FROM THED WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 87, 4 July 1927, Page 8

FROM THED WATCH TOWER

By the LOOK-OUT MAN

4 ICURRILOUS REPORT

j Some Auckland footballers regarded as acurrilously false tbe allegation mis- ; takenly reported to have been made at a meeting of the Wellington Football : Association that they are in the habit |of drinking whisky in the intervals i between play. They say they would I not dream of coming in all hot and bothered at half-time and drinking fiery whisky when there is cool beer in the lockers, and that there is no whisky “provided” at all —worse luck! -PROGRESSIVE ” LEGISLATION New Zealand seems to be going ahead in progressive legislation. A father who told the Children's Court on Saturday that he had done what he could with a delinquent son of 11 ■ years, was informed by the magistrate 'that the law would soon be amended and the liability put on the parent — “and you may And yourself before the court,” added his Worship. The ouly way to control some boys is to lock them up or thrash them so soundly that they will not forget it. In that case, kind-hearted people would probably importune the Society for the Protection of Children to prosecute the parent for cruelty. Of course, Dad might stay away from work altogether to watch his wandering boy’s footsteps didn’t wander too far; but then he would run the risk of prosecution for failure to maintain. Now he is threatened with the law if he doesn’t do what is often the impossible. He is to get it all ways. This is a country of contradictions; instead of “the sins of the father being visited on the child,” the sins of the child are visited on the father. A father, for'instance, may be compelled to maintain the illegitimate child of a son or a daughter, if the actual parent cannot be made to pay up. Who wouldn't be a father in New Zealand! THE A EW AL'STRALIAK These scientists are really wonderful fellows. They peer into the future with eyes to which the Yale telescope is a blinking example of short-sight. Take the latest discovery of Dr. Basedow, 'anthropologist, for instance. The climatical conditions of Northern Australia, he says, are such that a new race of Australian is being evolved there, and within a comparatively short space of time' the inhabitants will be of short stature, with very dark to brown skins, black hair and primitive features. A White Australia, truly! The correctness of Dr. Basedow’s forecast may be gauged from well-known facts. Negroes who have settled in Nordic countries have, in two or three generations, become flaxenhaired, white-skinned, bridged-nosed, high-browed types, while the descendants of the Europeans who crossed to America in the Mayflower have all evolved into Red Indians. Likewise, whales condemned to live ashore have been transformed into elephants and oysters into house-mice, while the opposite is seen in the elephant fish that once haunted the jungle and the crayfish that once were rats on sinking ships. Blood and breed don’t seem to count in the marvellous transformations of nature.

CRICKET AND CIVICS

A mild stir seems to have been caused in hospitable Scotland by the refusal of the Glasgow Corporation to give a civic reception to the New Zealand cricketers when they were in the gr-r-eat metr-r-opolis of the world’s most intelligent people. Words of reproach were levelled at the civic authorities for this sin of omission, it being pointed out that the cost to the corporation of the entertainment would have been not more than about 10s a head for the visitors, who merely required “a light luncheon.” The cost of porridge must have gone up considerably in Glasgow. Something much more substantial than a light luncheon could have been obtained bv the cricketers in their own country for “ten bob a nob.” Let it be distinctly understood that our boys weren’t begging for the free meal. The suggestion was made by the Scottish cricketing authorities, doubtless with an eye to free advertising and enhanced gate receipts. Coming from a country where the civic reception stunt is done to death, and where minor ceiebrites are flattered (by the careful arrangement of advance agents) ad nanseum by minor mayors, our boys would most likely appreciate the refreshing candour of a local authority which preferred to spend the ratepayers money on their roads rather than on peregrinatin'performers.