Under Currents

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17837, 9 October 1929, Page 4

Under Currents

IN THE DRIFT OF LIFE j

(By “ Seeker.”)

SUCH A BEAUTIFUL PRISON. Santa Barbara is a beautiful seaside resort in Southern California, with a beautiful tourist hotel, where you can give six beautiful tips to six people between the dinner-table and the door. And now this fair town has a beautiful prison and courthouse. Fourteen beautiful pages of a special edition of the Santa Barbara Morning Press are devoted to it. We read the opening announcement: ‘‘Dedication of Santa Barbara County’s new courthouse will mark the first formal ceremonies of the annual Old Spanish Days Fiesta this year.<” Then wr get headings like this: “New Courthouse is Finest of its Kind in Entire Country.” “Cost of 1,368,136 Dollars.” Alongside the picture of the "Jail Section” we read: ‘‘M. McLean Finney Writes of its Beauty.—Finds .it Refreshing.” “Murals Radiate Peace. —Interior Furnishings of Courthouse Breathe the Joy of Beauty.” The special edition has pictures on every page and abundance of advertisements. The architects of this glorious monument declare themselves “pardonably proud.” One advertisement‘states: “The Prison equipment in the jail section was installed by us.— Southern Prison Co.” One thing is missing: “The executioner expresses keen appreciation of the efficient and beautiful equipment of the electric chair.”

* * • • AN AGONISING MEMORY. Really this courthouse is a finelooking building. It seems to be ail enlarged replica of the old Spanish mission of the town (\Vhich, if I remember rightly, suffered in the big quake there a couple of years ago.) Therewith comes an agonising memory of a certain “Seeker” who went to look round the mission on a Sunday afternoon. He did not ask the priest to personally conduct him and tell the Whole story of the mission, but the priest did, and it was very plain that a monetary consideration was expected for this kindly service. The only coin the “Seeker” had was a gold piece, and he was so busy arguing with himself whether he would give nothing or part with the gold piece and starve that he heard little or nothing of the story of the beautiful old mission.” But what a delight it would be to go back to Santa Barbara and find the grand old mission reproduced in a prison so much more magnificent, and a gaoler instead of a priest to show one round.

• « • * CRIME AT KORLEYWORKO. Police Court reporters might well study the technique of this burglary story from a native paper, in the English language for the most part, published at Accra, on the Gold Coast: “A thief broke the Sabbath last Sunday the 14th inst. by entering the room of a certain man at Korloyworko at night and carrying on his usual duties. The man was enjoying a heavenly sleep when suddenly the vigorous push from his wife’s elbow nearly sent him off to the floor followed by a quick whisper, “A thief has entered this room.” When a match was struck and lamp lighted the room was almost empty, all the man’s boxes having been securely packed and conveyed to where he will find them no more. Both he and wife came and stood in the street weeping as if there was some grand funeral." The final sentence is a beautiful touch, in the true Celtic-twilight manner.

• o • * VULGAR HASTE. The people at the bull sale at Claudelands showed a turn of speed when one of the bulls broke loose on Thursday. They scrambled to the upper benches without the least care to make their movements rhythmic and aesthetic. A friend of the "Seeker” used to say, "All iiastc is vulgar.” He would miss the only train of the day from his country town and put off Ills trip to another day rather than run the last few yards to the station. One wondered how he would have avoided vulgar haste if a bull had offered him a 20-yards handicap in a 100-yards race to the nearest fence. Sometimes you can bluff a hull by your refusal to hasten. He seems to catch the idea that haste is vulgar, and ~e stands there, pawing and snorting, while you walk past him. But most of us would rather trust a good stout fence than our power of appealing to the bull’s instincts of gentility.

• * * * WHY PANDER TO BULLS? Bulls have been responsible for many tragedies during the past few months that farm folk may well feel annoyed at lliose who joke about the beast. One lady has written this protest to a farming paper: "Mr Bull is committing too many crimes, if a lion mauled people so, lie would receive a bullet instantly, but as it's only Mr Bull, armed •equally as well, if not better, than a lion, he is allowed his freedom. He roams the farm. He goes strolling on the road. Ho is lord of the saleyards and of everything he meets on the way there. He rips the plough horses if they are not more agile than he is. Yet all we farming folk seem to be able to do is to ‘hope the bull is not crotchety’ when hubby or the children cross the field where the animal is grazing. Isn’t it time for action?” * « * •

A MATTER OF LOOKS. Aunt Selina doesn’t love hulls but recognises that they, like certain other male animals, are a necessary nuisance. “But why don't they dehorn them?” she asked, “it must he terrible for the farm women wondering what may happen when their children or men have to cross the bull paddock. What! it’s just for the sake of their looks! liow perfectly ridiculous. Uncle Hay gets worked up lo the height of indignation over any girl that puts a hit of pink on her cheeks, and he’ll run the risk of being gored to death for the sake of pandering to Mr Bull’s desire to look handsome! Well, it takes all sorts of people to make a world, but if 1 had a bull. . .