FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 584, 9 February 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN

THE EDUCATIONAL PIC! TAT OR Addressing the Auckland Education Board yesterday, the Hon. H. Atmore, Minister of Education, announced that lie was not a figurehead. He declared that he would ennunciate and carry out the policy of the Education Department. I’m. the man who’ll do this job. No experts’ talk for me, I’ll hang to mg oxen bright ideas With grim tenacity. If I say Hazlitt shall be read By little girls and boys. The essays xvill be text-books, For I’m the big noise. Should I devise some happy day New systems of arithxnetic, I can assure you, my friends. It xoill be mastered pretty quick. In brief, my status has becoxne Than predecessors greater — O greet me xvith "'All Hail! All Hail! The educational dictator!” * * * THE TEST FINISH It took seven days’ play to bring England and Australia within 12 runs of each other in the fourth Test. There seems to have been much ado about very little. PRICE OF DISHONESTY Two Polish workmen breaking up war material in Paris, endeavoured to steal some copper from a shell after working hours, and were killed by an explosion. This reads more like a cautionary tale than a statement of fact. BRIGHTER CONCILIATION There were 12 assessors on each side when the Dominion dispute concerning skilled branches of the engineering trade came before a Conciliation Council ;in Christchurch yesterday. Each side should have dropped one man, and decided contentious issues by a cricket match. STRONG TOM An American periodical writes as follows: —“While dispatches went round the world telling of the pleurisy which had prostrated the King of England, one of liis humblest subjects, Prize-fighter Tom Heeney, was informed by a Manhattan physician that he had been walking around for a week with pneumonia.” RAILWAY PUBLICITY “Travel by Rail: Always remember, the people’s own railways supply the best and safest form of transport.” This is a Railway Department exhortation made to the public in an advertisement. A news item to-day announces that the Hon. W. B. Taverner, Minister of Railways, will arrive from Hamilton to-day by motorcar. THE FAME OF HAMMOND Stories about the redoubtable batsman, Hammond, are piling up in Australia. It is recorded that a few Sundays ago a certain preacher announced liis text as: “He made some good beginnings.” A small boy in the congregation whispered excitedly to his parents: “Ooh, mummy,’ he’s going to preach about Hammond.”

SHAW STANDS OUT According to the 1929 “Who’s Who,” the following are the recreations of celebrities cbosen at random: —Sybil Thorndike, piano-playing and swimming; Sir Thomas Beecham, tennis and cricket; Lord Rothermere (Lord Northcliffe’s brother), golf, tennis and motoring; David Low’ (new Zealand cartoonist), cinema and golf; Bernard Shaw, anything except sport. STRENUOUS RUGBY In France the people seem to take their football a shade more seriously even than in New Zealand. In a recent Rugby match played between Marmande and Bergerac, a. Marmande player almost succeeded in strangling (he rival captain. When the injured man was dragged from the field with liis tongue hanging out and foam on bis mouth, the onlookers shouted “Well done! Kill him!”