FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1068, 4 September 1930, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

"THE LOOK- OUT MAN."

xprsery rhymes moderxised The length of women’s skirts, says a cable, is now regulated by the clock. Hickory, dickory, dock. Aly lady eyes the clock, And then begins To hide her shins. Hickory, dickory, dock. Little Miss Muffett sat on a tutlett. Bating her curds and whey; IXer dearest friend spied her And started to chide her—"My dear, that skirt is ridiculously long To be worn at this hour of the day." There was an old woman who lived in Site had so many models she didn’t know Each hour of tlio day a fresh kirtle she’d shed. Until in confusion she went off her head. BRIGHTEK A UCKLA Xl> Further suggestions for the guidance of the City Council in its campaign against colour; Prevent the use of any but deep blue, deep brown, deep green, deep white and deep black as colours for motor-cars. Restrict bright colours in football jerseys by not allowing the use of the City recreation grounds to teams not conforming with the colour-schedule. Issue an ultimatum to the Post and Telegraph Department, instructing it to change colours of all posting boxes from pillar-box red to Town Hall grey. TEXAS TERRIER AGAIN A correspondent writes pointing out that the wrestler, Walter Logan, though described on the bills as “The Texas Terrier,” is not really a Texan at all, but a native of Kansas. He was given the name “Texas Terrier" by Texan admirers while wrestling in that State, and it has clung to him ever since. It seems a pity, as “The Kansas Wildcat,” or something of the kind, would sound much more bloodcurdling. But if it is left to local admirers to christen their men, there is a chance for Aucklanders yet; though if they don’t show any more originality than Texas “fans” they will probably end up by calling Logan "The Auckland Airedale."

DECOYS UP-TO-DATE There is a touch of pathos in the cabled story that decoys dressed as fliers were employed to divert the attention of the New York crowd while Costes and Bellonte drove in comfort to their hotel. This is getting the regular thing nowadays and if it progresses much farther we shall have the next series of Rugby Tests between New Zealand and Britain played on some deserted allotment, while at Eden Park two teams of decoys battle before the unsuspecting crowd. Unfortunately the process has its dangers. The crowd may get tired of being taken in and may refrain from attending when distinguished pilots land on their soil. In that event, who would be the first to complain? Two guesses should be sufficient. WHIPPING THE CAT The ever-alert S.P.C.A. is no respector of persons and has pounced on Wing-Commander Grant Dalton, of the New Zealand Air Force, for knocking a. cat on the head instead of drowning it. The officer has been fined £3, so a pretty good case must have been made out. But all potential cat-slayers will hope and trust that this does not mean acceptance of the principle that nothing but drowning is good enough for a cat. Past experience on many occasions has shown that amateurish attempts to drown cats often subject them to more suffering than hitting them on the head, even though the hitting were done with a sledge-hammer. Every householder has at some period or another drowned a cat and walked home to find the resurrected animal licking itself dry on the back doorstep. But it is doubtful whether the cat or the owner suffers the most. The cat has only the brief discomfort of a ducking, but the owner has the misery of feeling himself a murderer, and then the greater misery of finding that the job has to be done all over again. THE EASIER IY.4Y The law these days does not, make things easy for people who want to kill cats. Although Wing-Commander Dalton might have got over his difficulty by drowning the cat in a bucket, he probably had some logical reason for believing that knocking it on the head would give it the quickest exit. He could have taken it down to the wharf and dropped it into the harbour, but a man in the wing-com-mander’s position can hardly stroll down Lambton Quay with a mewing sugar-bag under his arm without the risk of lowering the dignity of the Air Force. As an alternative he could have used a gun, but here the law steps in with its registration regulations, which make the ownership of a gun or rifle such an embarrassing responsibility. The probability is that although the wing-commander is a man addicted td warlike arts, he does not. own a pistol or pea-rifle of his own. Next time he wants to kill a cat he will probably take it up in an airplane and drop it from a great height, preferably on the roof of the S.P.C.A. inspector’s bungalow.