FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 662, 14 May 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

“THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

THE POLITICIANS y WAIL A deputation of Auckland poultrymen yesterday asked the Hon. G. W. Forbes to prevent importations of Canadian eggs.. I remember, as a boy, Long before my faith was shaken, lloio with eggs I loved to toy. Now, alas, the glamour’s taken From that dish the hoi polloi Fondly swallows —eggs and bacon. Succulent they might have been, Appetising and inspiring, Ere the mob began the mean Practice of adroitly firing Eggs at speakers. Now, I wean, Eggs to me are onlfi tiring. Now a deputation begs Importations I’ll be staying. Granted, for I’ve sipped the dregs Through these missiles, and I’m praying, Having stopped imported eggs, Local hens will cease from laying. T. TOHEROA. “ NAICE ” FELLOW In a day’s march a good variety of pronunciations is encountered. There is the casual Sydneysider who' is inclined to say “plice” for “place,” and the very nice lady Avho says “naice” for “nice.” Possibly the Hindu hawker ordering chaff for his horse picked up a part of his ideas, at any rate, from one of these good folk in the course of his round. This is the note he left at the stable the other day: “Same, Pellse Give me Bag chanf towmoro naite.” HISTORIC FLEET The steamer Wakapai, brought into the news through the activities of some unknown gentleman with a box of gelignite, was one of the early craft placed on the Wanganui River by Hatrick and Co. in the nineties. In its heyday, few steamer services were more picturesque. A dozen steamersin all, they were the successors to a futile attempt made by the Government in ISBO to introduce a State steamer service on the river. A private company followed, but its steamer, the Tuhua, was lost in a vagrant channel. American tourists going downstream in the summer see its rusted bones above the water, and swallow gullibly the tale that the peaceable old Tuhua was a gunboat in the Maori Wars. A rival company to Hatrick’s was formed in 1907, and a rate war began that allowed Wanganui people to see their river for next to nothing. Eventually the challenging company was forced into liquidation. The Wanganui River has many rapids that hinder navigation, but iu the early days of the service the worst obstacles were the stoutly built eel weirs thrown across rapids and shallows by generations of Maoris. CATCHING THEM YOUNG It is possible that everyone save farmers will applaud the Hon. Mr. Atmore’s announcement that he intends to give education a strong agricultural basis. This may mean several things, among them the occurrence of large haystacks, cowballs and other symbols of practical agriculture on the playing fields of our secondary schools. When New Zealand wins the world awards for butter and cheese at the International exhibition to be held at Timbuckto in 1950, proud after-dinner speakers will be able to claim that the battle was won on tlve playing fields of King’s College and Auckland Grammar. If recollection serves right, agriculture at; school was always one of the subjects approached (by the pupil) in lighter mood. It was one with chemistry, with its excursions into rare experiments capable of infinite variety, and drawing, a class rarely controlled by one of those forbidding martinets who presided over classics and mathematics. Agriculture became often a simple business of weeding the school cabbage patch, or mowing the lawn. Mr. Atmore may invest the curriculum with more of these pleasant pursuits than ever. If so, attaboy, Atmore! OUT OF PLACE * * The hold obtained upon irreverent members of the younger generation by popular songs built on variations of noble themes was illustrated when a number of youths appeared in a suburban court' yesterday charged with causing a disturbance in a church by singing the modernised “Hallelujah” with misplaced gusto. It is a sad reflection that churchgoers have often had to contend with interruptions arranged sometimes with malice aforethought by mischievous young people who later become pillars of the church themselves. There is a terrible memory in one local church qf an' evening when the lights suddenly went out, a rooster flapped its way with loud alarms across .the darkened church, and strong men who rushed outside to lay hands upon the perpetrators fell over cords stretched between the trees outside. Discussing this celebrated but regrettable episode with one of the pillars of that church, the writer was surprised at his wan amile. “Yes,” said the elder sadly. Tt. was I who stood on a hox and put t*Hi rooster in through the window.”