department's disconcerting belief, at one time actually expressed in court proceedings, that the school is not ful filling the precise terms of its original grant.