FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 841, 9 December 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.”

THE MASQUERADER “No man would pass himself off as a detective if he were sober.”—Police Court news. When you’ve drowned life’s irksome troubles, And your mind from care is free, It’s a pleasant occupation To impersonate a “I>.” Simply troll the flowing goblet Half a dozen times, forsooth, And with confident assurance You may claim to be a sleuth. As upon the highway, homeward, Your eccentric course you take, Fear ye no accusing optic—■ Who are you but Sexton Blake? Or, if not that skilled exponent Of a hundred classic tomes, Would you rather be ascetic, And parade as Sherlock Holmes? There is just this trifling drawback— You may drink to such excess That your liberal libations May involve you in a mess. Virtue’s rather prone to vanish When you lubricate the neck So efficiently and often As to think that you’re a tec. NICE MICE The varied uses to which white mice may be put are illustrated by the enthralling narrative of an American explorer who has just returned from the hinterland of Asia, where baby white mice are dipped in syrup and eaten raw, just as we would eat an oyster. There is a certain technique about the consumption of this delicacy. The epicure first holds the “tiny rodent” by the tail, and then slips it gracefully down his throat. People who are perfectly at home with their asparagus stalks should have no difliculty in mastering this process. COMPETITION KEEN

In a country which is sensitive about the conversion of “bobby” calves of a tender age into equally tender veal, it is a little doubtful whether the popularisation of the above mentioned savouries would proceed far unchallenged. After all, there is little difference in principle between a baby mouse and a bobby calf. Nevertheless, we feel indebted to Mr. Herbert Stevens for drawing attention to the matter, just as we feel obliged for his account of barking birds, grinning grizzlies, tame tigers and Tibetan monks who make their guests perform circus tricks. Mr. Stevens bursts on a sceptical world at a peculiarly appropriate time. He probably feels that he is competing with a particularly gifted publicist in the person of Mr. Russell Owen, and we must acknowledge personally that we ourselves prefer Commander Byrd’s mountains to those Tibetan monks. * * * EASY MUTTON The theme proffered by Mr. Stevens affords inexhaustible scope. Why pay a butcher when you can buy a mousetrap for sixpence? As a lyrical colleague puts it: If you’re cast for a while on a far desert isle And. food is a problem, forget That you once had a nice taste for champagne on ice— Just do as they do in Tibet. Let your stomach regale with a mouse—plus its tail; Put aside all your fear and regret. Eat a worm or a gnat or a ragout of rat — As epicures do in Tibet. ALSO RAN Civility is a thing on which civil engineers naturally lay great stress. That is why local practitioners feel hurt that the Mayor should have applied the term “duds” to the unsuccessful candidates for the post of city engineer. Civility, it is said, costs nothing, and the lack of it is conversely costing the Mayor a public reproof which he may have some little embarrassment and difficulty in explaining away. In justice to Mr. Baildon, however, it will be generally conceded that he used the term thoughtlessly and with no intent to wound. After all, “dud” can have quite a friendly significance. It is applied commonly and without malice to alsorans, and Mr. Baildon is no doubt quite as well aware as the rest of us are that one of these days he, too, may be at the tail of the field. THE PRIMROSE WAY Down in Taranaki, where buttermilk is a staple commodity and even the ducks are said to walk backward when in the presence of her majesty the cow, the worthy yeomen suddenly find themselves confronted with the problem of defining what is and is not a dairy cow. From the reports of attendant court proceedings it seems that the final judgment rests upon family matters which delicacy forbids us to traverse. The cows must now realise, however, that they must submit to classification. There was once a notion that a cow could be both a good milker and a good beef cow, but this simple masquerade can go on no longer. Cows can be dairy cows or beeves, but not both. That is the judicial view of the situation; yet we have a sneaking suspicion that in spite of this pronouncement it will still be possible for the source of tomorrow morning’s milk to be next week’s Sunday joint.