FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 933, 28 March 1930, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK OUT MAN.’'

1930 MODEL The new trams for Point Chevalier are six inches wider than the old ones. Sing a song of Epsom; Parnell and Sandringham, Six-and-eighty passengers Squashed in a train. Four-and-twenty standing Clinging to the hide, Seven on the landing When she’s full inside. But none of this confusion Ever will occur In the little suburb Of Point Chevalier. None of this disorder. Blows and kicks and pinches, Now the trams are broader By half a dozen inches! i “Pakiti.” THE SELECTOR An inveterate punster entered headquarters this morning to observe that his favourite form of humour was nicely demonstrated in the appointment of Mr. George Nicholson as sole selector to the Auckland Rugby Union. He explained that it did not need this appointment to make Mr. Nicholson a sole selector. The joke is rather deeply buried. It appears that Mr. Nicholson is a bootmaker. ORGAR ORGY Running an organ these days is almost as expensive as running a car. It costs Holy Trinity Church, Devonport, £7 10s every six months to purvey two hours of hymns and anthems a week, a fact which has, however, elicited little sympathy from the Devonport Borough Council, and little apparent interest beyond allowing the Mayor, Mr. Aldridge to demonstrate the depth of his erudition by remarking that the churchmen’s plea for a reduction was “pure casuistry.” Bylaws, of course, are not made to lie broken, and water at Devonport is precious. Unfortunately water used for raising the wind in a church organ cannot be classed as fluid used for industrial purposes, though it is a fact that sometimes pumping an organ demands strenuous industry on the part of the person who pumps. CHOIR BOYS' DAY Colleagues whose early piety led them to serve in church choirs have come forward with many stories of church organs. In a country church where the organ, though beautifully toned, was w-orked by a wheezy handpump, the relatives of a charmingbride undertook to play the organ, one playing, the other, a small girl, working the pump. All went well until the bride entered the church, when the strains suddenly eased, the younger relative on the pump having ceased operations in her feminine eagerness to peer at the bride’s gown. There was also the almost historic case of St. Matthew’s Church, Dunedin, where the huge organ was run by a waterdriven Pelton wheel. Larrikins one Sunday drove a wooden stopper Into the four-inch outlet pipe under the pavement outside, injuring the mechanism and half flooding the church. The choir boys thought that was a great day. THOSE COCKTAILS Dear L.O.M., —It seems to me the latest attack on our communal sobriety .might well be celebrated in rhyme. What’s wrong with poor old Auckland? AVhat have we sinners done? They used to blame our troubles on . The spots upon the stin. But now prepare for trouble— If what they say is true. We’ll really get it in the neck. The daughter’s spotting, tool K.L.R. (Otahuhu). i ... ® [ GRAV STARK LIFE Down at Feilding this week they are playing the annual New Zealand polo tournaments. Feilding is a town of no particular renown, except that on the night of the Mafeking celebrations during the Boer War it sent out the historic message: “Feilding remains calm.” But from the polo point of view It Is handily situated to Hawke’s Bay, Wairarapa, and other rural areas whence young men with fast ponies come to indulge in the dashing, debonair, dangerous game of polo, in between times driving fast cars and per haps attending the Polo Ball, which is a major social event of the year. Although played overseas by moneyed men, and for an aristocracy-loving democracy the symbol of picturesque, Graustark life, polo is a hard, almost a “roughneck” game. It demands nerve, skill, fitness and superb horsemanship. The premier gaud in New Zealand polo is the Savill Cup, presented by F. J. Savill, of the spacious, mountainous St. Helen’s run, away up in the high lands of North Canterbury. With polo's implications, it is perhaps appropriate that the symbol of supremacy should have been presented by. a man who owns 33,000 sheep, one of the three largest flocks in New Zealand.