BY THE WAY

Evening Star, Issue 25168, 6 May 1944, Page 3

BY THE WAY

(Written by " X. 1.," for the ' Evening Star.')

" BRER RABBIT."

Berlin reports that orders have been given for destruction of rabbits in Flanders, where they have become a nuisance by burrowing under the German minefields behind the Atlantic Wall, and frequently exploding well-laid mines. —(Cable).

Brer Rabbit is a miner, Who excavates the soil, Constructing shafts and galleries With unremitting toil. All sorts of " go slow " tactics He cordially dislikes; And I should say " Hear, hear," for one If Paddy Webb observed that " Bun " Was innocent of strikes. But overseas in Europe, Where Adolf's rampart stand's To guard the cultured Nazi Reich From sacrilegious hands, Where battleships and bombers Are faced by guns and " flak," The soil with countless mines is strewed Lest paratroops attempt a shrewd Posterior attack. There Bunny is a creature Of multifarious sins, Despjte his feeding human frames And warming human skins. He scratches out a burrow To hold his wife and young, Until he touches something, am}— A bang, a cloud of smoke and sand— Another mine " gone bung " I Exasperated watchers, Alarmed by these reports, Ejaculate " Ach, Himmel! " and Proceed to man their forts. They hunt for parachutists Behind the Atlantic Wall, At risk of being blown to bits— And only to discover it's Brer Rabbit, after all. So Bunny is " yerboten," And soon, as like as not, Will go to concentration camps, Be kicked to death, or shot. A saboteur, they call him, A Communist, a Jew. You've no idea (without a joke) What queer, unmentionable folk They'll liken Bunny to! 0 Frenchmen, Belgians, Dutchmen, Norsemen, and likewise Danes, Respect this humble patriot And honour his remains. He fights for wife and children, This valiant saboteur, And risks for them both life and limb; So wear, in memory of him, . A tuft of Rabbit's fur!

As the war of 1939-(?) approaches a climax, the few non-belligerent .nations are shifting uneasily on their rails of neutrality or of non-participating alliance. When decision of the issue appears really inevitable there may be some undignified clambering down on the presumably victorious side of the fence, not in every case done with a good grace. Portugal, England's oldest and traditional Continental ally,, clings to near impartiality to the last. Probably the emoluments arising from the position of a clearing house for transcontinental civilian air traffic and a stamping ground for spies of all nations* have much to do with her attitude. Spain is grudgingly giving way to pressure to stop supplying wolfram to Germany, only because she dreads complete cessation of petrol imports, and knows that their origin is America, who half a century ago stripped her of the remnants of her once far-flung colonial empire. Turkey, who in the last war underwent a drastic reducing treatment on the joint prescription of England, France, and Italy, tardily follows the same course in respect of chrome. Argentine remains sulkily unhelpful. Sweden plays for safety.

Authors on international affairs, particularly those of the conservative observant * tourist type, have often stressed the natural affinity between Englishmen and Spaniards, Hungarians, and Russians. That was in the days before Spain's civil war and, the Russian Revolution. The bond was easy to discern—landlordism and the amenities, such as hunting, etc., associated with country life on big landed estates. In Hungary's post-war depression Budapest is said to have been thronged with penniless young Magyars yearning to emigrate to England, land of freedom and opportunity! The appetite tor flesh-pots outlives the ability to pay for them. To-day it is probably the land-owning classes, with an admixture of political adventurers, whose brakepower prevents or delays the revolt ot Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria from German occupation and exploitation.

"In the olden days," 1 r e P} ied ' " £b°re were really only two methods ot treatment, bleeding and purging. They were used whether you had heart trouble, jaundice, or the plague. In due course the bleeding, at least, became oldLfashioned, though the purging remains." . ±u "How do you do it . . . tne bleeding, I mean?" asked Alan suspiciously. „. ~ ■ _ . " Quite simple,' I said. I merely make a small hole in the vein of the arm . . • and you scarcely ieel it being done . . '. and draw off a certain amount of blood. " Okay," said Alan. "If you can stop this infernal noise ? in the ear, I don't care what you do." Nature herself frequently tries to relieve the symptoms of high blood pressure by' causing the nose to bleed extensively. Any middle-aged person who is afflicted with continuous bleeding should see a doctor with a view to having a thorough overhaul.' Three hundred years before Christ it was the fashion to bleed people for most ailments. Came a physician called Erasistratus who wasn't prepared to accept " bleeding " as a cure-all. He advocated regulated exercise, diet, and a vapour bath. His common sense prevailed for a while, but before long the medical world was as busy as ever, bleeding and purging on the slightest, pretext. Friday, May 5. " I'm a shark and Pat's a crab," announced Mary Riley, aged four, this morning. " We're in the water. "Oh, Mary," said her mother in a distressed voice as we walked down the path to the gate together, after my visit. " Don't tell such fibs. You're very naughty." "I'm a shark and' Pat's a orab, intoned Mary several times. " I don't know what's the matter with her lately, doctor," said Mrs Riley. ." She makes up dreadful stories. I'm afraid she's just a bo.rn romancer.'' " Every child's a born romancer,'' 1 said. "At four years old they live in a dream world. Don't worry about her. It's quite normal. You tell her that Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall, and she tafees it for fact. She expects you to take it for fact when she says she's a " That's this child psychology business, I suppose." said Mrs Riley, doubtfully. ■

Names in this Diary are fictitious. (Copyright.)

