LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18547, 3 November 1923, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

P ■ ij£3& - BY siEßctrno. 1 The Mount Eden Bowling Club, i . naturally modest and retiring, as shown i|ip t by the fence it has built round its pre- : wises, finds itself in a glare of publicity \l ' which is daily growing brighter. Hun|!j dreds of peopte who had never bothered '&. to single it out from among dozens of ;' : ;' other bowling clubs, who hardly knew p" what it was, or where it was, are now ijf], painfully aware that it has outraged the •fi' feelings of all those who object to large ||>v and glaring advertisement hoardings. pV Tired of having every chance wayfarer in I &.; Mount Eden Road and Valley Road able I IP; to stop and look down on them, the memipj: bers decided on a wall to shield them from ' I the gaze of the idle and the curious, at p| least, so their friends say. And now they j ! find themselves attacked by aesthetic||p minded people who enjoyed gazing on the | Sf> ; bowler in all his natural beauty, but who '■-.'■ objects very strenuously to being told about i: . the merits of soap, or metal polish, or |!_; motor-cars, or hats, or any other article I of merchandise as displayed on tlur |, ; bowlers' fence. Amid the. welter of argu- |; ment. members arc silent. They bowlers' fence. Amid tho welter of argument the club members are silent. They |. ; display that imperturbable placidity of I ■'".''"' temperament for which bowlers aro famous. (temperament for which of Wellington who Was it not the Duke of Wellington who I;; insisted on finishing the head before turns[; ing to say, "Up Gua;ds and at 'em?" fcl No—that bit of history is mixed; it was p Sir Francis Drake who made the Armada p wait until he had finished playing for || the Plymouth Stars. But the principle ||- is the same. Perhaps, when they are p' roused to action, the Mount Eden bowlers pi'; will deal with their critics as did Drake P with the Armada. Hard to rouse, but J; terrible in action 'A touting agricultural expert gives the New Zealand farmer a queer character. ;. "Every farmer told me," ho said, "that [•: he could do with an exipra hand or two p ; if he could get them." What on earth | for ? Even if ho had four hands he could hardly milk more than one cow at a time, and then the. four would get in the way of one another, so that ho would probably end by squirting streams of milk up four different sleeves. However., with an extra pair of hands he could 'take his knitting along with him while, ho w'as ploughing. Even so, if the farmers were ; regularly endowed with an extra couple of hands they could not complain if people called them grasping. The cvift dence would bo all against them. Tf chance arranged tho way that three coastal boats arrived at Wellington the other day, then chance is a bit of a humorist. The sequence was: Gale, 11.40 a.m.; Calm, 11.50 a.m.; Breeze. 2.45 p.m. It is nothing new for a gale to arrive at Wellington about the. middle of the morning, or any other old time; but it is rareiv succeeded by a calm in ten I minutes. It generally decides to stay for " a week, and then goes only because there is another and stronger gale knocking at tho door. As for the breeze, it does play round the city occasionally. At least the people of Wellington call it a breeze, but most other folk would consider it a bit of a tornado. Anyhow, if, the list of three arrivals had been a weather report, it should have read: Calm, 11.40; breeze, 11.41; gale, 11.42 onward. Two people in a country town have l>een fined for doing plumbing work without being licensed. This is a very serious matter. A man may be his own lawyer— though there is a saying that ho "then has a fool for a client. He may doctor himself if he likes: it is proverbial that at 40 every man is either a fool or a physician. Age being a delicate question, it is not possible to state precisely when a woman acquires i medical qualifications, but the. status'of. grandmother is supposed to confer the office of honorary, medical adviser to all and sundry. Any unregistered person can be his own spiritual adviser, so the clerical profession is hardly a close corporation. A man can do his own carpentering or gardening, painting, glazing, or paper-hanging. Within limits most householders do make the experiment at some time or another. He can sew a patch on his trousers without the law descending on him for failing to call in a qualified tailor. He can mend his own boots; "snobbing" at home became very popular when prices soared. All these things he can do unchecked, and a host more, to the detriment of the regular practitioner, and incidentally to tho profit of those who supply the materials. But unless he has been duly initiated into the art and mystery of the profession, he may not plumb for himself.. Of all craftsmen the plumbers seem most rigidly protected by law. Undertakers seem also insured against amateur competition, for no man can conduct his own funeral, and make a success of the job. Visitors returned from the United States say that the motor trade is astounding!?' active there. From all accounts pedestrians need to be, too, if there are any pedestrians now. On his return from a trip abroad the chairman of the Power Board was cordially welcomed back by that body. It h iiot stated whether they told; him. then, or have told him yet., what they did about radiators while he was away. A story was published this week of a judge of" sheep who awarded a prize to a ewe, although he admitted that its lamb was inferior, contending that his duty was to judge the ewe and not the lamb. It may have been invented by a disappointed "exhibitor of an inferior ewe with a superior lamb, but if such reasoning does affect the decisions of judges, the story may indicate an, explanation of the fact that in the butter classes at the London Dairy Show, Australians swept tho hoard, leaving New Zealand, Soutl African and Canadian better out of the < list. One can imagine a judge replying to an indignant deputation: "Gentlemen, • this is a show, not a restaurant. I am : a judge, not a grocer. Your butter may taste better and sell at higher prices, but : the box that won the prize looks better, • and instead of being shown in a plain i box, is displayed in a casket decorated with devices emblematic of prosperity and contentment. Judged as a shew exhibit it is the best butter. If you say I your exhibits aro regarded as superior in • the world of commerce, I must remind • you thai this is a show, not an auction ' sale."- ' A. somewhat startling commentary on ' the activities of rural communities in the * South Island was appended to an account ] given by the Minister for Education of ( their enthusiasm for the consolidation of « small schools. The scheme requires i transportation, of the children, and as a j means of reducing the. cost of the special '• motor conveyances it was suggested that 1 between 9 and 3 o'clock, and in the evening, the country communities should J utilise -.hem to attend agricultural shows, J picnics, or evening meetings and functions. l Do they never work in the South Island, * or is life a daily round of shows, picnics l . and evening functions?. There would be no need for such ingenious suggestions in 1 the north. Before and after and in the l intervals of carrying children, there ' would be plenty of work for the motor ' conveyance—carrying cream to the fac- * lory, picking up" a back load from the j railway, collecting orders from the store, * find oh dull days running to the bush for •• fencing posts, "or to the nearest pit for f shingle. The South Island farmers do j not realise their blessings. Their grain * needs only one carting a year, their fat ■ T lambs walk to the freezing works under J their own power, fencing is chiefly a ' matter of trimming permanent gorge t hedges, and if shingle is wanted, there is, at least in some district.-:, an ample supply | ' growing on every farm. But the dairy ' f-'.'iiifr sores heavily in fine respect—he J pets a cream cheque (--.cry month, in- ' stead of only an annual dividend, which ' is tho portion of the wheat farmer or 1 tho wool grower. | * ft