FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 829, 25 November 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” THAT CHRISTMAS SHOPPING Every day we’re setting- nearer, as the weeks go slipping by, To the season of the furrowed brow and When through the shops we wander like a leopard on the prowl, With a. pussy-footing manner and a harassed sort of scowl. When hubby scans the paper in a furtive kind of way And is slightly unconvincing when the wife brings him to bay. When we go about our business with our mind upon a list, And wonder if there’s anyone important that we’ve missed. When it’s wise to think of everything, from frocks to clockwork monkeys. For sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts and grandmamas and “uncies.” And though Christmas is a season of goodwill and happy cheer. We thank our stars that Christmas only comes but once a year. DICK WHITTINGTON. THAT CERTAIN PARTY The social column chronicles a new fashion in surprise parties. That of old was a swift and unexpected descent on some innocent couple, who perforce had to sacrifice their carpets and their domestic arrangements on the altar of hospitality. Today the obliging fashion is to give the involuntary host so much warning of the coming event that the element of surprise is rarely present. However, if any of it remained in this latest instance, the conspirators banished it in a singularly brutal manner by having a ffiper pipe them to the scene of revelry. A party thus prefaced would not be so much a surprise as a shock. GREAT EXPECTATIONS Within a year or two the old Auckland Railway Station will join the other local institutions, that from time to time have beeu consigned to a shadowed past. There was a time, of course, when the station yard extended to Lower Queen Street. Shunting operations then had a distinct interest for Queen Street traffic. More than once an impetuous locomotive came through the tin fence and made its bow to the passing populace. That, was in a far-off day, and now the land has gone up so much in value that, the Railway Department which got if. from the old provincial Government for something less than a mere song, expects to make half a million pounds out of the sale of the land when the railway traffic is finally diverted to the new terminal now raising Us brick-red mass over Beach Road and Quay Street. WAITING FOR TRAINS There is not likely to be any sentiment wasted on the passing of the old station, the most depressing structure that ever survived beyond its appointed age. To see the station at its gloomiest it is necessary to meet one of the late trains, say, the Daylight Limited, arriving close to midnight. All sorts of emotions are registered on the faces of people who sit slumped in tlre seats that line the platform. Hope, fear, eagerness, anxiety, weariness—they are all exhibited in the line of half-shadowed faces. To begin with, there is always a certain amount of anxiety as to whether tile trains will be in oil time. As far as the late train goes, this fear is rarely justified. It is a very punctual train, and makes up time very handily on its non-stop run from Frankton. Perhaps the engine men and the others of the train crew scent the warmth of home fires. Perhaps even the great engine, easing its weary driving rods as its slows up beside the platform, feels the call of its particular niche in the barn. THE TYPIST AGAIN Do policemen make good mothers? This query, unlike the celebrated inquiry as to the maternal devotion c“ shrimps, can be given a definite answer. The experience of Mr. T. M. Wilford seems to suggest that they most emphatically do not. The substitution of the word “train" for “farm" in a typed document concerning the Elsie AValker case ha*s placed Mr. Wilford in an extremely embarrassing position. It is much more embarrassing for Mr. Wilford than it would be for anyone else, because normally Mr. Wilford is never wrong. Fortunately, in this in> ance, he has a typist to fall back on. and from behind the offending machine he will continue to snipe at his opponents. Of course, there are ways of redeeming typists’ errors. Not so long ago Mr. E. J. Howard got a Bill put through Parliament. to correct a typist’s error in the Christ's College Empowering Bill of 1925. Possibly Mr. Wilford will take a leaf from Mr. Howard's book.