FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 688, 13 June 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” WELCOME, STRANGER

The New Zealand quota of one hundred for admission to the United States in the next 12 months is already nearly full. Let's all away to the U.S.A., Where various races mingle. Where Czechs and Serbs sing curious blurbs, And billions of dollars jingle, And central heating tahes lots of beating, While gas logs glow in the ingle. For what care I if they call me “Guy,” Or the bootlegger calls me “Brother.” Or even though he may hail me, “Bo,” As one good “egg” to another. If girl's are “Susies” or “shirts” or “bloozies,'' What's that to her “Momma” —-or mother. Then here's a date to the Golden Gate, A toast to those star-bright banners. What's that? No space in that glorious place, That land of loud Hosannast Oh well, I'll go to they've filled the quota. I'm one of the “also-ranners.” —Beowulf. STEWARD !

One of the most important officials at the Frankton Coursing Club’s meeting on Saturday was a dignitary known as the stimulant steward. It is easy to imagine cries of “Steward!” ringing over the sward as officials bent over swooning hares or exhausted dogs. Hastening to the rescue would come the stimulant steward —stimulants, of course, in hand. As a football fan, the writer would like to see something like this introduced at Eden Park or Carlaw Park. Not, of course, for the crowd. That would be as repellent to football fans as it is to the dog-owners and fanneiers at Frankton; but only for the poor footballers. THE LIGHTHOUSE If architecture is petrified music, the Auckland Power Board is striking a new note in the plan to erect a steel trestle on the top of its new building, with a light on top of the trestle. Steel towers, of course, are fine in their place, but that place is generally considered to be out in the great open spaces, where men are farmers and cows are good milkers. It is true that an emblem so emphatically redolent of the great electric current business may be a good advertisement for the Power Board, but so would a half-size model of the Arapuni dam poised on the parapet. If the tower materialises, it will serve the purpose of a brighter Auckland, for the idea seems to be something like a cross between a man-o’-war’s searchlights and the Tiri light. Then it won’t matter if the lights in Queen Street do go out of a Friday evening, for there will still be the light high up In the sky above the Power Board offices. The board would never be so blind to the chance of a good “ad” as to let it’s big light go out —even If it had to be kept going with gas. DELAWARES AND DE LA WARRS

In making Earl de la Warr Secretary for War In his Cabinet, the new Prime Minister of Britain has supplied material for a very obvious pun, but more t!ian that, he has enlisted the active co-operation of one of the oldest families in Britain, and one that in the course of its distinguished history has given its name to a tribe of North American Indians, and to a State of the United States. The barony of De la Warr was conferred on Roger of that ilk in 1209. The 16tli Baron was made earl in 1761, and as the present incumbent is ninth earl he is the 25th of his line. He is perhaps the youngest of the new Cabinet, being only 28, and served in the navy during the war when a lad of 17. Commuted to Delaware, the family name Is borne by the Delaware Indians and the State of Delaware in America. Thomas de la Warr was Governor of the colony of Virginia from 1610 to 1619, and is revered in that State as the real founder of the colony. ROYAL CARS The first motor-car used by British Royalty was a one-cylinder Daimler owned by King Edward, and the preference of King George follows that of his father. Recently the King and Queen took delivery of three cars for personal use, and two of them were Daimlers, though they had 12 cylinders, not one. If the prediction of more sober hues for motors is accurate, Royalty guides the trend. The royal cars are of deep red with a scarlet hair-line. Each car has a duplicate speedometer for the back seat. They are washed, greased and polished every night, and are held to be the best kept cars in the world. Every fortnight a tyre expert examines the tyres for nails, cracks or stone blisters. Thus the undignified spectacle of Royalty waiting while a tyre is changed Is never seen in Britain. Occasionally misguided individuals contrive to scratch their initials on the glistening enamel of the big limousiues, but against such petty offenders the Crown never takes action, though every blemish is at once patiently and skilfully obliterated.