THE FRETFUL PORCUPINE

Observer, Volume XXXV, Issue 45, 17 July 1915, Page 16

THE FRETFUL PORCUPINE

GLAD to see the "Herald" has a kick in it. This in a leader is

perhaps a forerunner of more powerful kicks: "As a matter of fact our 'military authorities,' like our 'medical authorities,' vastly overestimate their own merits." Just who is "the military authority"? Officially this authority is the general officer commanding the forces. In reality it is a bunch of politicians in Wellington with Mr James Allen nominally in charge of soldiers. Heaven' only knows who is the."medical authority." But in reality the "medical authority" is the same bunch of politicians. All orders, all excuses, all tardy discussions come from this bunch of politicians and not from the supposed "military authorities." Does anybody call on the GOO. to. have a camp shifted ? Not he! He calls on Mr Allen. Having selected, a magnificent flood area (writer has been over that Joxton "camp" site in a boat over the tops of the fences) a military officer had to await the order of the authorities" in Wellington before he was allowed to take soldiers in out ot the rain! Heaven knows why New Zealanders were allowed to charge the Gallipoli Peninsula before communication with "the authorities in Wellington.

The "medical authorities" (there really isn't such a thing) are at present revelling in an orgy of secondhand power. The new army medical officer who is coming to take charge should be told as soon as he lands that he mustn't try to do his job. He mustn't go ordering doctors about, you know! He wit have to become a Ministerial doormatter or go back to his regiment. He will have to be made to understand that the Army was made for the politician to play with and to use as an advertisement. For sheer bitter bungling the combined "military and medical authorities" (that is the New Zealand Cabinet) there is no group of men who could have made half the mistakes in the time.

Poverty and senility are crimes that are peculiarly obnoxious to some J.P.s and at least one stipendiary magistrate with an inflamed countenance in the South. Mr A. M. Myers, M.P., is felicitated! for his suggestion that people whose moral fibre is weakened by age or lack of money should not be harried by the police and poured into the common criminal receptacle. If a record of magisterial savagery could be written it would be found that hundreds of people in New Zealand have been punished for (1) being too old, (2) being poor, and (3) being weak-minded. Mr Myers wants an intermediate place where such people could be cared for. It would cut the ground from under the feet of a person like the Southern magistrate who violently abused a woman of 80 years of age for intemperance, and threatened to commit her to gaol if she "was seen in a public Elace for six months." We already aye the brutal system of depriving aged people of their legal pensions if they commit the perfectly natural "crime" of wandering from institutions and of showing a weakness for alcohol. It is sincerely hoped Mr Myers may be able to push his reform.

In tho official cinematograph military pictures now being fed to audiences who love politicians' more than ever, the eye becomes surfeited with soldiers and waits for something amusing. With true political aplomb, Messrs Massey and Allen have wedged themselves in the tail end of the picture. Mr Massey is wearing his well-known Hayfork expression and Mr Allen has his neck oil one side with the peculiarly brilliant smile for which he is famous. But the triumph of the picture is that at the last and physocological moment, that great political soldier Col. Robert J. Collins (excuse the alphabet) wearing all bis medals, looms up like a Christmas display at S'mithfield hung with tinsel. He has seen the camera and is staring at it in a proprietorial manner. It is interesting to know that no single decoration of the gallant Colonel has been won in the field. They represent his faithfulness to the—er other two massive soldiers and their predecessors. ss> © ® A good example of the successful N|ew Zealand business man is MJr J. D. Clarkson, the big motor importer, who was in Auckland on Monday on his way to Canada in the Niagara. Mr Clarkson founded! his present business in a small bicycle shop mi Palmerston North about 20 years ago when the boom in pushbikes was beginning to wane. While many men considered) that the "jiggers" were of an ephemeral fancy, he recognised that there was a commercial usefulness in tlhem. From the push-bikes Mr Clarkson passed

