FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 639, 16 April 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

MUSIC HATH CHARMS “Advertise a lecture on how to make 6d into Is and you get an audience; but advertise a lecture on music and there is quite a different story.”—Mr. Arthur HirstT, F.R.S.A., addressing the Rotary Club. With acclamations loud the theatre filling, The lecturer on cash receives his due. . . "The nimble sixpence will be worth a shilling When every penny makes a noise like two.’ 1 With what an uproar of applause his words arc greeted, What lusty . voices register delight. The family coffers for the nonce depleted That men mag hearken to this thrifty wight! But should a great musician storm the city To vibrate classics on the soulful strings. Or prirna donnas deign to sing a ditty, That mighty audience has taken wings. . . . No scrape of feet —the silence is alarming — A sombre usher breaks the cheerless To speaker, long-haired one, or songster charming: "Hey, all the seats are emptier than —SQLIDGE THE RULING PASSION Every one of us is a potential movie actor. Witness the artful attentions of passers-by'to the camera when a film is being photographed in the street. Even the elderly and staid will linger in the line of fire. Auckland tramway employees have withstood this temptation nobly in the film, “Auckland on Wheels,” now being screened. At the workshops or on the trams, the men who move Auckland from place to place show few traces of embarrassment at the presence of the camera. A picture of the “Good Friday” procession past the pay-clerk is perhaps an exception, along with the Macon-achy-like air of a billiards-player at the Gaunt Street depot. Even though the vanity of conscious “acting” for the camera is not apparent, the subjects—there are 1,200 odd of them — will no doubt enjoy watching the picture screened. There is one young lady, aged about six, who certainly did. Her rapt interest in the proceedings was broken by a shrill cry: “Oh, look at .daddy!” THE ALL BLACKS Rugby purists will see trouble ahead of the newly-constituted Waikeria reformatory Rugby team, which has been authorised by the Controller-General of Prisons to participate in the Waipa competitions, if there happen to be players of the opposition code anxious to turn out in the sombre black jerseys which the prison team, with a fine notion of the fitness of things, has adopted for its own. If one of the transgressors happens to be a League player, will he need a formal trans- j fer before he can play alongside his fellows? Again, will the ControllerGeneral see that, if the team is in a good position at the end of the season, no trifling considerations of “time” in its restrictive sense are allowed to deplete the strength. If these points are watched, success seems certain. The generosity of the Prisons Department in allowing the prisoners to play would at first seem a noble thing. But closer examination reveals the usual catch. All matches must be played on the prison ground. “There will be no “home and home” matches for Waikeria.

THE Bin it The incidents associated with the loss of the Nobile dirigible Italia have not been forgotten in some quarters. Captain Filippi Zappi, who was rescued wearing the clothes of his dead comrade, Malmgren, was married recently in Switzerland. When newsreel pictures of tlie happy event leached New York, they were greeted by Manhattan audiences with cries of* “‘Cannibal! ” POLICE STEWARDS A stalwart policeman bearing along the swaying passageway with an issue of strawberry baskets would be a sight sufficient to make even the hardiest sea-travellers quail. Perhaps it is as well that the department did not insist on making tlie draft of constables for Samoa act in this menial role on the Maui Pomare. They might never have recovered their mana in the eyes of Samoans, or—infinitely worse—the suppression practised in order to make them good stewards might have permanently sapped their rugged vigour, so that they might have been heard on the seafront at Apia manoeuvring skilfully for tips, or tapping members of the Mau respectfully on the shoulder and saying: “Would you kindly come this way, sir?” And of course the passengers on the Maui Pomare might have felt impelled to parody a story of wide circulation, and say, not, “Who called that son-of-a-gun a policeman?” but “Who called that policeman a steward?” Indeed, the only dish a policeman could in all conscience be trusted to serve up without disaster would be “jugged” hare.