FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 687, 12 June 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” A PLEA FOR MODESTY The Lido is rapidly becoming the abode of wearers of pyjamas, the most modest of which are reserved for bed. Some are sleeveless and backless, and of only knee length. . . . Cable news. Though I’m not a drab “blue stocking,” Fashions seem to grow more shocking, And I gray that I may never live to see These out-of-door pyjamas From the wool of sheep or llamas, Minus legs and sleeves and backs . . . Oh, dearie mel In my dressing gown of russet. With its comely seam and gusset, I would never venture out into the air . Though pyjamas (pass the brandy) To slip on may be quite handy. They should be reserved for males, I do declare. Still these women cut their capers And make cables for the papers, Though the Mrs. Grumps they never cease to vex ... Let us sign a long petition To retrieve them from perdition, Atid emancipate once more our modest sex. — MRS. GRUMP. ANNIVERSARIES Dear L.O.M.—“To settle the argument about anniversaries, may I suggest that the scribe who wrote about the Tarawera eruption and the correspondent who argued about it get together for a quiet hour and count up on their fingers the number of annisersaries, commencing at ISS7 (indisputably the first). Should their fingers be inadequate they can always take off their hoots—and an hour should he quite long enough.”—E. Ruptiou. THE BEST COCKTAIL Sherry with the soup, moselle with the fish—and after that—sublime, splendorous clarets. Such were the tipples people favoured when men were men. But today the tired toiler struggles hame from his stool or counter and asks nothing more than a good brew of t # ea. Is it a sign of decadence that New Zealand, according to a statistical scribe, puts away considerably more than three billion cups of tea in a year, while Auckland in the same period uses round about 200,0001 b. of the commodity? They say that statistics are the last refuge of the unimaginative, but in this instance we should like to know whether beer consumption or tea consumption per capita is the greater. Tea, as an eminent physician said when lauding a race that has forgotten the three-bottle traditions of its forefathers, is the “best cocktail,” but there are still a few who prefer a dash of vermouth in their “beverage.” TERROR OF THE STRAITS The surrender of the steamer Wainui to the ship-breakers closes a chapter in shipping history. The Wainui was built to the order of the famous Captain “Bully” Williams, owner of the Black Diamond Line, from which, in 1885, the Union Company purchased the Mawhera, Grafton, Manawatu and Maitai. When the Wainui arrived in New Zealand two years later, she, too, was taken over by the rapidly-expanding Union Company. She was used on every traderoute the company has followed except those to Calcutta and the Pacific slope, and iu her heyday acquired a reputation as a sea-boat. Never known to put back on account of dirty weather, she was known to seafarers as “the Terror of the Straits.” THE UNBREAKABLE Demonstrating the unbreakable is a dangerous game. A friend once invested in one of those fountain pens that are harder to crack than the rock of ages. He had studied its history deeply. Advertisements had shown it lying confidently on an anvil while a steam hammer descended on it. The steam hammer could not dent its surface. A motor-car ran over it, and though the motor-car did not break a spring, it would have done had it not been shod with balloon tyres. It had been thrown over a precipice on to a rocky beach, hut never turned a hair. After all that, the proud possessor thought he could safely undertake a demonstration, and before an admiring audience dropped it four feet on to the office floor. Lo, he broke the unbreakable. And uttered the unprintable. In just the same way, glasses of invincible strength are sometimes placed on the ,market. They survive innumerable tap-room demonstrations, yet crash at a crucial moment. There is a sea-captain famed in story who amuses his friends when he comes to Auckland by holding their best crystal glasses between thumb and forefinger and banging them against iron or concrete without so much as chipping them. It’s all in the way you hold it, he says; but some day the trick will fail. There will be one salient consolation. that it wasn’t, his glass. Anyway, sailors don't care.