to motor cycles and motor cars combining all three branches of road traffic in one large concern, the headquarters of which are now in Wellington. Many sole Australasian agencies are handled as well as Canadian. It is the latter side of the business which calls Mr Clarkson to Canada every year. On this occasion he will go right on to> England, daring the submarines to do their worst. He is accompanied by Mrs Clarkson, who is arranging to stay in England/ for three years, during which time she will assist in the nursing of wounded soldiers who are returned from the front. In this work, although not a qualified nurse, Mrs Clarkson has bad a considerable amount of experience and her services should be of value as an able assistant to the nurses. ® © © Mr Jack Cannot, the stout comedian whose humour is a feature of the Tivoli Follies, is an active man, despite his rotundity. In his leisure moments at Coogee, where he lives when working in Sydney, he is a prominent member of the Coogea Surf Club and a leading light in all athletic and social events in the neighbourhood. In these recreations, since his marriage a few months ago, he is joined by his wife, who looks marvellously small and dainty beside her burly husband. There are tales told on Coogee Beach of desperate encounters between Cannot and a big blue pointer and grey nurse sharks when these monsters venture into, the surf. Seldlom it is said do the sharks escape the well baited lines of the Tivoli star and in the hauling in. Jack Cannot

usually enlists the entire. male population on the beach at the time. His exploits in life-saving are equally famous, as the beltman he floats high in the water and can see drowning persons afar off when a slimmer and less buoyant man would not see above the top of the waves. He hates to have anyone rock a bot.it when he is in it.

In the Wairarapa. a week or two ago a photo was sold for £11,000 for the patriotic fund. In the Manawatu last week a baby realised £5. The infant was a prize fat baby weighing 34 lbs., so on a poundage basis the value was not large. A Mrs Fallon was the mother of the baby, and/ she handed it to the patriotic auctioneer to dispose of. It was sold and resold at 10s a time, up to the £5 limit, and then, as it was not old enough to be kept by any of the brokers, the mother retained it.

A Maori, described, of course, by the Gisborne paper that tells the incident as a "trooper"—there being no' Maori mounted troopswants to go to the front badly. His mother hates to have Hone risk his life and she spent a lot of pakeha rent sending wires to Hone to come home and all will be forgiven. He was ultimately assisting to put a boat into the water which was to take the other foot "troopers" (ah, that word!) away and Mother waded up to' her waist in the water and seized him by the coat. Hone left his coat in bis mother's band and went. That mothel- take)s' exactly the view that this writer takes. No Maori should be accepted for service. It is one of the last nails in the coffin of the most interesting aboriginal race on earth.

"Ally Gretto" bums a stave: —It is good to be reminded of that departed genius 0. Henry, even by unconscious humorists such as the musical critic of our morning contemporary. Said the inimitable O.H.:— "Every day was just Mke another, as the days are in New York. In the morning Turpin would take bromoseltzer, bis pocket change from under the clock, his hat, no breakfast, and his departure for the office. At noon Mrs T. would get out of bed humour, .put on a kimono, airs, and water to boil for coffee." Said one "Herald" wag last week: "Madame , whose lyric soprano voice is of light quality and easily produced, sang with acceptance and clear enunciation." Of course that's, a long way from Henry, but it is a beginning. Madame might have sung "in the Town Hall and irreproachable time" or "with the orchestra and fervour." But all in good time. In the far hereafter he may reach: "The maid and the sausages rapt in melancholy and newspaper respectively." Meanwhile the local artist can give Henry many points in the subtle devices of making the first half of a sentence a perfect stranger to its conclusion, and of compelling technical phrases to assume quite original signification.

Artillery, cavalry and # infantry nowaday® are all "grenadiers" and no troops are selected as in old days to heave the grenade. In the Peninsular wars and after every battalion of infantry had a "grenadier company," the biggest men of the regiment who' wore bearskin hats a yard long and had' the place of honour at the right of the battalion. The modern soldier would have scoffed at the old grenade—a three inch steel or glass ball: fitted with 'black powder and perhaps a few bullets, with a time fuse to be lighted before the grenade was thrown. Nowadays any old jam tin filled with high explosive is mechanically detonated. Should you detonate a pepper box filled with gelignite—it will not surprise you, for you and those in the immediate vicinity won't have time to be surprised. The regiments of grenadiers nowadays are, of course, nothing of the kihdl—merely heavy infantry. They still wear the oldfashioned flaring grenade label of 100 years ago.

Wonderful how the pennies mount up and make pounds for wounded soldiers! You've got plenty of pennies, and you know a wounded soldier. Perhaps he's your son or brother, and certainly some other person's son or brother. How to help him and all his comrades? Many ways, but one of the simplest is get rid ;of those pennies on the street cars. Ask the conductor for a Tramway War Relief Ticket every time you take a ride. Nobody can prevent you buying all you want, but buy one on each trip anyhow. There is the speculative element, too, which will attract you and save the tickets up. Prizes are to be given to passengers presenting the largest number of these tickets Avhen the fund closes. So keep the tickets. But whether you keep them or not—buy them and buy comfort for the brave boys who need it.

