SOUVENIRS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 36, 12 February 1936, Page 10

SOUVENIRS

IN PEACE AND WAR

STRANGE EXAMPLES

(By C.C.)

Recently a visitor to a southern city waxed indignant because the ash-trays were screwed to the tables in the smoking-room, but the proprietor justified his doubts regarding human honesty by saying that if all the things removed from his hotel were returned he would have to enlarge his premises. That recalls a prosecution that took place in another southern town some years ago: two travellers were charged with and admitted having taken some articles from a hotel. They were of very little value, but the travellers said they wanted something as a souvenir of each place visited, and they had just completed a tour of the Dominion when they appeared in the court! Souvenirs. Someone has said that the souvenirs of the Great War were the booty of former wars, but the articles removed from hotels are nearer to the description of booty than the souvenirs of war. To have some small article that will remind one of a town visited may be quite a good idea, but the reminder would be just as potent if purchased with a few pence representing the value of a souvenir salt shaker, and the man who wanted a reminder of some particular sector of the Western Front could take it in something no one wanted. SOUVENIRS OR BOOTY? Souvenirs were gathered by a fair percentage of soldiers in all armies, thrown away by a still larger percentage of those who gathered them, and kept by a few who did not always do the gathering. But booty simply was not existent as far as the average soldier was concerned, unless it was the booty of a day. The New Zealand Division moved out of the line midway through 1918 to be reviewed by the late Rt. Hon. W. F. Massey, then Prime Minister of the Dominion, and the late Rt. Hon. J. G. Ward, then Minister of Finance, and one brigade was billeted in St. Leger. One company of the brigade was quartered in a large barn where the men had to sleep on -the ground, which was studded with large, flinty pieces of rock. Foraging parties promptly set out in search of something to protect weary limbs from the inhospitable ground, and one party located a fine supply of straw in a loft, but the owner would not sell any of it. Indeed, the owner swore by all the French saints that there was no straw there. What would you? The ground was hard, and straw had to be secured, so the party plotted to secure it by dishonest means after their honest offer had failed. The spokesman asked if the owner of the'straw would sell a bottle of wine. The answer was a prompt "Oui," and the Frenchman hurried into his cellar to select his worst vintage for the ignorant New Zealanders, and while he was below ground the other members of the party left hurriedly laden with, straw. Booty of a day. ' ' : COLLECTORS CURED. Most soldiers were inveterate souvenir hunters for a time, but practically all were cured in quick order. After the capture of Rossignol Wood preparations were made for the last great drive against the Hindenburgi Line. Parties were sent out in front j of Gommecourt to bridge the'vtrenches cut through the road leading out of the town, and while one of these bridges was being built an American ! soldier came up the road towards the town. He was laden like a camel with a numerous variety of German small arms (the Americans in that sector were all new to warfare), from a rifle, complete with bayonet, two or three stick bombs, bayonets with sawteeth and fish-back edges; down to several Iron Crosses. He was probably the finest example of a persistent souvenir hunter ever seen in France, but the degree of his success was in itself sufficient to cure him before many days had passed. A soldier had quite enough to carry without souvenirs. Souvenir-hunting, although it only attacked the individual once, like measles, and was of equally short duration was a troublesome disease in some ways. Souvenir-collecting officers always got the worst form of • the disease because their unfortunate batmen had to carry the souvenirs. But war, like adversity, is closely related to the mother of invention, and a batman was not a batman long before he cured his officer. Any ordinary ba<,man with a proper spice of pagination could get hit on the helmet with a piece of shrapnel so that some unscrupulous soldier could "pmch the souvenirs while he was stunned. An entrenching tool could make quite a convincing dent in a "tin hat" so there was no need to go short of evidence to back up a good story. Souvenirs were certainly carried long enough to be brought back home, but only In a very, very small percentage of cases. Then many of the souvenirs that reached New Zealand were carried to England while the owner was on leave, while others were gathered a long way behind the line. Someone souvenired my gas-mask, helmet, and boots while I-was m an American hospital at Rouen.