FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 906, 25 February 1930, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

THE VICTOR Mr. J. Tyler. City Engineer, won the old buffers’ chain-stepping event at the Municipal Officers’ picnic on Saturday. He does not hurl the discus, That classically spins, Nor agitates his whiskers v A-tossing javelins. He’s not a quarter-miler, He does not spurn the plain. Athletic Mr. Tyler— He merely steps the chain. Where veteran and buffer In friendly contest meet, Less skilled exponents suffer Frustration at his feet. • Let envious despisers His victory disdain, They, too, deserve the prizes Who only step the chain! AFFRONT TO CHINA Chinese are inscrutable folk, and popularly supposed to be oblivious to the annoyances and irritations that get under the skins of more sensitive races. But -where hundreds of citizens in their dealings" with fruiterers and laundrymen have failed, that gifted comedian. Harold Lloyd, has succeeded. Chinese do not see the humour in “Welcome Danger,” and the world will have to find another race, perhaps the Eskimoes, as a target for its jokes. ISLAND ROMANCE Romance blooms in strange places, and there is hope yet for the unfortunates segregated on Motuihi Island. Not so many years ago when a large liner was quarantined there, one of the passengers was a charming Auckland girl, and another an American business man on his way to Sydney. But for the influenza epidemic, they might have parted, and never met again. But when the quarantined passengers were released from Motuihi after three weeks’ detention, the couple announced their engagement, and today the husband, still engaged in living happily ever after, is an executive in an important Auckland business. The moral is that though isolation and fumigation can make ’flu and smallpox germs down tools, there is a fatal disease called love that is immune from their attentions. CARRYING ON

Gentle dalliance on Motuihi may appeal to some, but not to golfers Hagen and Kirkwood, who have a programme of matches to play in Australia, and intend to play them, even at the risk of being quarantined in Sydney. Hence their New Zealand tour has been cancelled, and local enthusiasts will have to wait until some other time to see the greatest “golfing machine” of the age in action. Possibly it is just as well, for tlie two professionals might have found that New Zealand is not yet educated up to paying 10s a head to watch exhibitions of golf. Incidentally, the news that they are going on blasts the hope that they might have laid out an 18 hole course on Motuihi during the next three weeks, or alternatively set a new golfing record by holing out from the backyard of the quarantine station into the crater of Rangitoto. THE WRECKER Elephants which rock about in their trucks until they overturn the wagon and stop the train, are not very welcome passengers, and Mr. H. H. Sterling, who recently announced a discrimination between high and lowgrade freights on the railways, would classify this particular specimen as very low grade indeed. The accident happened in the Krangahake gorge, between Waihi and Paeroa, and it appears that the misguided elephant rocked with deliberate intent, and kept up the process until its object had been achieved. Somehow it is difficult to see how accidents of this sort can be avoided. A railway porter is a hardened individual, and can deal with sheep, pigs, cattle and even horses. But a refractory elephant is a different proposition, and the best idea might be to switch it into the nearest siding and leave it there to finish its rocking in peace. SPOILS OF THE CHASE Although the largest fish ever caught on a, rod and line is said to have been landed off the South African coast, the visiting African farmers were so impressed with the first New Zealand game fish that they saw ihe other day that they immediately made arrangements to be photographed alongside it. Evidently the man who caught it was a thorough, sportsman. Usually the big game fisherman is so jealous of his catch that he is almost prepared to mount a sentry over it to see that none beside himself is permitted to pose with it. The urge to be photographed In sportive attitude alongside massive trophies of the chase is a well-known human weakness. There is even a type of angler and sportsman whose chief passion is to be photographed in his battle array. One well-equipped angler who could not even catch a kahawai was photographed in action in the swivel chair. His back was bowed, his rod bent, and his line taut with the strain. But it was no fish that he was playing. His line was hooked to the dinghy.