Local Brain Makes Good

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 490, 12 November 1948, Page 18

Local Brain Makes Good

ID LENING to the final session of the All-New Zealand Quiz I was tempted to take back my earlier harsh remark about totalitarianism, for the undisguised dictatorship of the earlier sessions had now given place to a benevolent despotism. The authorities went out of | their way to put the candidates at their ease, a gestyre obviously quite unnecessary, since the candidates were by now so accustomed to a diet of hard facts that human angles meant nothing to them. Since the beginning of the contest 84 had been successfully and efficiently eliminated, and the four remeining were almost all pure intellect. There was therefore no need of stern winnowing of wheat from chaff, it was merely a matter of arranging in order of merit, and the quizmaster was liberality itself in belaying to those in difficulties enough rope either to hang or extricate _themselves. The field bunched closely near the. beginning, but Wellington’s Winchester drew ahead of the opposing brains in the third lap, taking his last three fences with an ease that drew gasps of admiration from his audience and gave him an easy win. It was a thrilling contest, and my enjoyment %prang not only from the excitement of the contest itself but from the satisfaction I got from learning at long last just what the Mason-Dicon line is-the only fact I have yet learnt from a quiz that I have actually wanted. to know.