PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3595, 6 February 1923, Page 63

PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

A SCHOOLBOY’S PRAYER. Give me a healthy body. Lord; Give me the sense to keep it , Give me a heart that » not bored Whatever work I have to do. Give me a sense of humour, Lord; Give me the power to see a joke To get some happiness from Me, And pass it on to other folk. ***** COUNTRY SKILL. We are all inclined to overlook examples Of skill in commonplace occupations a I was impressed on reading the following the other day The jorker usually a one-job man but the count y man is the champion Jack of all trades. Ploughing looks easy. Try it. |iy driving a straight furrow across a sloping field that has been down to lucerne some crop of that sort. i_ Watch a farm labourer at such work See how tense is his grip on the plough handles; how set are his e y es j Surface he has to walk across the broken surface °Vcan la teli you from actural experience that driving a straight furrow across heavy land is every bit as hard as keeping a boat’s bead to a heavy sea in a gale of wind. . Another day the same man w 11 be layin.r a hedge. bee how rapidly he works; what a tidy job he leaves behind Note the skill with which he makes a tight faggot with no other tie tnan a twisted wand of hazel or willow. * Referring to this sort of work, notice {he same man’s skill at cutting up a havrick and trussing it. , , , The hay knife itself is a most awkward tool to handle, but the making of the band out of straw is a task requiring such skill as is only acquired by long practice. That is the old style. The modern way is to use a hay pres?er ■with string, but for this work and tor threshing or motor ploughing, Hodge requires more than a smattering of engineering knowledge. . A great many farmers now do their market work by car, and their hauling by lorry, and they or their men keep their cars in most amazingly good order. Draining a field is work that calls for skill and strength, while hand hoeing a crop of roots is the sort of job in which an unskilled person would do far more harm than good. Besides all these ordinary tasks of farm life, Hodge requires, and generally possesses, an extensive knowledge of live stock, horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs. He knows enough to save many a visit from the veterinary surgeon. He knows a bit about poultry and more than a hit about rough carpentry. Taking him all round he is more manysided than a sailor, and if he is driven to the town he is a deal more apt to find a good job than the townsman himself. ♦ * * * SHIPPING WILD ANIMALS. Those who have read the previous extracts from Mr Buck’s reminiscences will not fail to find the concluding portion exciting and interesting. Sometimes the mishaps with the animals, far from being dangerous, furnished entertainment for ail the passengers. On one voyage Mr Buck had 500 monkeys on board, 35 to a crate. The crates were piled a little too high for rough weather, and at a sudden lurch of the boat one of the ton crates fell down with a crash to the deck. It broke open, and 35 monkeys went scurrying up the masts. In the first excitement of getting free, three or four of them jumped overboard, and some means had to be devised of enticing the rest of them into a new crate built by the ship’s carpenter. This was the plan followed :—“I removed all the food from my quarters and tried starving them out. Four or five of them I caught in a big net, but the others continued to chatter down at us from the rigging. Then the passengers became interested, and entered a prize contest to see which of them could catch the most monkeys. A number of boxes were brought up from the storeroom, and the passengers set traps along the deck. Each box was propped up with a peg to a string, and underneath the box bananas and bread were placed for bait. As soon as a monkey slipped under a box to investigate, the passenger pulled the string and the monkey’s days of liberty were over. In four or five days we had all the runaways back. “In July, 1921, when I was returning home with a large shipment of cat animals, I had an experience less entertaining for the passengers. After we left Honolulu, the sea began to grow stormv. \\ e had moved some of the cages up on the hatches, but we did not have time to change them all, and one of the leopard cages was left down on the iron deck near the rail. I seldom ship animals in cages not in perfect condition, but 1 had been obliged to put the leopard, a Malay, tra-pped only a day or two before our sailing date, into an old cage that had knocked around my compound, and had rotted on the bottom. He was very ferocious. That evening at dinner I said to the captain : ‘I don’t believe it is safe to leave that leopard down on the deck. A big wave would let him out.’ ‘The barometer is clear,’ he replied. ‘Don’t worry!’ So I turned into my berth that night without giving the matter any further thought, but at half-past five an officer came to my cabin and told me that one of my leopards was out. I tore into my clothes and ran out on deck. I found the cage turned upside down with the bottom broken in. It had been knocked over by a big wave that had washed over the deck as a stroiio- wind came up during the night. We were carrying a deck cargo of oil barrels. The leopard had run among these and was

crouching in one corner between two barrels. I went back to my cabin to get my rifle. “By this time the news had spread among the 125 passengers that the leopard was loose, and there was a panic on board. I told the captain that I did not want to shoot the animal if there was any chance of catching* it. He said: ‘Don’t worry’. I’ll fix the passengers.’ And he gave intructions to have all the doors leading into the passengers’ quarters locked. I went down among the oil barrels, but when I started for the leopard he jumped over the barrels, passing within a couple of feet of me and springing out on the open deck. He hesitated a moment, and then ran up the steps to the main deck. He stopped beside one of the hatches, just as a Chinese steward was crossing the deck with two buckets of water. The boy looked around and when he saw the animal within two feet of him he dropped both buckets and made a mad dash for an open doorway leading into the officiers’ quarter. The leopard, which was just as frightened as the Chinese boy, also decided to make for this door. They arrived at the same unpsychological moment. The hoy’s hair stood on end when he saw the big beast beside him. This time the animal snarled and reared back, with its claws extended. I was about 15ft away and getting ready to shoot. Near by was a boom with rigging hanging down. The Chinese gave one look at the leopard’s claws, made a hold leap for the l’iggnig, and climbed up more than 20ft nefore he stopped. Nearly all the passengers had now gathered at the windows on the prominade deck and were watching the scene. 1 ran around to the starboard side and opened a door into the officers’ messroom. The leopard was crouching in a hallway leading to the officers’ Quarters. As I was entering the hallway from the end farthest from the leopard, I fired three shots into space. He was frightened and ran out on deck again. The first officer was standing outside, and why#n the animal saw him he turned and came round to the starboard side, where 1 had left the door open. “Another shot from my revolver sent him scurrying through the doorway. 1 slammed the door and made him a prisoner in the messroom. Then we brought up the cage, which had been mended by the carpenter, took out the iron bars at one end of it, hacked it up against the door of the hallway leading into the messroom, and boarded the top of the doorway so the leopard could not jump over the open space at the top of the cage. And finally I opened the door and nailed the cage to the open doorway. In the hallway leading into the messroom was a small, square window through which the mess boy passes the food to the officers table. I opened the window, ana for over an hour tried to get a rope noose over the leopard’s head without going into the room. The officers tried to heln me, but the chairs and table hampered our operations. Finally, I knotted the rope, lariat fashion, crawled in from the hall window, and stood on the sideboard just inside the room. After several attempts I managed to get the lasso over his head. Then the fun began. He shifted and pranced around, but I continued to hold the rope tight, at the same time throwing the end of it through the open doorway into the cage, and shouting to the officers who had gathered round the cage and seized the rope, to tighten it at their end before he could pull it off. Then I ran around through the passage to lend a hand in dragging the leopard into the cage. As soon as we had him there, we put the bars down, and they stayed down until he was safely delivered to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.”