CURRENT COMMENT

Taranaki Daily News, 13 April 1935, Page 13 (Supplement)

CURRENT COMMENT

OTHER POINTS OF VIEW

(By

M.O.S.)

A British diplomat in Italy has. protested against being mistaken for a spy. So far as we know, however, a spy has never protested against being mistaken for a British diplomat. # $ * An accountant estimates that a newly bom infant cries 18 times in every 24 hours. After the stork comes the ’owl.. # # # * The youth of Japan is being trained to control the proposed huge air force. Making the nation the land of the rising sons? # # * * Jack Hobbs the English cricketer has received 1000 letters in six weeks asking him not to retire from first class cricket. He will reply to all of them stating he cannot alter his decision. When we read the news to the Nitwit, he looked at us mildly and said, “I wonder if Jack really means it?” *** * . Mr. de Valera’s eye trouble, which causes him to see multiple images, is severely straining his nerves and muscles. What a strain on his nerves it must be can readily be realised, if we imagine him confronted by multiple images of Mr. Cosgrove. # * * * An endurance swimmer, states a report from India, recently swam manacled for 62? . hours. The Nitwit has written to him suggesting he start a correspondence course for convicts on Devils ' Island. •.• * * Local-motion. One is intrigued to hear that most sitting members of Taranaki bodies are going to stand on May 8, when they are going to give us a ran for our money. “But,” adds an embittered ratepayer, “they will have to jump in our estimation if they don’t want ns to put the skates under them. Favourites ran in cycles. Personally, we are not sure that these climbers on the ladder, of office who have vaulted once more into the election arena will not somersault with their platform—in which event they will have to dive again into the obscurity of retirement, or swim hard to keep their heads above water. If they were in Chicago, surejas the Lord made little fishes, someone would take them for a ride! But all we can do is to indicate a motion of no-confidence!” » ♦ • • Men in Blight The Super Serial. The Censor has deleted bodily the second instalment of Mario Oscarovna Satanovitch’s serial, and the third instalment is under re-consideration by the author. It will be remembered from last week that the Mayoral Manuscript was stolen for politicial reasons by a mysterious person described as a “rotund snake-in-the-grass.” Mr. Satanovitch has now written to the Otago University to discover whether or not there is a Scottish grass snake. If not, he will have to re-cast the plot However, next week he will introduce Chloroform Connie and a brace of Sadistic Surgeons who will operate on the Mayor for Brain-fever. Don’t miss it! * • * * Making of a Misogynist. So stirred was the Nitwit by the tale of Captain Holford, A.D.C. to 4 the Governor-General of Australia, who, by jumping fully-clothed into the shallows of Sydney, harbour and into a creek, has twice saved women from drowning, that that he hung up a photograph of him inscribed “Raleigh the Wet.” Every time the Misogynist saw it he sighed so guiltily that file papers on the bench turned over 43 pages. Finally we took Captain Holford away. “Tricked, deluded. Poor romantic man,” gloomed the Misogynist, as he saw us doing it. He gazed- at the morning’s paper and reflectively scorched out Jean Batten’s eyes with his cigarette butt. "I used to be like that fellow,” he said largely. “They don’t have such men now—six foot two with shoulders wide and straight as cricket pitches, and a chest like a pouter pigeon. I had a head that would have made Ronald Colman feel unshaven, and you caught a glimpse of my whitewashed teeth and blood-red lips only when I broke into deep manly laughter . . .Which was frequently,” added the Misogynist, beetling* at our typiste. “I had a farm of sorts in the back country near Tangarakau,” he continued. “And I lived there alone—practically alone —trying to get men to work for me and cherishing my pedigree Jersey bull—a magnificient fellow he was, with a spirit that ignored Bovril. One day I heard him roaring and stamping and I looked up from my herd-testing returns only to find that he had bailed up a woman in the comer of the paddock. She was screaming worse than any Fire Brigade siren, though I knew the bull only- wanted to be friendly. At last I saddled the old mare and galloped down to her, practising a little Tom Mix stunt by swinging her up on my saddle bow as I lumbered past. “You wouldn’t believe how that woman slobbered over me in gratitude. The pressmen got to hear of it and made the usual fuss—photos and human interest stories’ until I longed to be a cat. There was no metalled access to my land then—l wrote twice a week to Dick Seddon about it—yet in spite of the inconvenience a woman used to get across to my land every day, scream in the bull paddock for me to save her, and then ogle me afterwards. The procession wore a distinct track over the hills and the bull bellowed itself out and only made ‘ champing and stamping noises. But still they came. “I might have succumbed to a few of them,” moaned the Misogynist. “Beautiful feminine things they w'ere, but I was in love with my neighbour’s daughter who failed to hang on • my whiskers in the manner approved. I thought if I could rescue her from my bull I would be, as it were, suited. So I arranged that her father should send her over at a certain time. The day came and I heard the familiar stamping and champing. You can guess I was on the mare and down that field quick as a Tasman flier.” The tale stopped abruptly while the Misogynist took breath.

“We leaned forward eagerly.* “What happened?” “She wasn’t like the others,” replied the Misogynist curtly. “Just as I came up she seized the bull by his horns and swung him over the fence with a' force that broke his neck.

“‘I hope I have not hurt your calf,’ she said. ‘Here are the raspberries father sent.’ I never saw her again, but she is the only woman I could ever Inva."