FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 840, 7 December 1929, Page 10

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” SATURDAY NIGHT EPIC City Councillors are inquiring what is being done about the mosquito pest. He asked her to a cabaret — He was a thoughtful sheik, So chivalrous, he almost seemed A tender-hearted freak. He asked her would she care to have A bite before the show, Then drove her up to Grafton, Where the big mosquitoes grow. * * * REFRESHING Bowlers who are off their game should he interested in this one. An elderly friend who is addicted to this vice has a mysterious unguent which he applies to his bowls. He anoints them with an ointment (laughter), and asserts that this mellows the wood, just as other preparations are said to mellow the human interior. It is his practice to carry the particular preparation along with him in a tiu. The tin had formerly contained a well-known cure for backache. The other day he grabbed a tin of real backache liniment by mistake, and used it unwittingly on his bowls. That day he played a game out of the box. Perhaps even bowls have backache. NATURE STUDY Children are now learning to read traffic signals and walk cautiously in the streets. The child’s best friend is his mother, but his worst enemy is certainly the motor-car. As for the poor old horse, he is just out of the running. The other day a child stood with its mother on the corner by the Remuera Post Office, and gazed intently at a baker’s horse nearby. Finally he asked, “What are those wooden things on its legs?” The “wooden things” were its hooves. The modern child is prone to regard as unnatural any horse not fitted with either rubber tyres or rockers. * * SWUNG A. CAT The latest in humorous prosecutions is that brought by the police against a bluejacket who merely chastised a cruel little boy for ill-treating a kitten. A magistrate, totally* unimpressed with the police case, had no hesitation in dismissing the charge, but possibly it is a trifle unfortunate that he did not give costs against the police as an indication that the practice of bringing trivialities to court is not to be encouraged. Metaphorically, of course, the accused (who was not present) stepped from the dock without a stain on his character. And in his office in Wellington Commissioner Mcllveney will with his customary perspicacity conclude that Auckland magistrates are really not very helpful in suppressing those reprehensible Northern crime waves. HUMAN TOUGH Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., has the gift of common-sense and matter-of-fact bluntness. These qualities far more than any penetrating legal insight or slavish dependence on abstruse lore, have endeared him to Aucklanders. At the present time he is the humorist of the New Zealand magisterial bench; not popular, perhaps, with those whom his shrewd shafts wound, but certainly trusted by the majority of the people. In the case just noted, as in many another, he has gone straight to the heart of things without waiting for any windy expositions of technicalities. He does so every time. He has the faculty of charitable discrimination, and there is a broad, humanising influence both in his judgments and in his sage witticisms. Old clients regard him as a friend, and reporters revere him in his most lively mood, which, after all, means good Hunting. STOLEN LUNCH These "home movie” cameras that are operated by turning a handle and later projected on to a screen in the domestic ingle are liable at times to make embarrassing revelations. It is possible that under any circumstances the reproduction of personal activities on the screen might be disquieting. It is remembered that a local rowing crew which saw itself on the pictures refused at first to believe in the authenticity of the film, and ultimately retired in a state of acute mortification at the realisation that its technique was so poor. There is an aquatic flavour about a story of more recent origin. Someone had a movie camera on the job when the outboards raced at the Whau recently. That was the day when one wellknown exponent of the outboard arts lost the carefully packed lunch that he had taken to the course. The other day there was a gathering of outboard experts to see the picture screened. The terrible result was that the wellknown exponent saw two of his best friends eating his lunch.