MR DOOLEY ON THE WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 52, 2 March 1901, Page 4 (Supplement)

MR DOOLEY ON THE WAR.

MORE SAMPLES OF HIS AMUSING PHILOSOPHY.

Mr Dooley, cynic, philosopher, and humorist, has once more made his modest bow before a laughing public.

To the few who have not already had the pleasure of Mr Dooley's acquaintance,

we may explain that he is the creation of a Chicago journalist, who has set him in the congenial atmosphere of a small saloon in that city. Here it is that the sage nightly discourses on men and matters in his shirt sleeves and a strong Irish-American accent. His devoted friend, Mr Hennessy, is the Eoswell to this Johnson, in so far as being the favoured person into whose receptive ears Mr Dooley pours bis wit and wisdom. When America was going wild over her successes in the war with Spain, Mr Dooley chaffed his fellow countrymen in the most daring and unmerciful manner. He has now something to say of the Transvaal that we may read with interest. On the despatches of some of our generals he Is severe. Put really in the cold light of the present we see that they have their humorous side. Hear Mr Dooley quoting a despatch which, it it needless to say, is imaginary:— " 'Las' night at eight o'clock,' he says, 'we found our slendber but hithrepid ar-rmy surrounded be wan hundhred thousan' Boers,' he says. 'We attackted thim with gr-reat fury,' he says, 'pursuin' thim up th' almost inaccessible mountain side an' capturin' eight guns, which we didn't want, so we give thim back to thim with siveral Iv our own,' he says. '__' Irish rig'mints,' he says, 'th' Kerry Rifles, th' Land Leaguers' Own, an' th' Dublin Pets, commanded be th' Poplar Irish sojer Gin'ral Sir Ponsonby Tompkins, wlnt into battle slngin' their well-known naytional anthem: 'Mrs Innery 'Awkins is a fust-class name!' " •

GENTLE IRONY. " 'Th' Boers retreated,' he says, 'pursued be th' Davitt Terrors, who cut their way through th' fugitives with awful slaughter,' he says. 'They have now,' he says, 'th' officers arrivin' in first-class carredges an' th' men in thrucks,' he says, 'an' ar-re camped in th' bettin' shed, where they ar-re afforded ivry attintlon be' th' vanquished inimy,' he says."

"We may get behind on the battlefield," he says again, referring to the mighty Anglo-Saxon race In their recent wars, "we may be climbin' threes in th' Ph'lippeens with arrows stickin' in us like quills, as Hogan says, into th' fretful porcupine, or we may be doin' a mile in five minyits flat down th' pike that leads to Cape Town, pursued be th' less fleet but more ignorant Boers peltin' us with guns full iv goold an' Bibles, but in th' pages iv histhry that our childhren read we niver turned back on e'er an inimy."

In a chapter on "Underestimating tho Enemy" he makes some sound reflections. "I tell ye," he says to the faithful Henessy, "ye can't beat a man that fights f'r his home an', counthry in a stovepipe hat. He might be tlmpted to come out fr'm cover f'r his native land, but he knows if he goes home to his wife with his hat mussed she won't like it, an' so he sets behind a rock an' plugs away. If th' lid is knocked off he's fatally wounded.

"All this, Hinnissy, comes fr'm dhreamin' dhreams. If th' British had said, 'This unclean an' raypeecious people that we're against is also very tough. Dirty though they be, they'll fight. Foul though .their nature is. they have ca'trldges in their belts.

"This not bein' England an' th' Inimy we have again us not bein' our frinds, we will f'rget th' gloryous thraditions Iv th' English an' Soudan ar-rmies, an' instead iv r-rushin' on thim sneak along yon kindly fence an' hit thim on th' back iv th' neck, they'd be less 'I r-regret-fo-states' and more Tm-plazed-to-reports.' They wud so, an' I'm a man that's been through columns an' columns iv war. Yell find, Hinnissy, that 'tis on'y ar-rmies that fights in th' open. Nations fights behind threes an' rocks. jATe can put that in ye're little book. 'Ti_ _ sayin' I made as I wint along." ROUGH ON EXPERTS.

And again, on the "military expert" our philosopher Is almost equally delightful.

"Clarence Pontoon, reviewin' Gin'ral Buller's position on the Tugela, says:— 'It is manifest from th' dispatches tellin' that Gin'ral Buller has crost the Tugela River that Gin'ral Buller has crost the Tugela. This we r-read in spit iv th' cinsir. Th' question is which side he has crost to. On Friday he was on th' north side in th' mornin' an' on th' south side at night, an' in th' river at noon. We heerd nawthin' Sathurdah mornin'. Th' presumption is that they was nawthin' to hear. Therefore it is aisy to imagine Gin'ral Buller, findin' his position on fh' north side ontenable an' his position on th' south side onbearable, is thransportln' his troops up th' river In rafts an' is now engagin' th' inimy between Spitzozone an' Rottenfontein, two imminsely sthrong points. All this dimonsthrates th' footility an' foolishness iv attlmptin" to carry a frontal position agains' large, well-fed Dutchmen with mud In th' fr-ront iv thim."