AUCKLAND ROTARY CLUB.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 260, 3 November 1925, Page 12

AUCKLAND ROTARY CLUB.

CONSUL BOYLE'S ADDRESS. There was a large attendance at the Rotary Club's weekly lunch meeting, the president. Mr. John Ewen, in the chair. | Visitors included Messrs. Ti. J. Coombs (Calcutta), \V. .1. Cilinour (Palmers-1 ton North), •). L. Mander (New Plymouth), and J. Firth (Wellington). The president referred to the pending departure of one of tilt! members, I Rotarian Rperrin-Johnston, and wished him an enjoyable and profitable holiday. After the lunch an address was given by Rotarian \V. P. Boyle, U.S. Consul, on Central America. Mr. Boyle stated I that he had seen four years' service as i consul in the country mentioned. During--that term there had been seven revolu- , tions, but althouugh he had sent for American warships vii several occasions, ■when they arrived the revolution failed I to materialise. Northern Central America was chiefly devoted to banana •growing. If one saw the immense! quantities of bananas grown there one, would come to the conclusion that the ' chief pastime of the people of America i must be the eating of bananas. Eighty-' Jive thousand stems of bananas would -be shipped in one steamer and many, steamers left for the United States every day. Lineal descendants of the old' 'pirates that used to infest the Spanish Main still • inhabited the sniall islands of. Central America. Nowadays they Were most peaceful, their most desperate functions being the holding of a church festival. Most of his audience would have read 0. Henry's "Cabbages and!' Kings," aiid he could assure them that the characters were true io type. The speaker told a delightful story of a | British soldier known as Lee Christmas who got mixed up in a revolution and won it, this being the first of a series | of similar adventures that invariably ended in his being on the'winning side.