LOCAL GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 21030, 14 November 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP.

BY MERCUTIO.

So'it is lo bo Tamaki Drive; (he City Council lias decreed and the obedient, citizen can do nothing but bow lii s head and accept. The road that runs round the waterfront will cease officially to be .the Waterfront Road, and become Tamaki Drive. The 957 suggestions and one demand for ether names—or the 957 demands and one suggestion, whichever it jnay have been—have all come to nothing. By the casting vote of the Mayor the die is cast. All that remains to be decided now is how the public is to be made to use the new name. It's not much use tailing on the post office to h<>lp. It might threaten to return to sender, as wrongly or insufficiently addressed, any letter or telegram directed ."Waterfront Road," but who would care? Nobody very greatly. And who shall set a watch on the lips of men. to say nothing of women and children ? Waterfront Road nay be neither poetic nor particularly euphonious, but it, has got in first. To make people use any other is the. simple task of the authorities. May they have much joy of it ! How little the average citizen often knows about the city in which he lives! How many Ancklanders had heard of the pastime, " shooting the moon " until the Mayor of Mount Edeii explained all about jt? It consisted, he said, of leaving citydancing places and endeavouring to make the transit of Mount Eden—-round the, summit —and back between dances. There was an underlying suggestion that between drinks might be substituted for between dances. So now everyone knows. There is a little ditty, a lullaby, in fact, yrhich begins:— Do you want the moon to play with And the stars to run away with? 'Apparently gay youth in Auckland does, but the Mount Eden Borough Council, in its capacity as a domain board, has decided that Auckland's youth may not have the moon to play with; at least not after ten o'clock. Is a custodian to be installed on the mountain to chant, in a phrase once familiar but now- fallen into disuse with six o'clock closing. " Ten o'clock, gentlemen; all out, please?" Anyway, whatever may be said for the prohibition and. whatever is done to enforce it, the discussion has at least given the public a picturesque phrase, " shooting the moon." Those walking abroad at night anywhere within sight of the mountain have had opportunities of noticing how the beam, of powerful headlights flashes across the skies as a ' car takes the rise leading to the summit. Did this give rise to the phrase ? If so, somebody who takes his amusements late at night has a pretty descriptive touch.

Ifc is curious how the supposedly salient feature in a people's character is sometimes picked out by the tongue of a satirist. A visitor from the United States relates this of his nation:—"lt

has been said that if three Americans fell --mt of a balloon they would, on the way <lown, elect a president, a vice-president svnd a secretary, and before they strilck the earth, would appoint a committee to

investigate the matter." That summing-up is presumably meant to exemplify Y'ankee hustle as well as a passion for committees. But he cannot be conceded this

committee impulse as his alone. Possibly » small challenge might come even from !New Zealand. To carry it further, members of an Empire press conference once visited this country. They were in the thermal regions, and happened to bo gazing Into a cauldron of boiling mud. Then that lively gentleman, A.P.H., of Punch, mildly suggested that they should Eefc up a small committee to investigate the.whole unseemly business. The characteristic must be common to all branches

of the " great Anglo-Saxon people." And the Celts, what of them ? Well, their

greatest hobby, as deduced by a detached and perhaps not wholly sympathetic observer, was once summed up in these lines:—

There - came to the beach a poor exile of Erin, His robe was still wet with the dew from the hill. Ere the steamer that brought him had passed out of hearin'. He was Alderman Mike introjuicin' a bill.

Education, its purpose, form and effect, and how much it costs, is a topic very much to the fore these days; especially how much it costs. However, on a less debated aspect, the purpose of education, an English expert can be quoted thus: "The need'is for a form of education in which creative skill is the chief objective. It may take 10.000 forms." That is, obviously; the kind of education for New Zealand. Ten thousand forms! Think of the joy in Government printing circles and in the office where forms are received, checked, tabulated, analysed, and then pigeon-holed, to be entirely forgotten. And what of the poor old general public, John Citizen, still keeping his nead above water and managing a grin row and then in* spite of things? By the time he has finished struggling with his unemplovment tax and levy obligations 10,000' forms will have no terrors for him. He will be in a " Come one, come all " frame of mind.

..While on the subject of forms, it is to lis noted that the electoral officer at Auckland has been impressing on people the necessity for studying carefully the form of application for enrolment. Incomplete specimens are liable to bo treated as informal, leading to the disfranchisement of the careless citizen. Quite so, and if the law is to be interpreted literally, he ought to be prosecuted for not being on the roll. It is a little difficult to understand the business that is made about supplementary rolls and the need for seeking enrolment, the closing date, and all those formalities just as tin election is approaching. 'lhe liiw on the subject is very simple. Every citizen entitled to vote is supposed to enrol, and having done this to keep enrolled. Changes of address inside an electorate and removal from one to Snotne?" ure supposed to be notified promptly. What is more, pains and penalties are provided for failure to perform ill these duties. So why a rush and a bother just when polling c. -.y comes near . True, people are continually qualifying to vote either by completing the required period of residence in the country, tuin"ig 21. or becoming naturalised; but their Dumber cannot very well be great. J here should not he much need for a fuss about supplementary rolls. As for the need to be careful about filling in forms, it should not call for a mere electoral officer to bring that home to citizens. The care Hfeded to put into unemployment tax forms everything that should lie there, and not to put into them anything that should not' lip there, ought to give everyone a. form filling complex for the rest of bis days. '

The argument about -.he relative, sizes London and New York bobs up at, intervals. The latest estimate, based on v uat are termed " rational standards." gives New York the palm. It is submitted J>y a New Yorker. Strange but ,r ue - However, the remarkable thing is t no attempt- has been made yet by" ■ n y claimant for either city to include Auckland in the comparisons. Cowards!