Random Shots

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 40, 16 February 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

Random Shots

By ZAMIEL

There seems to have been almost as much declaration of intention before the Battle of Woofit as there was before th>.' landing at Gallipoli.

It is coming to this, that when Brown parts from Jones on the kerb to walk to the other side of Queen Street, .Tones will shake hands with him and wish him a safe crossing.

A new danger has arisen in longdistance swimming. The famous swimmer, Mercedes Gleitze, has broken off her engagement on the ground that her attachment for the sea is so passionate that she is not fit to be any man's wife. This is a case where many waters can quench one kind of love but not another.

"Dairying does not need labour," said a member of the North Otago Farmers' Union during a discussion on the question of duty on wheat. "I gave up wheat-growing," he added, "sacked the ploughman, and put in milking machines. I can now go about whistling." If he whistles tunefully the cows may even give more milk.

Census returns show that there are over 20,000 more husbands than wives in the Dominion. It is explained thafr the discrepancy is accounted for by men who come to New Zealand to settle, intending to send for their wives later. This, Of course, is a mere inference. It might also be inferred that New Zealand is becoming a sanctuary for tired husbands.

A settlor has been discovered in the wilds of Westland who, until the other day, had not heard a hand for over sixty years. Perhaps, however, there was some gain in the deprivation. He has not had to listen to the bag—but, no, I mustn't be too hard on my Scottish friends— and the imbecilities of the saxophone are unknown to , him. At any time, of course, he could have listened to a selection from the fast-diminishing band of pioneers.

Talking of Scot*, I have a very pleasant duty to perform. From time to time in the long life of this column, I have made many references to the alleged thriftiness of Scots. Ido not debar myself from referring to it in the future, but in case any of my Scottish readers feel aggrieved, let me insert here a recent statement by a clergyman in Aberdeen: "Having lived eight years in Aberdeen, I say there are no people so unreekoning, prodigal, almost stupidly generous as the Aberdonians."

Mr. Valentine, of the Victoria League, says that when lecturing on New Zealand in London one of his most popular and mystifying demonstration pictures was that of a cow milked by machinery. I wonder what the audience would have said to a film depicting a settler watering his poultry with a hose, which was the only method by which hens could be kept alive during the Sydney heat wave? A company promoter called it watered stock.

The Auckland Competitions Society is in difficulty about prize money. Why not do without prizes and go back to the Greek system of wreath giving? At the Olympic Games the winner was crowned with a wreath of wild olive or parsley. Here we would use fronds of fern or sprays of tea-tree, which is our commonest plant. I am sure that if at the end of the sessions every competitor was publicly crowned with a tea-tree wreath there would be a record attendance and the society would be placed beyond need. It would be quite a pretty idea, too, for the winner in the saxophone solo class to hang the withered crown over his bed. There is not enough sentiment in this country.

Though "Wellington beat Auckland at football last year and at cricket this, and though it is blest by Parliament in its midst, there are certain drawbacks to living there. A resident of Lyall Bay says that after buying manure at 12/(5 and clay at 15/ a load, he is convinced that growing vegetables is not ]>rofitable. He has kept a careful account and he estimates that the few cabbages he has grown have cost him 2/6, and tomatoes 1/ apiece. Possibly it is worse than it appears, for the windy wind of Wellington may shift the bought soil and manure in a night. I was told the other day that a certain make of tennis court popular in Auckland is of little use in Wellington, because the wind has a way of turning a horizontal into an inclined plane. Yet what this gardener says may have some bearing on vegetable growing elsewhere. Do suburban householders always reckon what their cabbages cost? In some cases, I suspect, it would be found cheaper to buy from Long Hop.