FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 674, 28 May 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” THE SKY RIDERS Members of Parliament touring with a Ministerial party went for Sshort flights at Blenheim the other day. Such flights they had hitherto made Were of the rhetorical kind, By /pillars of party essayed -. “Mr. Speaker , if you don’t mind, I crave your forbearance to say That the Honourable Member for Hutt Is usually rational, but He’s not very lucid today.’’ “Oh, order!’’ Another takes off To soar on exuberant 'icings Or check his oration to scoff At lesser political things. An adept at looping the loop. Or keeping his nose to the front, The tale spin—favourite stunt — Has landed him many a scoop. He flies, like some airmen, for cash. And when on the hustings he flaps, The risk of a terrible crash His hazardous enterprise caps. Let featherless humans with mirth ’Watch Parliament take to the air. A parable poignant is there. Each member must come back to earth. CREPE HANGAR. OVER THE TOP A flippant correspondent to last night’s Sun inquired cryptically of Dr. W. H. Pettit: “If a man’s car turns turtle after he has been drinking like a fish, doesn’t that prove the theory of evolution?” It at least proves the theory of revolution. HAVOC Perhaps characteristic of a paradoxical world is the fact that a man can be fatally poisoned by a mosquito or have his leg broken by a butting calf, and yet be knocked over by a rogue elephant ancl suffer only tw’o broken teeth, which was the experience of a West Australian journalist travelling in African jungle. It is customary in newspaper circles to givenovices something to “break their teeth upon.” The West Australian must consider himself specially favoured that oil beginning his course of following in Livingstone’s footsteps the jungle should have sent him a rogue elephant, with the implied invitation, “Here, break your teeth on this.” And with a literal interpretation rare in literary men, he did. EXPLORING Any port in a storm is a good precept to follow. No doubt the gentleman who forced himself on the society of a lady at her home in Park Road had it subconsciously in mind. His state of inertia once he found a place of refuge made him at least not a dangerous even if unwelcome guest. Perhaps more objectionable was the stranger who booked in to a boardinghouse, calling himself an explorer. The landlady was wakened during the night by the noise of the newcomer’s movements around the different rooms. When asked what he was doing, he said: “Exploring.” GAOL FOR BOOKMAKERS Stratford is considering whether or not it should be the first town in New Zealand to have the distinction rf sending a bookmaker to gaol. Un fortunately—for Stratford as well as for the bookmaker concerned —it is too late for the Taranaki town to win its way thus to doubtful fame. Some years ago in Christchurch, one Whitta, plying that trade which in Sydney and Melbourne accounts for half the RollsRoyces in the streets, was sent to gaol for six months, the first and only bookmaker so far imprisoned in the Dominion. ROUNDABOUT How Moir and Owen would have been discovered days ago had the steamer Kyogle not been diverted from her routine trip to Cape Don, where they had landed, to search the Timor Sea for them, was an intriguing item in yesterday’s news. There is now the question of whether or not lighthouses should have wireless, so avoiding future roundabout delays. And talking of roundabout methods, wireless is claimed to show no better example than that in which Sir Hubert Wilkins sent to his backers, the San Francisco “Examiner.” news of his discovery that Graham Land, Antarctica, is an island. The “Examiner” told Byrd’s backers, the New York “Times,” and the “Times” wirelessed the news to Byrd. Byrd wirelessed back saying his party would be glad to see Wilkins if perchance he fiew to their base, and this went from the “Times” to the “Examiner,” and thence back to Wilkins, covering a triangle of 20,500 miles, though the two explorers at the time were only 2,000 miles apart.