LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19608, 9 April 1927, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

BY MERCCIIO. Auckland does things differently from Chicago. Here thei'e is to bo a mayoral election, and so far nothing has been said about calling on a single police constable beyond the normal strength of the force to protect good citizens from the desperadoes of Epsom or the gunmen of Heme Bay. In Chicago they are, having hordes of police, armoured cars, rifles, machine-guns an' everything, just because they have to .elect a new mayor. It is to be hoped he will bo worth it when they get him. Yes, Auckland would be a tame place for a Chicago ratepayer. It simply can't live up to what is implied by the first syllables to be found in the names of two candidates—war and blood.

A court of law has ruled that sausages are not meat. This will recall to those who still enjoy stories of about the 1900 vintage the one about the irishman who, being discovered by his parish priest eating sausages on Friday, was condemned to do penance,'- which he did. A little later came his revenge. Being required to deliver a load of wood at the presbytery he dumped a load of sawdust, replying to remonstrances " If sausages is mate, sawdust is wood." In support of his attitude the court has said sausages are not meat. That is settled then. Now we can devote all our attention to the less obstruse problems of the origin of man, the winner of the .Easter Handicap, the exact nature and function of Vunspots and a few other scientific mysteries, including the identity of Auckland's next mayor. If ail these pall, there will be the alternative of falling back on sausages again. They are not meat. The only thing to determine therefore—and perhaps the court will help—is what they are ;

The Wellington Competitions Society has done it at last; it has needed domg for many years. Henceforth at its competitions certain hoary numbers, musical and elocutionary, will not be permitted in any own selection classes. The index expurgatorius has been drawn up. obviously, becajuse all the items are hackneyed, not because none has any intrinsic merit. For Shakespeare and Dickens figure in the elocutionary section, and Gounod and Pagliacci in the musical. Otherwise much of the banned stuff is almost like the item " Aspiring Dishwasher," being merely aspiring dishwater. It is a pity, though, that the committee settled the list on its own. If it had called for nominations, there might have been a few more to add. •" Lasca," for instance, surely deserves a place well up toward the top, and " Thei Shooting of .Dan McGrew " is rapidly qualifying for similar distinction. As for the musical section, it could no doubt be * extended too. The trouble about a good many of the items banned is not that they are really wilted; they are evergreen. But they should be done supremely well or left alone, The evidence from other competitions shows they would not be supremely well done. Therefore the committee has done well by a suffering public.

It is evident that a number of suburban districts think very little of the waterthe Auckland City collects with so much care in the Waitakeres, and distributes over such a wide area so kindly—at a price. The complaints covered the quantity, quality, appearance and price of the water. Beyond that nobody seemed to have much to say against* it. i'jjt some of those who attacked it most bitterly use it every day. Perhaps tbey boil it for hours and strain it through muslin, or do something like that; but anyway they use it. And they survive, too. They must be hardy people. Mount Eden was one of the principal detractors of the quality of the city water. Yet why should Mount Eden complain 1 They are about to open a tea kiosk on the mountain. If the water is as brown as they say, think what a nice rich colour it will give the tea, and how much can be saved by putting only one spoonful in the pot when with clearer water two would be required.

Having provided telephone booths made of concrete, thus inspiring various unkind comments about pill-boxes, the authorities are now said to be toying with the idea of cast steel kiosks. It is not said who will supply the tea. Though by origin the kiosk has not necessarily any connection with tea, the association has grown so general that it~ is hard to think of the one without the other. It has become a pairing like v.bat so ingeniously used by O. Henry in " Calloway's Code." Anyway, tea or no lea, there are supposed to be steel kiosks in prospect for those who want to listen to the humming sound and then drop a penny in the slot when the answer comes from the other snd. These fancy designs are intended perhaps, as compensation to the telephonist for the change that has come over the public booth since the automatic system has been made general. Nowadays you get your answer before you pay; previously you paid before you got the answer, and then generally didn't get it. If exchange took enough interest in the business you were subsequently asked how you had fared. If you said there had been no answer, your penny carne rattling out of the machine. You retrieved it and tried again somewhere else. For those with leisure to indulge, it was a fascinating sport. Sometimes the penny disappeared and the rest was silence; again there were times when a cog slipped and twopence dropped from the slot where only one penny had been placed. Sometimes, even, there was a. penny waiting for you before you started operations. Occasionally, very occasionally, days to be marked with a red letter, you got your number and conducted your conversation without mishap. Having installed automatic machines of dreary efficiency, the authorities are offering compensations with their concrete pill-boxes and their steel kiosks.

Some of the North Shors boroughs are so much in earnest about an idea they have of keeping their street lamps going until 1 a.m. instead of quenching them at midnight, that they are asking how much it would cost. It is probable they want the travellers by the last ordinary ferryboats from the city to have a fair chance of reaching the front gate without falling over the kerb-stone or doing anything dangerous like- that. If so, it is a brotherly thought. At the sam« time, it excuses still another inquiry about the real reason why so many street lights in Auckland are extinguished just when they begin to bo needed, in the flays of gas lamps, which were not lighted at all when the moon was at the full, this was all very well. It made not very much difference anyhow whether the average street lamp was alight or not. But Auckland, Greater Auckland, that is, has "grown a little beyond the village stage now. Its life is sufficiently varied to demand that considerable numbers of people should be abroad at all sorts of unorthodox houi's. It would be much better all round, no doubt, if everyone was at home and in bed by say half-past ten. But evervone cannot be. Anyway, if folks don"t want to.be, why shouldn't they stay out a bit longer? Yet if they do," what happens'! The trams go home to bed, the street lights pop out, everywhere except along main thoroughfares, and city and suburbs are plunged in that gloom where crimes are given birth and cats hold concerts. The great god economy will probably be involved in defence of this, hut money might well be e-aved over something else ariS put into street lighting throughout the dark hours. It would pay in the long run, asn j the police. j