FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 805, 28 October 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” IN OUR BACHELOR FLATS! My neighbour has a garden plot He tends with loving care. Lobelia and the fragrant phlox— They blow and blossom there. I envy him, the man next door, Each morning when he goes With watering can in his right hand. To tend each plant that grows. “Each plant that grows”—that simple phrase His earnest effort mocks, Because my neighbour’s garden is A three-foot window box. ACE OF CLUBS Napier has bridled strongly at the claim of a Christchurch athlete to have set up a new world’s record for club swinging. To the Christchurch claim of 72 hours Napier retorts A«ith a record of 146 J hours set up in 1913. There is a little matter of disparity in the weights of the clubs to be adjusted, but in spite of this Napier is quetly confident.- Meanwhile the rest of the great big world will go on serenely in spite of old or new records requiring a lot of muscle and no brains. NEW PROSPERITY A French Rugby Union has taken a notable step by instituting fines for rough play. From this it will be a logical step to the licensing of players with tickets rather like driving licences, and the endorsement of their tickets when occasion demands. From the fees paid for the tickets and the amount of the fines there should be a handsome source of revenue to the Rugby Unions. In fact, if this mode spreads to New Zealand, there will be certain provinces whose finances should be singularly prosperous.

STATELY MEASURES A correspondent points out that Pakuranga’s objection to the dance called the “heebie jeebies” is not necessarily based on moral grounds. In cross-examination in the recent court proceedings, an official of the dance stated that the heebie jeebies . was prohibited because it tended to damage the hall. Outside of its boisterous character, the heebie jeebies may not he so objectionable after all. It will be freely admitted that, since the Pakuranga Hall, a comparatively new building, is far from decrepit, any dance that endangers its stability must be a fairly violent form of exercise. But if the amount of exercise involved is advanced to a dance’s discredit, then some of the much lauded measures that our forefathers tripped would be blue-pencilled from any programme. They were calculated to reduce to dust and wreckage any hall not constructed on the lines of a Norman keep or the Castle of .ChiUon.

BRICKBATS AND BOUQUETS The banner which denotes that the roof is on or the topmost brick in position was recently flown on the new railway station. The time-honoured sequel to such a happening is lubrication all round at the expense of the owners of the building. Traditional usage has, however, fallen by the wayside, and the custom now is to give each man a shining net* florin in his pay envelope on the succeeding pay day. Whether a paternal Government thus came to light is not revealed. It would have taken £2O or £3O to distribute largesse so prodigally among the men on the station job. Doubts might similarly be raised in many another instance. A friend out motoring yesterday saw a new church in building near Clevedon. The traditional banner waved from the roof. In this case, does the Minister do the honours at the nearest tavern, or is it with tea or two-shilling pieces that the occasion is honoured?

DRESS REFORM Dress reform in England has even entered the sacred portals of Eton College, and a brutal effort is being made to have the famous top hats and tail coats eliminated in favour of something merely normal like shorts and open shirts. Present writer knows very little about Eton, but suspects there is very little prospect of the proposed innovation being adopted. Harrow still clings to its shallow straw hats in spite of all assaults thereon, and the boys of Christ’s Hospital still wear the flowing blue coats of their predecessors. Thus even the youth of England is conservative. For Eton to adopt shorts and the open shirt would suggest that England can learn something from her colonies, which in the case of Eton, at least, would never do. However, it is strangely paradoxical that while the adoption of the colonial school uniform is urged in England, here in New Zealand at least one Southern school does its best to convent its 13-year-olds into young gentlemen after the English pattern.