FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1037, 30 July 1930, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

"THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

TAKE YOUR TURK

Members of Parliament are considerably dissatisfied because they have not been given special booking privileges for the fourth Test by the New Zealand Rugby Union. —News item. They take a percenlage from our cash, Then use their sagacious brains In making it harder to cause a "splash" With the little that now remains. . . . But, alas for their pride, they must stand In the queue For seats at the side, like the rest of us do! They help themselves to our private purse Aiid they cut eacli subsidy gift— They appear as bandits bold (or worse) With a banner emblazoned "Thrift." . . . And yet they complain when the U.F.U. Has a mind for gain, and Is thrifty too! —M.E. • e * 77.1 TUH .1 ND TAR Spoiling the ship for a ha'porth of tar is a wise and reasonable proceeding compared with the Government's decision to abandon work on the Blue Bath at Rotorua, now that a gang lias partially demolished the existing structure and turned the locality into what an incensed Rotorua resident has termed a "rubbish dump.” Although it, was a delightful place for a swim -(if you wero prepared to swim in small circles), the old bath had little to recommend it to the modern tourist. It was small to the point of absurdity, the building was dingy and depressing, and the concrete was discoloured and cracked. One of those pleasing and up-to-date tiles that help to improve city swimming pools would have felt as out ot place in the Blue Bath as a man wearing a dress suit in a dosshouse. But the old bath was better than no bath at all. If the Government persists'in refusing to erect a new building, it might consider clearing the ground and turning the old pool into an open-air bathingplace.

REAUTIFYJNG If nothing is done, visitors to Rotorua will have the choico of standing in a queue at the Duchess Bath, taking medical advice as to the wisdom of lolling in the curative baths, enduring the singularly dungeon-like atmosphere of the spout baths, of procuring a supply of aromatic salts of a watersoftening character and making use of the bathrooms in their respective hotels. In which case they will discover very speedily that they might as well have stayed at home. Of course, the local residents will always be able to point to the Public Works dump on the site of the Blue Bath and enlarge upon the possibilities of the future, but tourists are notoriously impatient people. The situation reminds the L.O.M. of an occasion when he was travelling "by taxi in the suburbs of a certain New Zealand town. For about a block the machine bumped over a section of road that looked like a pi /ughed field. On either side was waste Jand heaped with soil and debris—a doleful spectacle. Finally he asked: “What is all this?" The taximan glanced at the mess. “Oh, that,” he said seriously. "That's the Beautifying Society. They’re fixin’ up the place.” WHOOPEE INDEED! "Whoopee Excursions to Nowhere." Here is an alluring title for trips in Cunard liners from the docks of New York to any point on the vasty deep beyond America’s 12-mile liquor limit. It is difficult, somehow, to associate such a breezy, almost irresponsible slogan with the dignified Cunard tradition, but one cannot escape the facts as presented by a snappy little cable. For the first excursion which, even at this moment, will be in uproarious progress, the liner California carried 16,331 bottles of liquor for 500 women and 300 men, or something more than 20 bottles each. Whoopee indeed! But why the odd number of bottles? Possibly the caterers made an allowance of 331 for breakages, in which case they must have been anticipating what is known in convivial circles as a hectic session. TWENTY AN HOUR!. Methinks, however, that the cable agency unconsciously libelled tile California’s guests rather more than they deserve. Said the message: Five hundred women and 300 men then tackled the job of consuming 16,331 bottles of liquor within an hour after leaving New York. Now that would be a prodigious feat; in fact, an impossible one unless years of prohibition have saddled Americans with a capacity for absorption comparable only to the sands of the Sahara. Perhaps we would be nearer the truth if the sentence were transposed to read: “Within an hour after leaving New York, 500 women and . . .” Yes, that's much more feasible. Why bother about it, any way? The whole proposition is so stupid, so bestial, so hypocritical, so contrary to the spirit of the Act and its Amendments. . . . Let’s see, now When are they holding their next excursion?