FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 676, 30 May 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By «‘THE LOOK-OUT MAN." THE EPICURE'S DREAM A lecturer, addressing the Auckland Institute, displayed a fossil oyster shell, eight inches across, part of a tertiary deposit on Waiheke. Give me decent wealth and then Motor-cars and radio. Then among contented men Yet when one’s inclined to roister There’s an aching sense of loss. Oh, to dally with an oyster. Measuring a span across l Yet in tertiary days Primal shores disclosed a prize To the epicurean gaze. Oysters grown to record size. ’Twas an age when mountains stumbled Continents rose tip and fell. But by this a man is humbled — Oysters on an eight-inch shell! — BEOWULF. * * • DOING IT BY HALVES Even in active, progressive Whangarei, they sometimes do things by halves. Witness the report of a contemporary concerning a building society meeting: “It was decided by 45 votes to not to interfere with the directors in their efforts to secure the money.” Perhaps the half vote was contributed by someone who was in two minds about the matter. WITH PEN AND BRUSH The charming water colours exhibited by Lady Alice Fergusson at the exhibition of the Society of Arts denote the breadth of her interests and the talent she brings to bear upon them. Probably no Governor’s lady has seen so much of New Zealand as Lady Alice has seen during her term here. She has explored rarely visited islands off the coast, and has ridden through the Urewera country. These, places she is capable of describing with a rare felicity of expression. In “Blackwood’s Magazine” (England), for September, 1928, appeared an article by Lady Alice on “Shakespeare Among the Samoans.” “Blackwood’s” preserves a high literary tradition, and recognition in its pages is a mark of merit. BUTTONS AND ALL When the traffic inspector for Glen Eden gets busy about ordering the new uniform conceded by an indulgent set of aldermen, it is to be hoped he does not fall unwittingly into the trap that caught the traffic inspector of Wanganui under similar circumstances. The Wanganui City Council had authorised the traffic officer to procure a. uniform, which was ordered from Palmerston North. Some days later the inspector went to the post office and sent the following wire: “Put brass buttons on coat.” There were races on in Palmerston North at the time, and the clerk at the telegraph counter refused the message on the grounds that it looked like a carefully disguised instruction to a bookmaker. THE WIFE'S A delighted audience at the opening of the Art Show last evening heard the Governor-General, Sir Charles Fergusson, discuss the pitfalls that await the unwary uninitiated at such exhibitions. There are certain formulae that may be used, just as a man who knows nothing of horses may for a time conceal his abject ignorance, or another give the impression that he knows a lot about motor-cars by murmuring “sweet clutch, hasn’t she?” when being shown the paces of his friend’s new car. But reverting to art shows, a fellow scribe had a horrible experience with an artist, whose wife, too, wielded a powerful brush. Unfortunately she did so under her maiden name. “How was Ito know?” asked the anguished critic later. He had been piloted round the show by the artist, had duly admired the gentleman’s work, and then, on coming to one of his wife’s, entered under a strange name, had shuddered violently and said, “How horrible!” COMING BY MAJT, One of the most pathetic sights in the newspaper world is a sub-editor dealing with a batch of country correspondence. Correspondents, on the other hand, often feel that a sub-editor chops their stuff on principle. An Auckland newspaper man was once explaining to a country friend the way in which some correspondents are regarded, and said: “Now, suppose, for instance, the sub. got a batch of copy from Waikikamookau, he would at once say, just out of sheer prejudice, ‘Now, here is that perishing blighter from Wailcikamookau again.* His words might not be quite as strong as that, of course, but he would say something.” “That is nice to know,” replied the man to whom this hypothetical case was expounded, “because the correspondent at Waikikamookau is my father.” It is axiomatic, of course, that the birth of calves to Mr. Brown’s brindle cow is of more importance than the highway robbery down the road. A noted sub-editor handling a big storm story once got this to gnash his teeth over: “Tornado struck vicinity Brunnerville last, night, killing six persons: full details will • follow by letter Friday evening.”