BABY FOR 1/.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 172, 22 July 1940, Page 5

BABY FOR 1/.

SOLDIER'S PURCHASE. N.Z. TROOPS' SOUVENIRS. LIVE SNAKE AND SQUIRREL. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. Soldiers from New Zealand have a world-wide reputation for their versatility, but the New Zealand official war correspondent with the Second Echelon, Mr. J. H. Hall, pays a tribute to their originality as collectors of souvenirs.

Referring to their efforts in this direction at Cape Town, he says: "The field for souveniring was wider than in an Australian city, and the boys' results were correspondingly more remarkable. They ranged, froin trophies of the chase presented by hunting hosts to —these in one collection, a live snake and a squirrel end a white rat to feed to the snake, i

"One cheerful private pioneered a new field. He arrived at the gangway with a black baby, which he assured the sentries was his as he had paid a shilling for it. Ever helpful, the 6hore police agreed to take charge of the chattel, and restore it to the vendors. It may have been explained in the orderly room next morning that such transactions were against the public interest, and, therefore, void. Or again, it, may not. Military justice moves swiftly and does not multiply words."