FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 843, 11 December 1929, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By

THE LOOK-OUT MAN

GROUNDS FOR REMORSE Here is a man With blushes all suffused, As if of some Ignoble sin accused. No criminal By common standards measured, He’s hitherto » A stainless record treasured. Why is he, then, In shame and anguish tossing ? . . . He stalled his motor On a Queen Street crossing. * « ABOUT PIES Admirers of the common or domestic pie have always entertained the notion that these delightful confections were the product of some sheer surging artistry which made it impossible for the exalted virtuoso to restrain his gifted hands from the process of showering pies and yet more pies upon a hungry and grateful world. It is consequently with pain and mortification that one learns of a dispute among pie-makers. Some of them are objecting to being joined in an award. It sounds rather like being joined in holy wedlock. According to the view noted above, the sanctity of wedlock was nothing to the sanctity of pie-making. But now, along with the mystery of the steak and kidney pie that on investigation was found to be merely onion, the unfathomable romance of piemaking proves to have been just another of life’s illusions. » * * CHRISTMAS SHOOT Among various methods of celebrating the festive season we should like to commend that of the Metropolitan Gun Club, which is holding a "Christmas shoot” next Saturday'. This kind of shooting is not the sort that does I anyone any harm, or is liable to leave I ■wounded or maimed birds to struggle away into sheltering thickets and die. The gun men of the Metropolitan Gun Club do not shoot at birds. They discharge their pieces at little discs of blackened clay that go hurtling erratically through the air. The humane spirit of the festive season is therefore in no danger of being infringed by this Christmas shoot. In addition there is an agreeably jovial air about the prize list, which includes such items as half a lamb, pair of ducks, one dozen pint bottles ale, one box chocolates, pair of fowls, and lots of other trifles that will add to the gaiety of Christmas Day. * * * STERN REMEDY Another interesting feature of the Metropolitan Gun Club’s programme is the system of handicapping. According to their lethal prowess as it concerns the spinning disc of clay, the competitors are stationed at varying distances from the traps. A note to the effect that “a winner goes back four yards, second three yards, third two yards, and fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh, each one yard,” illustrates the basis of the system. As in other games, it is not always easy to accept a stiff handicap in the proper spirit of philosophy. Sometimes a handicap that places a gun man almost out of range has the rather natural effect of putting him altogether out of temper. However, the wise Gun Club makes provision for this little human failing. There is a note stating that “any competitor complaining about his handicap will be penalised one yard.” Now that seems the proper way of dealing with querulous people. The Gun Club’s grounds are at New Lynn, so if a frowning sportsman is seen taking his stance somewhere back toward Avondale, onlookers will refrain from exhibiting untoward curiosity, but will simply pass on in silence, knowing that he has been a very refractory sharpshooter indeed. PITY THE PORTERS Porters on duty at the Auckland \ wharves are to be required by the Harbour Board to don “a peaked cap with lettered badge, and a clean white or brown apron.” This part is easy. Conscientious bearers of the travelling public’s parcels and portmanteaux will see no difficulty about keeping their aprons in the proper state of spotlessness in such immaculate surroundings as exist on the waterfront. But there is a harder obligation to fulfil. They must be “silent and orderly in their behaviour . . . and not tout for hire.” have been made from time immemorial to prevent porters and their ilk from touting for business. They have not been attended with great success. Experience of the bedlam created by taxi men and carters at the Auckland railway station any time of day upon the arrival of a train bears out the suspicion that the inventive mind of wharf porters w’ill find a way of overcoming any prohibitions designed to inflict restraint of trade. After all, commercial travellers solicit business, land agents do so, retailers do so, and even more exalted gentlemen countenance a polite form of the practice. Life is just one long struggle for business, so why exclude the porters?