LOCAL GOSSIP

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22320, 18 January 1936, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP

BY MERCUTIO

The lively response to the London typiste's appeal ior a kind and chivalrous husband in New Zealand has been remarkable. \\ ho would have imagined that so many bachelors eager for matrimony were knocking around? If all the men who have written to the Mayor of Dunedin about the London lass are serious, a situation has been revealed that demands Government action. A matrimony portfolio might be created. Who should take it? Perhaps Mr. Semple, who knows all about running shoes. The country cannot permit a large body of its manhood to go wifeless simply because of lack of opportunity to find a girl within the Dominion. Yet the perplexing fact Btands out that there are a large number of New Zealand women who are husbandless. Not all of them can have remained single from choice. And one is prepared to wager that the London typiste's enterprise has prompted a good many sniffy comments. "Of course, the ,men here have simply been carried away with the romantic touch about the whole thing." Now, if that is the case, what about a New Zealand girl writing to the Lord Mayor of London asking his help in finding a nice, kind chivalrous husband—one who will pay her fare Home and accept a mother-in-law, too? There are a lot of chivalrous Park Laners as well as sound bachelors in Bermondsey. No sooner had it been announced tUat Mr. Zane Grey had caught a Bwordfish on the Australian coast than one took a fatal bait at Cape Brett and a striped marlin did his stuff at Whangaroa. That's the spirit, self-reliance and all that sort of thing. New Zealand for ever and big-game fishing for the big tourist game. Mr. Sullivan is on the hunt for new industrial openings in New Zealand. No doubt he has already heard of the marked success attending the local manufacture of slippers, but has he noted, has Mr. Semple told him, that there will soon be a demand for the mass production of running shoes? Mass production it will have to be for even the smallest of the many boards will require at least five pair.

A Hamiltonian justifiably complains that it is rather difficult for a stranger, bound for-, the cricket ground, to sort out the proper tramcar whon the label is Owairaka. As a matter of fact a lot cf Aucklanders have not yet found out Owairaka is. They have faint ideas about Balmoral and Sandringham, but Owairaka persistently suggests some place down the Manukau or up in the Bay of Islands. Perhaps the Transport Board was not too eager to advertise Eden Park on the occasion of the last match but as common carriers they must do. their job.

" A former London policeman, Mr. William Joseph Jordan, is to be New Zealand High Commissioner in Xondon in succession to Sir James Parr," states the London Daily Telegraph. The L.D.T. knows its news values all right. It's not every day that an ex-London policeman speaks for a Dominion in, shall one say, his home town. As a matter of fact, Mr. Jordan's real home town is Ramsgate, but what does a gate or two matter in a case like this. He will travel 13,000 miles over two if not three oceans when he goes to take Tip his London beat. All good wishes to Mr. Jordan anyway and may he not whistle when he gets into the job that old tune " A Policeman's Lot is not a Happy One."

It is all very well for the magistrate to tell the speeding motorist of the Great South Road that the place for him is Muriwai Beach. But if a man wants to, get to Bo tor u a in a hurry what possible use is Muriwai Beach to him? One is almost inclined to make the observation that a man who drives at 56 miles an hour through Papatoetoe, if there is ordinary traffic about, could find his proper place much nearer than Muriwai. The speedster may take the risk seventy times seven, but hurt someone the next time. All good things come to an end, it has been remarked. Sometimes the finest cars with the finest brakes and the finest drivers come to a nasty end.

Opponents of the idea of lifting a water supply for the Upper Waikato and Auckland from the Waikato River in the vicinity of Mercer have sometimes described the water as soup or pea soup. An Exploratory turtle having been caught at Taupiri, these fellows may now call it " turtle soup and hope for the best. But why should a turtle go up the Waikato lliver. Maybe he was a hermit, but when he had miles and miles of coast without another turtle on it to annoy him this inland journey is puzzling. However, it is a world of change and movement, so perhaps even the turtle tribe may not be immune. One of these days an alligator may appear in the Tamaki, but ihe discoverer will be unfortunate. They will simply say that the poor chap is not quite himself.

In Chxistchurch the fruiterers intend to chant in deadly earnest: "Yes, we have no bananas." No doubt the footpaths will be the safer for the boycott hut it is a sore blow to the indolent. The banana owes a great deal of its popularity to the fact that it is easy to peal. ,Doubters should observe the order in which fruit is selected at the next dinner party they attend. The hetting is all in favour of a quick getaway for the bananas, with oranges at the tail of the field. Of course, as the dear ladies of "C'ranford" discovered long ngo, the only genteel way with oranges is to retire with them to the bedroom.

Would .you believe it? The Clevedon diggers joined with the local Mounted Jiil.es troop in holding a Sports meeting and put on a race for themselves. A seventy-five j'arder it was. Now, if this sort of tiling goes on, the devotion huskies will bo giving the hurntout soldier law a nasty knock. "Crabting the show" and so on. "Stepping the distance" would have been a much Wore appropriate contest for the diggers. But a seventy-five yard sprint! Between ourselves, an old soldier hints ♦hat the di ggers of Clevedon probably rung in their sons for the gallop—to Bare their hearts and reputations.

An ex-soldier is up on his hind legs because the All Blacks did not go to Brighton to stay with his old friend Sir Harry Preston of the Royal Albion. He takes the jaundiced view that tho All Blacks were peeved because for a night or two they would not all have been, able to shelter under the manager's wing. But perhaps that is just the point Who knows, if the laddies had gone to train for the English match at. Brighton, they might have lost by 2G to nil? Brighton, as we all kuow—but there it is.