A 'MESSAGE TO JOHN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 66, 15 September 1941, Page 6

A 'MESSAGE TO JOHN

The African news service of the 8.8. G. was prefaced by the cryptic statement that the announcer had a message for John.. The message reads: "We will expect to hear from you between the 19th and 20th of this month." Guesses at the explanation of this air-borne mystery are various. Some think that a personal advertisement from an "agony column" has drifted into the 8.8.C. discourse. Others believe that the message is a code message to be deciphered in some far-away African bivouac where a corporal's guard is about to strike a blow for the Empire. Other speculators again affirm that a prophecy is being fulfilled; and one mystic has suggested that the 8.8.C. is "calling up" Prester John, a fabulous twelfth century potentate who, himself' a Christian, ruled "a powerful empire somewhere in Asia beyond Persia and Armenia." Such geographical limitations might place Prester John out of bounds to the 8.8.C. African news service, but another legend affirms that Prester John's activities were in Africa and especially Abyssinia. The 8.8.C, which is always well documented, may have decided in favour of Africa. There have been, of course, many other Johns, from bad King John down to John Citizen and John Hop. What the message really means remains a mystery.. The 8.8.C. is evidently determined to give Dr. Goebbels something to .think about.