LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20235, 20 April 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

BY MEBCOTIO.

"When nominations closed for the Auckland City Council there were 67 candidates offering. Not enough; there ought, to be more. After all, thcro aro 21 places to £ll. Only one Mayor is to be elected, and thcro aro four aspirants. Just to even things up there should bo 84 candidates for the Council, four for each vacancy. Besides, since the job of marking a paper is going to he half a day's work anyway, what with Mayor,- council, hospital board and'the rest, a mere list of 67 names is a bagatelle. Tho city voter is always being called apathetic, the theory being that lie takes insufficient interest in the management of civic affairs. But those who grapple with the voting papers on pulliug day, who mark them duly, faithfully and conscientiously, will not be apathetic. Rather will they bo athletic. .As for the unfortunate officials who have

to do the counting, who will bo called on to handle the thousands of ballot papers, sort out the votes each of tho 67 receives, ' add the totals up nicely and inform a wondering world what the outcome has been, - lliey will be simply heroic. It is all very ;well to be flippant about it, but what sort of city management docs a community descrvo when it allows the one thing which it must, do itself—all the rest being done for it—to be run in this fashion?

"What is a cow?" asked the learned judge, and thereupon tho court fell to , discussing whether a cow was a cow only ■when she was producing a calf and giving milk, or whether she could still be called a cow when sho was being fattened for beef —prime ox—or running wild in the pastures, or doing any of the things 0 cows do when not in milk. Jt is a j point 011 which the dictionary will give little help, for that unimaginative volume inclines to regard cow as tho feminine of bull or ox, and to consider a cow a cow merely by virtue of her sex. So sho is, strictly speaking, but as the judge suggested, the man most concerned in her qualities, the dairy farmer, would be [justified in regarding her as a cow only rvhen she was/ performing tho functions for which he keeps cows, and classing her as dry stock when not so engaged. There is a good deal to be said for this point of view, for it is bound up with the practical value of the creature in bearing so much of this country on her broad and patient back. When you look at some of them, especially the seemingly fragile you cannot but wonder how they do it. But that is wandering from the point, which lies in the question, " W r hat is a cow?" To get the answer necessarily implies application lo the dairy farmer. Let "the time and place be appropriate —the cow-shed on a dark, cold, winter morning with one of these Creatures, that may or may not bo cows Sn a particularly cantankerous or / mulish mood. Then perhaps the man who ought to know would answer the learned judge's question*, but. the answer would have to be written on a slip of paper and handed lo His Honor for his silent perusal.

After lingering long by the way, aviation has arrived with a rush. wo normal everyday citizens, neither claimjne to be super-men in any sense ot the word, having breakfasted in Chnstchurch, olirnftecf on "to tho back of h Moth, which spread its wings and wafted them away north so that they had an early tea in Auck land. And «they did it quietly and comfortablv, without hurrying particularly, yrith no desiye to break records or anything else. It is very wonderful and very inspiring. Those who are trying to plant the air sense among the people of this Dominion are suggesting it as a very commonplace thing that ought to he happening every day. _ From thenpoint of view this is quite the right procedure; very good propaganda method in fact. Their policy is to bring aviation down from the clouds, making a trip bv air as much a matter of course, entered on with as little thought of risk as a passage on the pilhon sea of a motor-cycle. That, certainly is the way to establish ..aviation as an acce PJ£ feature of daily life, like motoring. But it won't do really; to fly «. . ™>d« thing, one of the wonders of a wonde u aee and no amount of propaganda must {f'.Crt t- roh„ Of - wonder. It' - Roi"K "! SC, T '°°, kol things topsy-turvy though, lo ialK a flying visit has become an ambiguous phrase alrea'dy. The devout over henceforth will have to be careful about imploring his / lady to fly with him. She may expect him <o charter an and make his word g° oc • ;. u i e j n airmen instal taximeters an co mc a little war of their own, if nvill 1)P Tio use expensive. It will lie « about children fairy stones uha t magic carpets. rhe> - • many elevition the thing ne miles it did to the pa lion. Jes I*3 « have to be readjusted somei as a final word, it rr,r " . t j mes of Aucklander to think that u peril he can gel home fioin Unisi as quickly as that.

. )t . p times? A firm that Is it a sign ot the tin » k j an d for had been selling pian.as in AuUia years and years went out of busine decided to sell its buildir g. , nofc } n the purchaser was a him g t > m tain selling motor-cars exa(tl>, commodities indtspensa i thal ]„ or a motor-cycle, it ll o{ t j ie family years gone by a,n tas goo d as its that, wanted to he at leas fe ihc neighbours was lo bav- l p ] n y hous;. Somebody sornc body it. or perhaps nobody ng or p er . roiglt be having mus an ,', mU st be hnps nobody was. 15"- abilitv the Jro.s H.e b.cle. »'^, U , b gV patent of nobilitv. > piallo i, a s perty transaction mean ' , j a car , been toppled from 'I s its place V saloon body preferied, ha. * .j on . t } ievc The circumstance is full of . . 1 is other evidence P»>»t;.ne the > though many folk v. mi - tli( , „raniogramophone or the radio, j radio had more to motor-car. ell, peihaps, r ' c lipse surning the theorv of the■ P' a jtteii to he correct, volumes coil in about, the socal revolutioi .: t : n(T them usual there would " o l J F;r> s ii g ht*st because nobody/ would taK notice.

A kindly correspondent forwards, in a letter unfortunately too long to quo s " a |ji Pr t the views of a -Maori friend on the subject r^n£;^W:.d« tho letter to those who have been aifeuMß abfout evolution in the correspon 1 urnns "or to Mercutio, who I consul knows as mud, about evolu -joi more than, any ot them. ■ tribute would be. almost . ovc Y ( ii_ were it not ihat a disturbing 1 ' picioti creeps in. a suspicion that 1 « plication is those others know nothing at all about evolution.

Poaching. it is said, is rampant in the 'Auckland (listrict, and th« Acclimatisation Society proposes to see what can jc < _ about it. Still, the evidence offered to tlx meeting was not as conclusive ns it roife i have been One member said lie Knew o a man who went out every ™ OOI J,!F\ night and came back with a duck. ■[ of it? Every moonlight night, there is wany a man who goes out with a duck ant comes back with the same duck —a perfect duck. There is no use the Acclimatisation Society trying to interfere, for it is a form of sport carried on on moonlights since long before acclimatisation societies came »nto existence.