VENUS CONQUERS MARS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 168, 15 July 1916, Page 15

VENUS CONQUERS MARS.

INFLUENCE OP WAR OS MAT&IMOXY. ANGLO-FRENCH ALLIANCES. One of the results of the presence of the British Army in France is that a good many British soldiers will take French wives home witli them. The difference in language, far from being a barrier, is an accessory. Tommy Atkins teaches Miss Prance English, and Miss France teaches Tommy Atkins French. There is plenty of leisure for the court, ship to develop. Frequently British battalions remain in the same section for months at a time. When the men have done their shift in the trenches they return, "in rest" as the saying goes, to the same Tillages where they were before. Usually they nave quarters in the French houses. In a sense they become members of the community. With, tlie French men-folk away, the British soldier lends a hand with anyheavy work which requires a man's strength. A feminine baud does some sewing or cooking for him in return. The romantic atmosphere is not lacking. When, the Briton says "an revoir" to his sweetheart and starts for the trenches, he may never come back; and he is going to fight for France. On Sunday afternoons the girls are out in their best frocks us tliey ure any where else in the world, and walking with them, along the roads and lanes are men in khaki; their conversations are a mixture of French, and English. It is not romance alone that leads the Briton to marry in France. Hβ has learned to admire the thrift and cleverness of the Frenchwoman and her industry in taking the place of her fathers unit brothers who are at the front. AMERICAN INVASION FEABED. English mothers of marriageable daughters are worrying over their daughters" prospects, according to a writer in the"Liverpool Daily Post." Not only is th* war decreasing the supply of eligible men, but fears are expressed that American. girls, with fortunes made in war stacker behind them, will come over after - -the •wwet and carry off the titled prizes. "They are making pots of money in.the. States," the-mother of a young woman of 10 is quoted as saying, "and after the war the marriageable daughter of every newplutocrat will come over with her mamma:, just to buy an English husband. Think of? the distinction, not only in New York, buf in St. Louis or Denver or Chicago, of* importing a husband not only connecte4 ; with onr peerage, but who has been under fire! Mamma will make a deal with some/ one in English- society to introduce bets daughter, adding the promise of a furtherbig cheque on a graduated scale according, to the rank of the man she marries, l<! believe it wonld pay mc better to run an* American heiress than to speculate rubber." The writer asks if it is possible to institute "Protection for Eligible English Girls." BIGAKT, BUT NO BABIES. , A writer in the San Francisco commenting on the news cabled to America from England, says:— Thrones may fall and empires dissolve, bnt what the public wants to hear about Is matrimony. So first we hare a long telegram about a sermon preached by Father' Bernard Vaughun, who has the most fashionable- congregation in London. Father Vaughan wants to know why there are co many marriages and so few babies. Well, it's of no tree to ask us. We don't know. We were piously brought np before the days of co-education and Jane Addams. We were not instructed in such matters. Father Vanghan says he sees lots of finely dressed women, or rather finely undressed women, and they have pet lap dogs and pet footmen, but no babies. And they are married, too. It seems to T>e mainly the unmarried women in England who have the babies nowadays. The nation Iβ travelling to the cemetery, says Father Vaughan. Presumably so. We are most of us headed thas way, come to think of it. But why send, a telegram to America about this? Wβ have troubles of our own.

Another dispatch tells us why there are so many marriages. It seems that there is an excess of some 80,000, and this is largely accounted for by an amiable weakness for bigamy. The women want to marry soldiers and the soldiers are willing. Was the martial ear ever yet deaf to the call of love? So the eoldlers marry early,: and often. Not theirs to reason why, ou indeed to reason at all. We are teld of on* wounded soldier who married four women in as many weeks. Noble patriot. That li* could no longer light in the trenches wa» no reason why lie should spend his days In ignoble -ease. He did fthat he could. Every ;one could help, he said. There was always something to be done for the good of the country, he said. This was no time for sloth, he said. Let every one put his 'shoulder to the wheel, lie said. And so It goes. But-why is all this junk cabled, to America?