FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 943, 9 April 1930, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN."

PARROT FEVER Mr. Charles Bills, of Dunedin, a recognised authority on parrots, asserts that recent deaths cannot be attributed to psittacosis, but more probably to a trouble known as “sniffles/* If your parrot’s pale and wan, And you think: he’ll soon be gone. And you crave a satisfactory diagnosis. Hearken, then, to Mr. Bills, Who will tell you there are ills Just as deadly in effect as psittacosis. Should you hear your favourite sniffle Do not deem the warning piffle That a melancholy ailment this presages, Not the fever known as hay (Parrots seldom get that way). But a trouble more distressing and contagious. t Every healthy parrot mocks Whooping cough or chickenpox, And although this psittacosis seems the fashion, It is not (says Mr. Bills) This disease that really kills Classic objects of a maiden lady’s passion. * * * TIME PLEASE The idea that a traffic inspector might be incapable of reading a stop watch accurately is perhaps so ludicrous that it has never been thought of before as a method of defence in motor cases. But the incredible has now happened, and at a place so otherwise advanced as Papakura. Those who aspire to have motorists convicted of speeding will now have to pass tests in this important phase of their work, or else they will have to rely on the playful practice, of chasing the offender in another car, and checking his speed by the speedometer. Speedometers vary so much that even this method is not judicially infallible, but it is lots of fun. THE WRESTLER The possibility of a new terror in local Rugby is hinted in the report that one of the city clubs has been endeavouring to enlist the support of George Walker, the well-known wrestler, for its scrum. The presence of wrestlers in Rugby is not altogether new. Ike Robin, who in his spare time was, and probably is, a lay preacher, used to assist a Hawke’s Bay club. But not all tlie wrestlerfootballers have invested their wrestling with the fearsome characteristics which made Walker such a deservedly popular figure last wrestling season. If the debonair but chunky George performed on Eden Park some of the leaps, Catherine wheels, flying tackles, and other acrobatics that he performed at the Town Hall, the grandstands and terraces surrounding the ground would be packed as never before —but there would soon be very few footballers left on the field for Mr. Walker to practise on. TWO SCHOOLS If Auckland’s War Memorial Museum is a finer spectacle, Wellington’s war memorial carillon has perhaps attracted more outside interest. M. Paul Serre. the French consul, sends the following interesting comment from a French paper, “L’Europeen”:— “To honour the memory of those killed in the war we have raised monuments in stone, in bronze. The people ot' New Zealand have had a more original idea. They have preferred to pay homage in music rather than architecture and it is with the sound of bells that they will remember their countrymen who died at the war. The English papers tell us of the beautiful' harmony of this war memorial carillon which, for the moment, is in London, and which will soon be on its way to the faraway Dominion. Thanks to the initiative of the ‘Daily Sketch’ the carillon was provisionally installed in Hyde Park and Londoners had the pleasure of hearing it. For a week, at midday, at three o’clock and at six o’clock recitals were given to a delighted throng. For this is an extraordinary carillon which recalls the most beautiful chimes possessed by the Netherlands and which plays with equal facility a largo of Handel, a minuet of Mozart, a nocture of Chopin, funeral marches, hunting songs, etc. What will be played on this ‘War Memorial’ in the capital of New Zealand? Sad airs? Gay tunes? Both, no doubt, and ‘lt’s a Long Way’ will not be forgotten, nor those marching songs so dear to the soldiers; the last songs which they hummed before going to their death . . . ” DEMENTED HOUSEMAID Contrasting with the French writer’s delicacy of thought and sentiment is an expression of opinion by Mr. Philip Guedalla, the English essayist, who, writing to “The Times” concerning the proposal to place a permanent replica of the Wellington carillon in Hyde Park, London, stated: “One learns with apprehervsion that we are promised a perpetuation of the carillon which, housed in a cardboard lighthouse, ennobles the central spaces of Hyde Park with music that reminds some of Belgium, and others of a demented kitchenmaid playing upon tin trays. I make no attempt to decide between these schools of thought.” A writer in “New Zealand News,” published in London, at once noted that according to “Who’s Who,” Mr. Guedalla, who was 25 when the war broke out, “served as legal adviser, Contracts Department, War Office, and Ministry of Munitions,” and “organised and acted as secretary of the Flax Control Board” (1917-1920), which service, while undoubtedly useful, scarcely entitled him to be insulting about the Wellington carillon, whose music had passed the test of far better critics than himself.