FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 650, 30 April 1929, Page 10

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” MONEY’S WORTH Two policemen who brought a prosecution against a Greymoutli fortune teller asked for a return of their 5s consultation fees, but the Magistrate refused it, saying they had had their money’s worth. Into the presence moved the sheepish twain. The seer divorced them smoothly from their dollars, Then to her task applied her nimble brain. Her clients—were they navvies, clerks or scholarst So pondered Sonia, peering in the crystal. That pocket—held it stethoscope or pistolf The mists of doubt rolled happily away. “You, Sir, are du,e for twins, a son and daughter. I see a dark-eyed woman, H to pay, And trouble if you ever cross the water.” The other’s star she judged of brighter merit, And ventured that a fortune he'd inherit. A 3 thus their simple fortunes she divined, Of their fell purpose she had no conception. J Twas not until arraigned and duly fined Poor Sonia was aware of the deception, And then had this much to assuage her choler : Each gross deceiver forfeited his dollar! T. TOUEROA. * * * PICKING THEM With. 67 candidates in the field, the results of the City Council election will take a lot of working out. This squares with the notion that a number of the candidates will take a lot of working in. THE ONSET A melee at a dance at Whangarei, in which two men attacked another, was attributed to a dispute over ice cream. Evidently they attacked him in cold blood. “POOR OLD JOE ’’ The depth of agonised feeling raised in the breasts of Rotorua and district people over the halting of railway construction may be gauged from the following ditty, said to he enjoying a wide circulation in the thermal country. "Gone are the days when our hearts were blithe and gay, Hashed are our hopes for the Taupo railway. Still let us say, that we’ll have another go. And get that railway yet , in spile of poor old Joe.” BABY PLANES Two Englishmen having invented a “baby” airplane to sell at £350, attention must be directed to the possibility that some day the air may be thick with tiny buses that at first glance will be indistinguishable from bees, second from sparrows, and at the third from larger fowl. De Pinedo, the Italian airman who flew round the world, encountered while crossing the Andes huge winged shapes which he at first took to be other planes, but which finally proved to be great condors. Their menacing attitude filled him with alarm. The time may therefore come when sparrows en masse will discover their superiority to the “baby” plane, and when the proprietors of such machines will need to be as much on their guard against such attacks as the driver of a baby car is to-day wary of motor trucks and other cumbrous objects. POPULARITY WOOED AND WON “I will not say our Hospital is better equipped than Auckland’s said Mr. C. M. Luke , of Wellington, in a recent expansive moment, “but it is more popular.” Asked to elaborate this statement by a special commissioner who sped to Wellington by plane, Mr. Luke explained that several methods of popularising the Wellington Hospital had been tried with success. The operating theatre had been abolished and a “talkie” film hall fitted out in its place. The patients much appreciated this change. Another successful innovation was the billiards room attached to the men’s accident ward, and the spectacle of footballers with broken shins being wheeled round the table in bath-chairs had not only had a wonderfully cheering effect upon other inmates, but had even proved highly diverting to the staff. For the women patients a tearoom and lounge had been provided, while the new dance floor was deservedly popular. To banish as much of the unpleasantness as possible from hospital life, the doctors had been invited to refrain from prescribing nauseating physic, and the only “medicine” now served regularly was dispensed over the counter at the new house-bar on the first floor. Here the enthusiasm of the patients reached its height, said Mr. Luke, and furnished further grounds for the satisfaction of the board that the hospital, if not as efficient as that at Auckland, was at least more popular.