FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 912, 4 March 1930, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN."’ REPRISALS London University girls seriously debated the question of -whether life is worth living after 30. Is life a boon, or is it just a burden? Does thirty mean we say our last farewell To all those joys that yield us fleeting guerdon. And after that retreat into a shell, From out of which we gaze, all soured and shirty. At ail the glad young creatures under thirty? Oh, flappers, lasses, maids and other ladies. Who sip the effervescent draught of youth. Nor of that stern and cobwebbed That waits you when you’re thirty-odd forsooth. You little dream as through the dance you sway How short a time you have in which to play. But when old Anno Domini, grown fickle. Beside your path a withered garland strews, Dispute his right to swing the fatal sickle— There's always an alternative to choose— If thirty means the end of things divine, Be modern, girls, and stay at twentynine! * * * COME-BACK Jack Dempsey, who .embraced the matrimonial state and subsequently announced his retirement from the ring, has now undergone a searching medical test as a preliminary to renewing his pugilistic career. With men like Dempsey fighting is a drug. With, ordinary citizens, the trouble encountered on the domestic hearth is sufficient, without going outside the home for it. But hard-boiled fellows like Dempsey either require a double ration, or maybe take up fighting again for the sake of peace and quiet. NEGATIVE Among the countless couples who pair themselves off every year, it has been left to a French girl to supply the obvious answer to the questions submitted at the altar. Having got her reluctant swain to the altar, she crushed him to dust by returning an emphatic “No” to the familiar “Wilt thou, etc.” Presumably the only reason why this has never been done before is that nobody has thought of it. The •leading questions in the marriage service have hence tended to become part of an empty formula, but this departure should give them a new lease of life. At first sight a new peril for the prospective husband seems imminent; but it is consoling to reflect that there are two sides to every matrimonial contract, and that if last-minute reversals become the fashion, bridegrooms as well as brides may have a say in the matter. THE OPPORTUNIST In the Club of Queer Trades Mr. Alec Aloie, Chicago’s champion wreck victim, has insistent claims for membership. His little device is to insure himself with different companies under different names, and then when an accident occurs, rush to the scene and in a sufficiently dishevelled and disreputable condition take his place among the victims. In Chicago, of course, opportunities for an ingenious business man like Mr. Aloie would be of frequent occurrence, but anyone aspiring to perform the same feats here would have to operate in a narrower field. Yet even in New Zealand “wreck victims” have at times gathered a harvest. One of the most influential figures in an important line of business got his start from a large and totally disproportionate sum paid him by the Government after a train accident some 20 years ago. * if BY THE WAY Perhaps the most engaging feature of walks round the world is that while the start is usually accomplished with due fanfare, the halt by the wayside that spells the end of the effort is unaccompanied by publicity. If half the intending round-the-world walkers kept going, a constant procession of them would be passing through the capitals of the globe. It is conservatively estimated that once every minute of the day someone sets out to walk, bicycle or push a perambulator round the world, and that once every minute and a-half (or less) one of those already walking abandons his effort. The latest to give the flourishing industry a stimulus is Anthony Ormond, a New Zealander, who estimates that his self-imposed task will take seven years. It is one way of seeing the world, but if the peripatetic sightseers put into ordinary toil the amount of energy expended In walking some 25,000 miles, at the end of the seven years they would have accumulated sufficient money to see the world in considerably greater comfort.