GENERAL ITEMS

After three and a-lialf years of war, German Christmas cards are still being sold in the Dominion. Coloured greeting cards, plainly marked "Printed in Germany" were displayed openly in a shop in a provincial town not very far from Wellington last week. One purchaser, who did not detect the enemy origin of the cards until he had left the shop, was so disgusted that lie tore a whole packet of them into shreds rather than send Germanmade greetings to his friends. Cards marked "Printed in Bavaria" or Prussia, or otherwise showing enemy origin, are exposed for sale in shops on Lambton Quay, Wellington.

"1 see l>y your letter," writes a wounded New Zealander, from England, "that the people in New Zealand can still raise money for the cause, and I assure you that if the New Zealand people could only know what a. Godsend it is when one arrives in England wounded from the front line, without one single thing to his name, and is supplied with everything on entering a New and were secured by fishermen and tied give more still. I arrived in Brorkenhurst Hospital without anything of any kind belonging to me, and the morning alter my arrival, the sister brought me everything I required, even to stamps to put on any English letters I wished to write. All this is supplied by the War Contingent Association, which has its official visitors to all our hospitals to sec that no one is without anything that is needed. The whole thing is wonderful iruits completeness. There is absolutely no difference tatween officers and men in the attention shown."

A touching incident occurred at the funeral of the late .Mr John Skinner on Saturday last (says the Taranaki Herald). The Skinner family has taken a great interest in the Maoris since the very early days, and a number of representatives of the North faranaki hapus were present at Te Henui Cemetery. .Mr W. Gray, of Okato, perhaps better versed in their lore and ancient customs than the Maoris themselves, paid a moving tribute on behalf of the Maoris to the memory of the deceased, and to tho work of the Skinner family, and then uttered an ancient waiata to the dead, this being followed'by a lamentation in which the Maoris present participated. In the chapel, an old Maori wahine, whose ancestors had befriended a member of the Skinner family in the warring days, communed audibly with the spirit of deceased. This evidence of the Maori sorrow was a unique and touching feature of the obsequies.

The Minister of Defence, in speaking of the work of the military medical hoards to a Post reporter, said that the boards were composed of men of high standing in their profession, and he had every reason to believe that they did their work impartially and conscientiously. The system ot medical examination had been devised so as to prevent even unconscious bi:is. The recruits came before the doctors stripped, and their names were known only to the military officers, who took no part in the examination, but merely recorded the decision of the doctors. -No medical officer worked in his own district, so that there was little likelihood of his knowing the recruits personallv.

In a letter to bis mother in Dunedin a soldier says: "You will notice that J have not told you much of my experience while in the line. As none of it would be very cheerful, 1 am not saying anything; besides, ttie people at home can't even faintly imagine what the real thing is like. I have not had any mail for months now. This part of France is really very pretty, but the peasant class is a dirty class of people. After all, there is really no country like New Zealand, and one realises that more the more one sees of other places. It is funny to look back on the different things that the fellows used to grumble at when they were really \VHI off and didn't know it. That song they used to sing about Trentham being 'Home, Sweet Home,' is quite true. Trentham is a home, but we don't realise it till we are thousands of miles away." When on draft leave in England this soldier visited relatives in Edinburgh, but, although it has been stated here several times that the boys get a free railway pass, he found this was only to London, 'and be had to pay the return fare to Edinburgh.

"He eatum too manv oat," said Wong Lee, a Chinese wlio was quietly holding a horse l>v a scrap of harness while several tramway -officials were engaged removing a wrecked express from off the tramline at the corner of Aro and Willis streets on Wednesday. "John"' was hawking vegetables anil fruit in Devon street when his horse, which was attached to an express, took flight and lxilted for home. As the animal gathered pace the vehicle swayed in an alarming manner. There was a trail of fruit and vegetables along the road, the former of which was soon removed by a contingent of small hoys, while in the distance " John'' could be seen coming along at his best pace. Turning into Willis street a wheel ot the express got caught in the tramline, the horse did a Gaby glide, and the vehicle minus a wheel or two came to rest upside down in the middle of the street. The horse was not hurt, but the harness was in pieces, and so was the express. A crowd soon gathered, and the most unperturbed individual present was "John," who looked upon the situation as if it was a daily occurrence.—N.Z. Times.