FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 893, 10 February 1930, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

COINCIDENCE A curious financial coincidence is being chatted about in the city. Shortly before the war a farmer put £2,500, his entire capital, into a farm in the North. In addition h» was financed by an Auckland firm, but bad times came along, he failed to make the farm pay, and in 1913 the firm sold him up. Practically penniless, he came to the city and secured employment in an insurance office. The years have passed and the exfarmer has done well in his new sphere. Recently he succeeded in signing up the firm that pushed him off his farm for a comprehensive superannuation scheme covering the whole of New Zealand. His percentage commission was £2,500. Once or twice there comes to every man a chance to turn the tables on his creditors, but rarely in so neat a manner as this. TWO VESSELS The news of the day provides another coincidence that probably will - be unique in Auckland shippingcircles. Lloyd’s Register contains records of only two vessels of the name of Ferndale. One is a steamer of the Aberdeen-Commonwealth Line which left Auckland on Thursday evening after being classed by local experts as one of the smartest and best-equipped cargo ships that have visited this port. The other is a Norwegian motor-ship. The coincidence lies in the fact that the Norwegian ship will arrive from San Francisco at the end of the month. Thus the Waitemata ■ will have sheltered the only ships in the world bearing the name of Ferndale, one within a few weeks of the other. Incidentally the typically British name must have appealed to the Norwegians, who usually change the names of ships purchased, as this one was, from British makers. * * * A BOMB EXPLODED So the bomb in the British Museum is probably a practical joke, organised for the purpose of selling the story to a Sunday paper. Thus collapses an Eastern plot with a Sax Rohmer flavour that intrigued London and excited Scotland Yard. It is by no means the first time newspapers and the public have been defrauded in this fashion, for even the best of journals can be fooled with comparative ease by anyone willing to go to the trouble of arranging a suitable hoax. The difficulty is to make any money out of the business, for the majority of newspapers are wise enough to withhold payments for odd stories until time has proved them correct. There have been occasions, however, when famous newspapers have been fooled into giving free advertising, one of the most successful being that of Barmim’s joke about the milk baths. MILK BATHS The famous American showman had engaged at great expense an actress noted in Europe but comparatively little known in the United States. AVhen she arrived in New York Barnum was faced with the publicity problem. Accordingly he devised the absurd “milk bath” story that subsequently was done to death by being coupled with the name of everv second stage player who wished to achieve notoriety. Barnum instructed a milk vendor to leave several gallons of milk daily at his actress’s fiat and, a week or so later, he arranged in a round-about manner for a reporter to be told of the phenomenal quantity of milk being consumed by Miss So-and-So. Scenting a story, the reporter hurried to the flat, where, behind closed doors, the latest consignment of milk was being poured down the sink. He was received courteously and informed gravely that his suspicions were correct. Miss So-and-So indulged in a milk bath every day. _ Thus began free, front-page publicity coupled with medical opinions, and the views of beauty culturists that were worth more to Barnum than all the milk in New Jersey But, you say, the actress may have taken milk baths and enjoyed them. The answer is, try one yourself and see how you like it. POLITICAL BRAWLERS

Instances of political bitterness leading to fisticuffs are as numerous as instances of other political stupidities, but the ex-Minister of Labour and member of the South African Senate surely has established a record by knocking out an opponent with such efficiency that he remained unconscious for half an hour. The victim, a member for Natal, must have been unaware of his opponent’s physical prowess for he appears to have been willing to give as much as he got up to the moment when he was put to sleep. The British House of Commons has had its hectic moments, but nothing so drastic as this corridor encounter. Perhaps the only worthy parallel is the celebrated occasion in Auckland’s old Parliament, near what is now Anzac Avenue, when the celebrated Mr. H. Seawell, of Canterbury, -assaulted one Mackay with his own umbrella and began a general fracas that made the administration a byword throughout the colonies.