The late Corporal J. A. Harp, a note about whom appears in another page, writing to Mr Spenceley Walker, of Devonport, mentioned that on May Bth last he was promoted corporal for gallantry in the field. The news came too late to be included in the paragraph on page 4.

Arrived by the Niagara on Monday Lieut.-Col. Thomas William McDonald, who went away from us in command of the Otago Infantry Battalion. All l went well for a time, but a very serious illness overcame the colonel and he was sent to Guy's Hospital, London, from Egypt, and restored to his sorrowing adopted land. The colonel is a very nice chap indeed—niceness oozes out of him'—and he has made marvellous progress in his official career. Who doesn't remember the fuss in Parliament a fe wyears ago when he was appointed officer in charge of the Cadet Forces of New Zealand ?

How he got there this scribe knoweth not, but get there he did. Lieut.Col. Macdonald came to New Zealand from his native Tasmania in charge of a Whirly-go-round—but, of course, he wasn't an officer then. One waits with interest for his immediate promotion to full Colonel or Brigadier-General. ® ® ®

There was a sound of devilry by night on Tuesday night on the sheep race that divides the blue Pacific from Stanley Point, the jetty and the windows of the passengers' dug out being full of holes. A Salvation Army gentleman obviously full of blood and fire-water had apparently been waving a revolver on previous ferry boats and had been a source of angry interest to a number of people. Facetious youngsters noting the peculiarity of the gentleman's demeanour gleefully declared: "Looks like a case of suicide." People who

wanted to get down the sheep race heard the banging of the Christian's gun with which he was decorating the scenery. He was in a sort of chuckling, half amused, drunken condition and mentioned inter alia that he was so lonely he fired some shots for company. Skipper Mat. Scott effected his arrest as he went aboard the Peregrine. A number of young gentlemen—some of whom are going to the war —mention that the bullets passed within 1 inch, 2 inches, 3 inches, 4 feet and three yardb from their heads. It is understood the gentleman had sufficient cartridges to keep himself from getting lonely for the whole evening. Then, just as the firing ceased, a fire broke out in Devonport and the cow bell at the end of the sheep race broke out.

® <$ ® Last Wednesday the bi-annual sale of lost luggage took place at the inward goods shed', Parnell. There were, of course, a, few amusing incidents during the proceedings. In one instance a case was put up by the auctioneer, and facetiously described as containing iron, crosses. It was purchased by a man who thought it were better in the present state of the public mind to open it outside the shed. He discovered! that its contents, instead of presenting those valorous emblems of the Huns, were last year's eggs! A negro, who had esconced himself in an empty tank which formed part of the barricade, erected hie ebonised features through the opening and bid briskly for several ladies hats, but insisted, before a final decision, to try them on his woolly locks, to the great amusement of the crowd. One bidder secured a case, which he promptly opened. It was supposed to contain sheep wash, but, alas! the contents were only bottled beer, which he and' his mates discussed upon the spot with an alacrity that would have gladdened the heart of the Trade.

Auckland's leading scientific glory, in the person of Professor A. P. W. Thomas, biologist and geologist, horticulturist and innumerable other "ists," came back from the Old Dart by the Malwa and the Niagara. The professor and his daughter had' a fine time abroad. They were in Switzerland when the European squabble began, and, receiving the straight tip from friends worth knowing, our friend vamoosed to more salubrious Britain. The dear man, who, by the way, looks the very picture of health, had hoped to bring his-soldier son, Lance-Corporal A. W. Thomas, back with him, but latest' advices show that the son was at Suez. Professor Thomas, who resigned from his professorial duties in 1913, is connected with a number of public bodies, and we shall all hear more of our valuable fellow citizen.

Marvellous how the really great can fail in some of the little things in life. Everybody knows what a clever financier Mr J. H. Upton is, and it will come as a surprise to his many admirers to hear of his discomfiture. Returning home the other day he essayed to ring up a friend. He was in a -hurry, andl to his astonishment found that his telephone had been cut off! Motoring post haste to the highest authorities he ascertained that his subscription had not been paid on due date! He laughingly explained he could understand that, but wondered- why he had not been given a-warning before such an extreme step was adopted. The official made the simple explanation that Mr Upton was but one of a batch of 944 offenders, and it was a matter of practical impossibility to telephone all of them, especially so when notices had already been sent out. There, are some sadder and wiser people in Auckland.