LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18101, 27 May 1922, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

BY MKRCUTIO.

Either the promoters of the Irish Olympic Games have been badly misrepresented, or they have been very tactless. In tho cable messages this week tliero is found, associated with the announcement that Australia and !Nc\v /Zealand would bo sending strong contingents, the statement that "exiles would ho warmly welcomed." Seeing that, by virtue of their ago th,> majority of athletes from the Empire must necessarily be colonial born, it is hardly tactful to refer to them as exiles. The promoters can hardly mean that their stay in Ireland will bo a period of exile from the land of their birth. If an Aucklander of Irish parentage is to be regarded as an exile, one would naturally expect to find him spending most of his spare time on One Tree Hill, gazing over the sea in the direction of Ireland. In point of fact, if ho goes out One Tree Hill way at all. it is probably to play golf, a game thai would most likely have been well out of his reach had his parents not gono into " exiie" by emigrating to New Zealand. There appear to be excellent reasons for removing professional boxing from the category of sport and classing it with high finance. As matters now portend, there seems to be more than a likelihood that- baxing scrip will be quoted on the stock exchanges of tho world before long. Tho cables inform us that Carpentier, who was soundly beaten by Dempsey is again willing to fight, the American, the purso to be £75,000, two-thirds of which will go the winner and one-third fo the loser. Mereutio would like it to be known that he also is prepared' to stand up to l)empsev or' anyone else for £25,000. His argument is that he is willing to go to hospital for a month or two and to lose his beauty fnr life, for £25,000. It- would be easy money. A soldier who was once kicked by an ammunition mule and afterwards took a " straight to the body " from a niece of shed says he will meet Dempsey for much less. One begins to wonder whether tho bare fist fight's of upwards of 100 rounds of former days were not more uplifting than modern matches for fortunes for both performers.

Community singing has " taken" Wellington like an epidemic and, fanned by the breezes of the windy city, is spreading fast. A correspondent, writing to a friend in Auckland, remarks : —" The crowds cannot be accommodated in any one hall. On Wednesdays, at about 11.30 a.m., a stream of housewives and mothers yets ..in for the Town Hall to get a seat for the " sing," which starts at 12.30, with the result that the poor business men, arriving at 12.30, find standing room only. Professionals lead —a different man each week—and they, too, are benefiting. One austere, dignified, unapproachable, .became a rollicking, rousing roarer, and had a fino time. Another, a retiring, nervous, highly-strung musician, came right oat of his shell —to his own irtter astonishment and delight. To day a. well-known singer led on and surprised everybody, and the crowd —well at 12.45 they shut the Town Hall doors, and the austere citizen, standing on a chair outside. led an overflow sing with 2000 people ! They pressed round him, flooded the steps, oversowed the road, and wero stopped only by the Fire Station and adjacent walls."' Auckland, evidently, must look to its laurels!

Gilbert's saying that a policeman's lot is not a happy one can surely be extended to include the lot of a fo< referee at least down Levin way. liven if a footballer does not approve of tho decisions of the .nan with the whistle, to break his jaw is to express disapprobation rather too emphatically. The man, generally an old player, who gives up his time to adjudicating in any game has a good deal to put' up with. One referee used to say that if at the end of a game he found himself equally unpopular with both sides he was satisfied; he knew then that he had been impartial.- 'The same philosopher also said that lie did not mind much what the players thought of him. When he was a player himself he always imagined that the two qualifications of the referees he met were absolute ignorance of the rules of the game, and an incurs,ble bias in favour of the other side. Therefore he knew the players' point of vie**. But football, like boxing, is supposed io be a sport calling for self-control and the keeping of one's Semper. The referee in question may or may not have been a good one. But- at- h ast he was entitled to .have his jaw ieft intact.

There is more than a spice of novelty in the decision to hold a race meeting in Wellington, i.i aid of the unemployed. The plan is rot likely to be as etonomi-V-cally sound "ven as v a church bazaar. It, reminds ore of the animal which survived by eating its own tail. Ihe programme for the meeting is not announced hut may we assume that the stakes will be nominal and the State's share of toitalisator moneys foregone. The permanently unemployed will be graterul for another day's racing. The real unemployed will be hopeful.

The repcri; of the Samoan administration informs us that Samoans make verj unsatisfactory labourers. They refuse to work on Monday afternoons and Saturday mornings and so reduce their week to fear days, which are further reduced bv unexplained absences. And yet Mr. Holland and his friends have been exhibiting grave concern over the prospects ot tho simple islanders under New Zealand administration ! It would appear that tho Samoans are much more " advanced than that section of .the New Zealand workers who conform to the gospel of the Alliance which might now be tempted to send uome of its best secretaries to Samoa tc (improve their knowledge of go-slow. The Samoan, we read, fails to appreciate the justice of deducting a portion of his wages for time lost and considers he is beincr defrauded. That being so a few of the islanders might he brought over <o join the various waterside unions with a view to demonstrating these ideas.

•Tile Ciore Borough Council has affirmed that a'l the amusement taxes collected in each district should he paid to the local authority. Oore beintr a town in tho heart of the southern Scotland, its opinion on this matter may be understood. For the same reason it v/ili hardly understand the receipt from Wellington of a cheque representing tho tax on tho amusement enjoyed over tic proposition by the Minister for Finance. Tho gallann death of the chief wireless operator on tho liner Egypt, drowned at his post while sending out the S.O. »S. call, serves as a reminder of the high tradition of devotion to duty which has been so speedily evolved in this young craft. Few though the years have been pince ships were first fitted with wireless, there must be an imposing list ot operators who have given their lives in the endeavour tp summon help to stricken vessels. A good commentary on the recognition of this tradition 7 as furnished on one of the troopships which carried New Zealand soldiers overseas during the war. .As the vessel entered the danger zone, it became the habit to cheer the wireless man up by telling him that it was proposed to Hood the wireless room so that he couH practice sending out the S.O.b. while to his neck in water.- People joked about it simply because they knew that if occasion rose there would be an operator at his post doing his duty. M.D. writes pointing out that a suburban borough has; framed a by-law "in respect of sanitation and other nuisances." He adds: "In another suburban, borough in tho very early eighties of last century, on an inspector of nuisances being appointed, a former Mayor declared that the inspector would himself prove the greatest nuisance in the borough. \t. is, I presume, on grounds such as these sanitation is classified as a nuisance."-