FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 887, 3 February 1930, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

TAXI TROUBLES During a taxi -war in Chicago a driver and official of one competing company were shot from a passing car. —Cable news. A taxi war will draw no gore, At least, in Auckland streets. For enterprise we recognise, And each firm that competes Contents itself, in search of pelf, With mei'ely cut-throat rates. The drivers here are not in fear Of shots from passing cars. All fusillades and gangsters’ raids Ea.ch company debars. This may seem slow, but you must know, It’s safer than the States. —M.F. * s * A FAMOUS NAME The wireless message from Sir Douglas Mawson, now in polar seas, telling of his meeting with the Norwegian ship Norvegia under the command of the famous explorer, Captain Larsen, prompts the observation that the name of Larsen is one to conjure with iu Norwegian seafaring circles. The man who commanded the Sir James Clark Ross, forerunner of the present Antarctic whaling fleet, was the late Captain C. A. Larsen, one of Norway’s most skilful and experienced whalers. He died in the Ross Sea on December 7, 1924, while making his second trip South, and his body was embalmed with the extempore but effective aid of methylated spirits and placed in a glass-topped coffin in his cabin, where it remained until the vessel returned to Norway. The C. A. Larsen, the whaling-eating ship of the fleet, is named after the dead pioneer. ST BLAIZE’S DAY Today is St. Blaize’s Day. Today New Zealand is facing the unpleasant fact that wool prices have dropped from the perch they occupied last season. These two announcements appear hopelessly unrelated until one discovers that St. Blasius, to give him his proper title, is the patron saint of wool peopi i. In his day he was the Armenian Bishop of Sebaste, and he met the unhappy fate of being torn to pieces with the iron combs used in preparing wool. For this good and sufficient reason he was adopted as the patron saint of those in the wool business. Though the day passes unrecognised in New Zealand, the English wool centres, such as Bradford, have been accustomed to hold a septennial jubilee on February 3 and, not so long ago, the affair was marked by considerable pomp and ceremony. At one time there was a general observance of St. Blaize’s Day in England, and it was customary to light bonfires on hilltops, but it is more than likely that an inauguration of the practice in New Zealand this year would he a more or less dismal failure. TWO FATAL SHOTS The people of Serbia need no reminder of the name of Gavrilo Princip, the fanatical student who, in the ancient village of Serajevo on June 28. 1914, set a spark to Europe by shooting the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand and his slim and graceful wife. Yesterday, however, the relatives of Princip unveiled a table to his memory on the spot of his crime. Undoubtedly the ceremony will recall to townsfolk and peasants the strange history of the gorgeous motor-car in which the Archduke travelled to Serajeva on that fatal day. When he purchased the machine, its brilliant blood colour caused the superstitious peasantry to title it the “Red Devil,’’ and, on several ocacsions, their dire predictions were brought to the notice of the Archduke. He laughed, and, on the day of his death, made a point of ignoring a special train and travelling in the powerful tourer. After the tragedy the peasants attributed its cause to the car, and declared that its sinister career was not over. They were right. “RED DEVIL'S” CAREER When the war began General Potiorek, in command of the then victorious Austrian Southern Army, commandeered the “Red Devil,” for it was easily the fastest car in Europe. On the day it carried him to the front his troops met their first reverse and, in twelve hours he was defeated and disgraced. Ultimately he was confined in a mental hospital. From that time on the record of the car was one of disaster and death. While in the service of the Austrians it killed two peasants and a chauffeur, was taken over by General Sarkotic, injured him, and killed two more peasants. When the general abandoned Bosnia, the devil-car was seized by the Jugoslav governor, who lost an arm following a crash into a tree. After the war the car was purchased by a Dr. M. Srskic, who was found dead under it on a perfectly straight road. Subsequent owners were a Bosnian land owner (committed suicide for no apparent reason), Peter Sveatitch (injured in a collision), M. Blunti, of Vienna <found dead beside the machine), and T. Hirschfield, of Cluj, who painted the “Red Devil” blue and killed five people in a dreadful accident on the way to a wedding. In the last tragedy, which occurred in 1927. the car was completely destroyed.