It is paradoxical that, while the Nazis and Pan-Germans declare this war to be one of the " have nots " (themselves) against.the "haves" (Britain,. France, and America) for possession or the world's chief raw materials, ■it is the "haves" of this world's goods among the satellite European, nations who thwart their fellow-citizen " hava nots" in any attempt to break away; from the Axis. The most painful instance of this is in France. At any rata it is the one most calculated to grieve Britain, because of propinquity andl because a former Ally has, officially, Eom« ersaulted and become an enemy. Germany's subsidiary campaign in tha Jura Mountains against the Men of Maquis, together with the poor response of French junior labour to fortify La Belle France against the threatened invasion, proves that, despite starvation and tyranny, the French peasant and factory worker leaves the easy road, the path of least resistance, to Laval and the Vichy puppets, and pins his faith to the certainty of .a. day of reckoning.

It sometimes takes a crisis to show who are our real friends. The latest) ally of the United! Nations is the rabbit. One has read of Belgian hares, but (especially in these days of queer Continental menus in the way of edible; flesh) it comes as a surprise to learn that rabbits survive at liberty in any number in Flanders. Jiist as Holland encourages storiks to deal with the frogs and. crabs which damage the dykes which" keep the North Sea from encroachment, so the Germans are declaring for the liquidation of the rabbits, which burrow under the minefields they have prepared against Allied invasion "and cause premature explosions. Nearer home the rabbit, often called the poor man's friend, is doing great service to housewives who ont.run their meat coupons. A young bunny, properly roasted, makes just as acceptable interior" lining as any fat capon from the most exclusive poulterer of Shakespeare?s day. And this country's resources appear inexhaustible. What seems a reliable estimate places the number of rabbits killed in Southland in the last 40 years at ninety millions. »»» ' • ~ Messrs Dan. Sullivan and Clyde Carr, M.P.s, have been at pains to contradict rumours of a split in the Parliamentary Labour following. According to the supplied report, this week's two-day caucus in Wellington was distinguished by " long and helpful discussions," priority of attention being given to the urgent need for increased production. While there may be beautiful unanimity among, Labour. M.P.s, it would seem that there is wide diver- v gence between them and those who sent them to Parliament. Increased, production was not served by so many idle coal mines on May Day, when even the Russians rejoiced, but.worked; nor by refusal to discharge or load the Rangatira because ship's officers did not add to long hours on duty by attendance at the hatches in port; nor by keeping a collier for days in port because the crew prefer a patent cereal to porridge as a pipe-opener at breakfast. In effect, Labour does not practise what it preaches.

When Sir Thomas Wilford was member for Hutt, qualifying for the Speakership and ultimately for the High Commissionership in London, he convulsed the House during a "stonewall " bv putting in a plea for that unfortunate section of the community which at times finds itself the involuntarv guest of His Majesty. His occupation as a lawyer brought him into close contact with those about to do a stretch or who had completed one, and among their confidences was _ an. item he deemed worthy of ventilation. It was " squeegee," which invariably headed the list for at" least the first meal of the day in H.M. gaols. One has heard of "burgoo," of " skilly," of hominy; and, from its description, " Squeegee " seems to be a poor and disreputable relation of any one of these. What it lacked in nutrition it made up for in nauseousness. Possibly the Labour Government, when it abolished capital punishment and flogging, also banished "squeegee" from the menu. Has some ship's "doctor " of doubtful antecedents purloined the recipe and introduced it as his war effort towards solving the food problem?

The late Captain Coll MacDonald, like many men who shouldered life's burdens at an age which precluded much schooling, possessed an original personality and propounded some novel ideas., One was his scheme for dividing or'connecting the Otago Lower Harbour and the Upper Harbour by means of a lodk. Not so well known was his vision of the shipping facilities of the South Island in the distant future. Well acquainted with British ports, not to mention Auckland and Wellington, he considered that by comparison Bluff, Dunedin, and even Lyttelton were heavilv handicapped. In bald outline his scheme was to develoip one of the West Coast Sounds into a major port, and serve it by a, railway tunnelling through the Southern Alps, with lines from the eastern portal radiating to the principal east coast towns. He was convinced that such a direct Transtasman connection would be a powerful stimulus to a revival of trade with Australia Meantime, however,: we have appointed Mr Barclay to see to that eminently desirable reform.

There are in Otago men from the Lakes district—the one associated not with gold discoveries, Shotover diversions, or the Kawarau dam, but with pastoral poetry, mountain sheep-folds, home-made chieeses, and a one-time' famous style of wrestling. Such men may have noted with,interest the announcement of the death of the Earl of Lonsdale. The family seat was Lowther Castle, in Westmoreland, and Sir James Lowther, brother of the late earl, will be remembered as a model Speaker of the House of Commons. The peer's tastes were not political. He is said to have fought John L. Sullivan privately in America with credit in the pugilistic sense, and the Lonsdale Belt was a trophy lie presented for competition. He was a great personal friend of ex-Kaiser Wilhehn 11. (until 1914), thereby greatly annoying Queen Victoria and King Edward VII., who thought him no fit companion for their German relative.- Von Bulow wrote of him: "The Kaiser was tremendously keen on this man, who in many respects was the typical jovial English nobleman,, tall, broad-shouldered, with light red hair and ruddy complexion, strong as a giant, always as' ready for any physical exertion as for .any good company. He was the best horseman in England. He was also a fine yachtsman. It was a delight to see him on the " Meteor," on which the Kaiser often took him sailing., in his correct English yachting suit, his sleeves rolled I hack, the muscular arms and the broad 'chest- tattooed all over with pierced 'hearts, small flags, and double initials, his feet in embroidered slippers so as not to slip on the smooth deck, surpassing any of the sailors in strength and I skill. He was, indeed, a jolly good fellow, but he was- also the bete nojr of Edward VII., who called him A » J^