FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 548, 28 December 1928, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

WELL-SCHOOLED Defendant, at the court yesterday (charged with using obscene language), “I spent fourteen years in the Navy, and was not brought up to use such language.” When young. I proudly treasured a variety Of maledictions free But, being thrown in nautical society X absorbed the sober principles of piety. Across the bosun’s knee. So 11010, when any one of my relations , Does something crass, I never, Never, NEVER, get abusive Beyond; “You ass!” You’ve read that in the battle's hot intensity Bierce objurgations flow But truth stands out in all its great immensity, At .his worst the sailor’s naughtiest propensity Is “Dearie me” or “Blow!” The wayward tongue is schooled upon the briny With tender care And my answer to the charges laid against m.f. Is “Sailors Don’t Swear.” BEOWULF. THE TRUMPED ACE It is true, as a Chicago judge has sapiently observed, that a distressing number of matrimonial rifts have their origins at the bridge table. Ask many Auckland husbands what are the deserts of a woman who trumps her husband’s ace, and he will undoubtedly respond that the loss of a perfect husband like himself is the only lit penalty. But suppose these horrible solecisms are perpetrated on someone else’s husband, then what is the victim to do? He cannot divorce a wife who does not belong to him. In any case, the husbands would hardly have things their own way. A collective examination of Auckland bridge-playing couples would probably reveal that the wives play better bridge than the husbands. They certainly have more conventions. A TENNIS TOPIC It Is a far cry from the drenched lawns of the Stanley Street tennis courts to the Woolsack, whereon the Lord Chancellor of England sits in state. Stanley Street, however, Is the legitimate successor to Farndon Park, half a dozen miles from Napier, where the first New Zealand tennis championships were played 42 years ago. The Farndon Park tennis courts have fallen from their high estate, if they still exist at all, but that is not the point of this recital. In the early days of Hawke’s Bay there came to the province a young man named Richard Plantagenet Giffard. He was a remittance man, and was induced to invest one of his periodical remittances in rural property. He called the place Farndon, after his ancestral home in England, and after his death it passed to his brother, Harding Stanley Giffard, the able lawyer who became the first Earl of Halsbury, and left his name on standard legal authorities. After Halsbury became Lord Chancellor, he used to communicate with a firm of Napier solicitors concerning the disposal of the Farndon property. Eventually it was disposed of, but the earl’s letters were preserved as specimens of the world’s worst handwriting. Only one man in the office could read them.

TROTTING CLUB PRESIDENT—Mr. J. Rowe, president of the Auckland Trotting Club, was yest.erday, at Alexandra Park, handed a gold badge signifying life membership of the Te Aroha Trotting Club, of which he was a foundation member.

ON THE AUCTION BLOCK Happy is the country that has no unemployed. Such a country is France, where, at the historic labour auction at St. Etienne, offerings of discontented toilers were few, and prices commensurately high. The best price realised by a farm labourer was £4O, plus inducements which are not specified, though they might be far-reaching in their extent. Even so, the figure is one that in New Zealand would bring the modest chattel hopping down from the block to administer a severe drubbing to anyone who set so low a valuation on his worth. It would be interesting to read the stock agents’ reports of such an auction if it were conducted in this country at the present time. Something like this: “A heavy yarding of labourers came forward, but encountered a dull market. Several lots were passed in without reaching the reserve, which has risen from 12s to 14s a day in consequence of recent political developments. Shearers were in short supply. A pen of prime shearers was eagerly competed for, and it is evident that there is keen demand for this type of worker. Up to 25s a day was paid without hesitation for good lines. Domestic help was also eagerly sought. A shipment of imported maidservants was cleared to a receptive market, and a number of choice waitresses were disposed of at figures on a par with last week’s values,”