From The Watch Tower

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 988, 3 June 1930, Page 8

From The Watch Tower

By ! i j

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

FOOTBALL METHODS In a football match at Thames on Saturday only 11 players escaped injury. In France the football game is such That critics do not like it much. Just lately, when a lad was killed, They called the pastime rough—unskilled. Across in the United States, (Where “Gridirons’ draw colossal gates), They keep the agitators calmer By rigging players out in armour. In England greater time is spent In making Rugby different, And, if a match is rudely won. They frown and say; “It isn’t done.” The Chinese style is brisk and fast, But courtesy is unsurpassed. And, if the man is crude or brutal. The umpire sounds a warning tootle. New Zealand, with colonial zest, Beiieves that robust play is best. A match at Thames has proved this well, For nineteen out of thirty fell. M.E. THE CLEAN-UP Apropos of lethal football, a connoisseur remarks that the fracas at Thames was mere child's play to a match he once witnessed in Queensland. Teams representing rival parts of a certain town met one broiling afternoon and, as the game progressed, injuries became as plentiful as cracked heads at an Irish fair. Fully a dozen men from either side bit the dust and, in tile closing stages of the clash, the referee was included among the casualties. Someone punted at short range and the face of the man with the whistle intercepted the ball. He retired with swollen features, and the game ended. » * * BORER VICTIMS He whose home has been attacked and reduced in value by that übiquitous creature, the borer, may glean a certain amount of comfort from the fact that the Auckland oyster is a fellow victim. This season’s oysters are threatened by borer, millions of which have been destroyed by men working on the beds. One is left m doubt as to whether tlie oyster borer and the wood borer are members of tlie same family. If so, it is a poor lookout for householders. An insect that can penetrate the shell of an oyster is capable of almost anything. Perhaxis, during the off-season, the experts at present exterminating the pest at the various oyster beds could be persuaded to go into business on shore. Amateur efforts with kerosene and paint are so seldom successful. « * « DANGER VALVES Hand in hand with the announcement that the opening of the oyster season is at hand comes a warning from the Health Department that other shellfish at certain points in the harbour may be infected with typhoid germs from city sewage. Exactly the same danger existed in England a few years ago, and because of it the important Jbckle industry of the “East Coast was threatened. The difficulty was overcome by the building of huge tanks into which the live cockles are placed after being gathered. Their valvular bodies inhale and expel disinfected water until they rid themselves of all trace of infection. Then they are left for a time in a tank of fresh water and a further purification takes place. Finally they are removed, bagged, and sent to the markets. It will be a long time before New Zealand’s population becomes large enough to necessitate such meticulous thrift as this. ‘‘JOHNNIE’’ C.B.E. Nobody’s feelings can be hurt by the prediction that the most popular item in this year’s Birthday Honours will be that announcing the Royal recognition of" Amy (“Johnnie”) Johnson. When the cabled news arrived a lyrical colleague gave utterance thus: Our “Johnnie” flies over the ocean, Our "Johnnie” flies over the sea; And such was the thrill and commotion. That “Johnnie” becomes C.B.E. R.F.H. “IN DATS OF OLD—” E.G.T.—Sir Thomas Wilford has cause to remember the laugh that was “on him” on one occasion when, in his legal capacity, he defended a man charged with cruelty to animals. A short time before, at the General Elections of 1902, when he won the Hutt seat, Mr. Wilford had achieved the shortest speech on record by appearing before his assembled supporters and observing succinctly “Ladies and gentlemen, everything in the garden is lovely.” In the Magistrate’s Court a week later he faced Inspector Seed, of the S.P.C.A., and began his defence with a typical jest: “Your Worship, at last the seed has borne fruit.” Replied the magistrate amid an tiproar of laughter: “Yes, Mr Wilford, and everything in tlie garden is lovely.”