Ramdom

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 212, 4 September 1920, Page 18

Ramdom

Zamil

Some write 11 nciglllmiir'K name to nisii, Some write—vain thought for needful cast, Some write tv please I lie country clash A.-.d raise a din; For mc. an aim 1 never fash, 1 write for fuu. "In the sprins 11 voiniff 1 inarrio i. man's fancy lifililly turns 1., ;!.. ti->:t-irf" pas bills. Ki'lt'on seems to be a better sculler than 11 sport. Hurry is both. -M"M"5"i"l"H-* "I have been milking; shirts for him." says Hurry's wife, "ill" tirst I ever made, but he would not Imve c»t .t'li-m if he had not. wen." Since thi'.x arp Mrs. I'.iirrv's lirst cfl'ort. perhaps llarrj ill he sorry he iliiln't lose. I'.ut tins mltlH v new terror to married life. We may imagine Mr. Land Ag,'ent bavin- for town in the morniii.tr. "Now. Jim." says his wife, iiH she brushes crumbs oil' his coat, "you sell tli,,> property 10-iluy. or I wont lini.h th. -c s,.d,s for you." -M"I-4"»"«"M"K' I .ht,. is a revival of ilitere,t in Hie nii.M-nicnt to import (lonieMic mTViiiil* from Kujjlanil. The followinj; story, ' from a i.ceiit Kli){lish paper, is ihercfore !In (he point. Saiil a l.on.lin servant to km a-ent. who whs c\p«ti j ntiiifj on the nilviinln.a-s of life in the '. il.inics: So. thank you. sir: you sec. I likis "oiii? where "nt anil eld's laid on." I'erlinps she thought all New Zenlanders Mive in tents. lint there are plenty of 'people like her in New Zealand. |H-oplo I who 11 n- lost and miserable aw,.? from , t In- lull ~cl ol Illuileril coiiMMiiences. ! Ainiil the yluom in the ail «i>rl.l i" Auckland eaii,«pil by Mich thina« n- the viuuiniisin at St. .lohr.'s t ollpjjp, niu' the pro|,<s,il to have the city war memorial iilesifiued by the t ity Iviyineer. there are 'one 'or two'gleams of li.-lit. < >nc is the line jvvar memorial put up by the St. Paul"people at their corner. It is simph*. beautiful, and a real memorial of what it sets out to commemorate. The other i> tiie Victoria league's Maori War mi'innrial in Symoml-i Street. Some people may lliink the obelisk t<lo <.|U:it; tint there will lie general agreement thai the lijture is beautiful and striking, .mil i that the whole idea is a I change from the Mcreot vped an.l somi j times hideous fiiinu that monumen'.al memurialrt take. It breaks new l'joiiihl and leads one to hope that Auckland will show much more originality 111 the future than it ii;i< done. I'.ut it ,- indent lliat in' are not yet educate I l<. the point when we can be tr.i.-lci with such works of art. lleforp "he formal lunveilinj! of this memorial the lijnire ; liad to he covered in some sort .f fain i because some vandal or van lain ha,', at tempted to deface it. Now that it is unveiled it is still in dan_'"r. ,1 lu-ar that children throw stones n<. it. and the other (lay. Someone pulled out the branch held liy the fisjurc. Fortunately some .-yni|iaUietic person rescued it. otherwise it miplit have been taken away and sold as old metal. Perhaps it wotnd be a ffuod Men. to put the whole tiling inside a wire-netting frame, as they do with cherry trees. As it is we may hoar of a proposal to build a rockery round it or do something else to it that was never in the designer's mind. Talkili" of rockeries. I had n painful surprise the other day. which reminded ine of the ose of painted arum lilicM in the decorations for h recent ball. A house beimr built in one of the suburbs has a stone wall for a front fence. When it was being erected it was a plain and dignified stone wall, and I noticed with pleasure this fresh example of'the us" of a medium that should he employed in I Auckland far more than % i>. \Vh\- is it. by the way. that even wealthy people do not build houses of the stone that lies In such quantities about Auckland? lint passing the place one day 1 noticed that the wall had been painted a reddish brown, streaked with white, cement lines. Is putting paint on natural rock, which in time becomes beautifully coloured by nature's handiwork, any less heinous than painting the inside ol ft lily? I wonder someone does not surest. painting! Ramjiloto. Those black rocks piled up s,, haphazardly look very untidy a n<l dirty. Our ( hristehnreh friends are making an amusing attempt lo get over the towering fact that the railways in the .North Island pay much better than the railways in the South Island. Adopting jui air of superiority, they point to the fact that while the northern systoni carries more passenjero than t! c southern. th<> southern carries more live stock and "roods. Hence, they say, the •South has a more solid prosperity; it does not j<nd about so much, but devotes itself more than the North to the serious side of life. Tiie hulk of the useful traffic is found in the South, says one- paper. "'ln these days, of enormous financial obligations allied to conditions of inflation and extravagance, it is, very undesirable that people "hould be careening about the country when they ought to be increasing production. The coal consumed by locomotives is . much more economically used when goods are bein;,' transported for commerce than when people are bointf carried about mainly for pleasure." You'd think it wa.s f.ord Curzon himself speaking in the House of Lords, -wouldn't you? But the pretty buUble of self-satisfaction can be easily pricked. One explanation is that a very large amount of the ponds traffic of the North Island is carried by sea. Look at the large licet nf "mosquito craft' , in Auckland that plies up and. down the coast. There is a fairly large Meet of similar craft in Wellington, but there is nothing to be compared with either of those in the South Island. Moreover ill some cases —Whangnrei nnd Wbakntane. for example—live stock for oversea shipment is all driven and not railed to the. freezing works, an t l is put on board without being carried in n railway truck. Since the population in the North Island is larger than the South, there will naturally ho more passenger traffic, on .its railways. The Uiristchureh papers had better try again, hut before they 'lo so they had better reflect on the trk-kiness of I statistics. j