FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 968, 10 May 1930, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

TOUJOURS LA ’POLITE SSE:

A fight between the chairman and the ex-chairman at an unemployed meeting in St. Matthew’s Church Hall was aired in the Police Court yesterday. When unemployea g-atner together. And meet in St. Matthew's Church Hall, They’ve not reached the end of their tether Until they’ve indulged in a brawl. Ex-chairman approaches the chairman. And thunders in suitable strain, “Good Lord, man you’ve actually got the brazen-faced impudence to contradict me—you hook-nosed, buck teethed pigeon-toed double-chinned cross-eyed bandy-legged monstrosity. I'll knock your !?!>(./. I?! head off, do you hear, man?” You can tell that they're at it again! When feelings are thus manifested. It isn’t the slightest bit odd, If the congress is promptly arrested. And the quorum is landed in quod. To the ex-chairman's gentle oration The chairman gets up and replies:— “Any more blank-dash insolence, you swivel-eyed lop-eared eyesore—you disfigurement to the landscape—you undisinfected excrescence—and I’ll IO.?!5/.|?!! well chuck you out, you red-haired knock-kneed conglomeration.” And that is how Donnybrooks rise PAKITI. * * * STRANGE IDOLS One Porter, with whose pious declarations the general public will no doubt have a certain amount of sympathy, was fined £2 yesterday for waving a pound note about and shouting, “This is my god.” If all the people in Auckland who regarded a banknote with the same veneration were to be fined a similar slim, there would be a substantial addition to the national revenue. , The chief point to te noted, however, is that Mr. F. K. Hunt for once missed a great opportunity to score. He might easily have rounded the case off nicely by declaring: “Fined a couple of gods.” HOLDING THE FORT Fort Street is at present “up,” which means that entrenchments on an elaborate scale have been formed along one side of it, though for no more offensive purpose than the relaying of power cables. Nevertheless, the general appearance of the sector suggests some warlike strategy. It would be a good occasion for rival houses across the street to fight their differences to a finish, or for unemployed in belligerent mood to entrench themselves and be starved out In the meantime pedestrians skip adeptly over parapets and communication trenches. Fort Street is now what it Avas named after, a military post of defence. TESTIMONIAL The ease with which apparently innocent concoctions can become highly intoxicating seems to be illustrated In the case of the hop beer retailed by a local brewer of temperance products. In this case some of those who absorbed the output felt all the symptoms usually associated only with stronger products. Some of those who hitherto had been strangers to this sensation must have wondered at the source of their sudden exhilaration. Hardened topers, of course, would have no difficulty in ex plaining it. Many may have felt like returning at once to the scene of their purchase, and in happier circumstances the episode might have been closed by the free and unsolicited testimonial, “Since then I have used no other.” POTENT PARSNIPS It is well known to persons who brew their own light wines and beer that occasionally their home-made products assume an unexpected deadliness. It is all a matter of distribution of the ingredients in correct proportion, coupled with certain other technicalities unlikely to be of any interest to readers of this column. At any rate, the upshot of any error is that Dad is presently seen staggering round the kitchen in a delightful stupor, while Sam, the eldest son, who comes in to taste the finished article, is soon seen slapping him on the back with a good deal of unfilial gusto. Nearly all home brews are capable of harbouring this unsuspected potency, but among connoisseurs of domestic vintages the laurels will probably go to parsnip wine. The parsnip in its early form is a singularly uninspiring vegetable, but in fluid guise it ranks with dynamite as a short cut to oblivion. LONG SKIRTS Women have capitulated before the vogue of the long skirt. Everywhere they go, according to advice from London and other fashionable centres, their hems are sweeping the ground, and each day sees thousands more victims of the fashion. It is early yet to predict what effect this will have upon the silk, satin, cotton, wool, or other fabric industries, but in the meantime earnest observers are seriously perturbed. Lady Duff-Gordon declared at a conference that the long skirt would never return. “Men will stop it,” she said, “and the girl who wears them is a fool.” But it is merely tedious repetition. We said that much ourselves three, months ago, and one conclusion is borne in upon us forcibly now—that if the girl who wears long skirts is a fool, the man who tries to stop her is a bigger one.