FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 952, 21 April 1930, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By ‘

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN."

LUNCH-HOUR ROMANCE As the autumn melts into winter, the number of those who take lunch daily in Albert Park falls away, but there is still a faithful. band which goes up there whenever an hour of midday sunshine gives them pretext. It is pleasant sitting upon the smooth lawns that slope so nicely to the sun. Many of those who frequent the park at the lunch hour go there in couples, and the couples are not always of the same sex. It is probable that many a romance has been hatched up there during the communion over a frugal packet of sandwiches. At any rate, there was evidence of romance the other day in a relic cast aside with some lunch papers. It was a perforated card used for determining the size of a ring. Perhaps in this case the romance had broken down, for the card was torn up. AL FRESCO But although romance blooms sometimes in the lunch hour in Albert Park, more often the open-air lunchers—or ai fresco lunchers, as certain would have had it —go there merely to eat, sleep, -write letters, read or lie in the sun. Some work out abstruse mathematical problems in the margin of the paper that has held their lunch. Others spread out the morning paper and go to* sleep on it —an amazing case of lese majeste. Some people do not even require sunshine as an inducement to an open-air lunch. They go there, wet or fine, sitting under the broad phoenix palms If shelter is .needed from the rain. That prompts an interesting question—whc\e do the others take their lunch packet on wet days? Perhaps they do not take it anywhere, but just munch it solemnly in the office. IN PYJAMAS One of the interesting social tendencies of the times is the rise in social status of the pyjama. Only the other day someone whispered of a suburban pyjama party attended by very reputable members of society. Perhaps the mode of colour in the newer pyjamas is filling a deficiency by radiating a brightness no dinner sujt could possibly have shed. There was also the recent pyjama party in a billiard-room in Dominion Road, while at the beaches during the summer nothing but pyjamas and bathing suits have been worn to any extent at all among those who what the well-dressed are wearing. Incidentally, it is on record that when the Emden put in at Louisiana, U.S.A., during her recent world cruise, the Governor of that State received her captain and officers in green silk pyjamas. Captain Lothar von Arnauld -was highly indignant, but the Governor naively explained that it was the custom in that part of the country and that, in any case he, being a Governor by accident, did not know any better. PERSIAN PANTALOONS To many people the wearing of pyjamas by day appears highly immoral, but it is not so many years since that interpretation was placed on the wearing of them by night. Investigation of the subject shows that the word pyjamas is an Angliclised form of the Persian word, “pa’ejama,” meaning a loosely flowing pair of pantaloons' supported by a girdle or cummerbymd. By reason of this derivation, the modern pyjamaclad male (and female) probably has a link with Ali Baba and his forty thieves, who no doubt affected the latest fashion in pa’ejamas in their 'day. If the East has so long withstood the effects of pyjamas as day wear, the influence of the newer mode in the Occident may not be so demoralising, after all. The fact probably is that the pyjama suit has already done its worst. Its invasion has driven the old-fashioned nightshirt from its last strongholds. But when pyjamas are worn generally by day, the nightshirt may come back into its own. LORD DEWAR S INTERESTS

An animal-lover of amazingly varied taste was the late Lord Dewar, according to Mr. Eliot Davis, of Auckland, who was counted among the famous nobleman’s close friends. On his beautiful East Grinstead estate of 350 acres, -with its original John O'Gaunt shooting-box, its rockeries, waterfalls and running streams, he bred not only racehorses, but Friesian cattle, greyhounds, Sealyham dogs, Jiigeons, poultry and rabbits. Nevertheless, racing was Lord Dewar's bestloved hobby, his thoroughbreds being scoured regardless of price. On one occasion when Mr. DaVis was in England, this immensely wealthy but unassuming man paid 17,000 guineas for the mare Silvretta. After being raced once, although only a three-year-old, she was retired to the stud simply on account of her breeding. For many years Lord Dewar s luck was mediocre, tut later he succeeded in winning many races with the progeny of Abbots’ Trace. At his poultry farm many wonderful birds were to be seen, and he was known to send away as many as 250 birds in one pigeon race.