FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 945, 11 April 1930, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOKOUT MAN.”

LESE MAJESTE The German Government’s attempted interference with the national beverage, beer, created a crisis in the Reichstag.—Cable. Where Prussian observances flourish There’s one inexpressibly dear, A worthy tradition to nourish The spirit of nationhood —beer. Repeated surrenders may harden Dour Fritz to the conqueror's shaft, But still in the tavern or garden He’ll quaff the ambrosial draught. Atfd just as it warms his existence —To drink with convivial cheer. He’ll offer the stoutest resistance To statesmen who threaten his beer. His love and respect for his lager Is lofty, serene, and divine. A part of his national saga, They call it the Watch on the Stein. SILENT SPELL Everything in the radio garden' is lovely. The matches between New Zealand teams and the British Rugby side will be broadcast, and the New Zealand Radio Broadcasting Company, isn’t paying a cent, not even in the way of a contribution toward the cost of installations for patients in hospitals. But there is many a slip between the microplsone and the loudspeaker. One is reminded of the occasion when a painstaking official set up his apparatus in front of a large crowd at an important match, and broadcast loudly throughout the first spell. All the people in the grandstand round him were listening in intently. They couldn’t help it. At half-time the official telephoned the station to find how things were going. He got the shock of his life. They had forgotten all about him. The power hadn’t been switched on. MISREPORTED On reading that the Mayor of Auckland had said, flatly, “No” to a request that a civic reception he given the New Zealand fliers, Piper and Kay, we guessed it was all wrong. The Mayor would never have said anything like that. He is too tactful, too steeped in delicacy of thought and deed, to commit himself to such a brutal negative. Even the statement that there are tpo many civic receptions seemed foreign to Mr. Baildon. One who is so ready to oblige at country race meetings, in handing out cups or hanging ribbons round a winner's neck, would never find the processes of civil courtesy a burden. It may be perfectly true that a deputation of responsible citizens interpreted the Mayor’s attitude in this way, hut such a refusal looks awfully bad in print. As soon as we read it we knew one more public man had been misreported. MAY QUEEN Charming intimacy is claimed for a biography of her Majesty the Queen by Lady Charlotte Cavendish, but judged by the standards of intimacy achieved by the American magazine, “Time,” in a recent article captioned, “May Queen,” Lady Charlotte does not know the meaning of the word. “Time” recalls, for instance, that to all the world the Queen was "“Princess May” before she became Queen Mary in 1910, and mentions that the King still calls her Majesty “May.” Before her marriage to King George the Queen was engaged to the late Duke of Clarence, who among his fellow-undergra-duates at Cambridge was known, according to "Time’s” searching contributor, as “Collar and Cuffs.” After the death of the late Queen Mother, Alexandra, Queen Mary went, after a decent interval, and unlocked two doors on which Alexandra had turned the key. In one bedroom everything, down to the smallest shirt stud, was exactly as King Edward had left it. In the other lay a little pile of coins, exactly as they had fallen, 34 years before, from the hand of ‘Collar and Cuffs.’ ” LAST CROSS “The last great cross . . . which the good Queen has had to bear was lifted by the death of King Edward’s widow in 1925. To the last the proud royal mother-in-law styled herself on engraved invitations, 'The Queen,’ and to the last Queen Mary used the same engraver’s weapon to remind Alexandra that she was only ‘the Queen Mother.’ ” Recently after her Majesty had entertained the wives of delegates to the London naval parley at tea, she surprised her guests by walking straight at a wall which consists of a huge mirror, in front of which stood a half table. Just when it seemed that her Majesty’s sight must be failing, that she had mistaken the mirror for a passage, the contraption suddenly revolved upon noiseless hinges, and the Queen vanished. “This is merely the Queen’s way of retiring to her boudoir. To he put through by telephone to the Queen’s boudoir, one must give a private code word, such as ‘K. Rose. If one does know the number and combination, one is instantly put through. In the violent suffragette days the Queen was shocked on answering her elephone to have shouted at her: ‘Are you in favour of votes for women?’ The suffragettes had wormed the secret code out of Miss Constance Selby, the Queen's dresser.’’ .