EPITOME OF WAR NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 4368, 12 October 1916, Page 2

EPITOME OF WAR NEWS.

Written specially for flip “Gisborne Times’’ by “The Major.”

An officer at tho front writes that the German shrapnel shells are filled with ordinary marbles. Who says that the Germans can’t play games?

What the captain of the steamship said to the commander of the Hun s submarine; “You be rammed 1”

The latest from the Black Sea. One fish to another (hearing the boom of the Allies’ guns): “Here comes a new Bos-plior-us!”

All the kings of Prussia, wo read, have been called William or Frederick. But surely the present holder of the title has been called a lot of other things.

Straw flour is Germany’s newest food material. Quoth ' the German press bureau: ‘ 'Straw contains four times as much albumen, and from four to five times as much fat as the potato.” If you have an old straw mattress in the house, don t throw it away. Eat it, and be strong.

The cream of Turkey's fighting staff seems to be all Kurds.

A foreign-born opera singer . has just applied for his j‘second-citizen-ship’’ papers in New York. As a lover of harmony, he probably decided to make his home in the only country where he can find it.

Some of the inhabitants of Poland are for the Kaiser and some are against him. Positive and negative Poles st> to speak.

Germany may be able to keep the wolf from the. door, but what about the bear?

A French professor who says that the sun is never really where if seems to he, probalffy wants to prevent Germany from finding her place in it.

UC6, the captured German minelaying submarine, was on public view recently for three weeks at Temple Pier (England) and no fewer than 302,954 people paid to see her, the result being a profit of £3650 for naval and other charities.

Naval authorities refer to what remains of tho German iintei-del - watter fleetas the "submerged tenth.”

The red-nosed boozer read in a paper: “Ton thousand Germans killed in Champagne,’’ and heaved an envious sigh. ""What a beautiful death to die,” lie murmured.

At Rhe-ims, schools have been improvised in champagne cellars. A good many American college men have - decided to finish their education abroad.

A piece of shrapnel pierced all. hut three cards in a naek carried by a British Tommy. He was surely within an ace of death.

The German papers are deriding Downing Street as a "mean little blind alley.” But it looks quite equal to "Downing ’ the Germans.

■V memorandum of the German Navv Act of 1900 was not far wrong when, it foretold that: "An unsuccessful naval war of the duration ot only a. year would destroy Germany s sea trade, an I would thereby bring about the most disastrous conditions —fir it, in her economic, and tnen, as an immediate consequence, in her social life. Quite apart from the consequences of the possible peace conditions, the destruction of our sea trade during the war could not even at the close of it, he made good within measurable time, and Mould add to the sacrifices of the war a serious economic depression.

Mr Llovd George; sized up the situation precisely when lie said just two vears ago that if Germany von, all h'cr worst elements would eineige triumphant—a Germany that talked through the. raucous voice ot Krupp s artillery—a- Germany that has harnessed science to the chariot of destruction and of death —-the Germany oi a philanthropic of force vigilance, and brutality—a Germany that would quench every spark Oi tiecd , cither in its own land or in any othci country in rivers of Rood.

According to- a reuigtou., l°uuia published in Berlin fet. laul'S Cathedral (London) is filled with niachino guns and other military mateu.iL It is always interesting to account for an exaggeration, and the origin of thi s one is no doubt- the fact that n . few minor canons .lmvo been seen in the sacred edifice.

Was it by cnanco that the G.s borne Times'’ quoted from the i! iankfinter Zeitung” a report that a census of pigs was about to be taken throughout the German. Empire, and a little way further down its columns gave Martin Luther’s statement m 1528: “We Germans are German*, and Germans we will remain —that is to say, pigs and brutish animals.

A London paper tells a good war storv —“A gallant Tommy, having received from London an anonymous i>ai r of socks, entered then at once ■for ho was about to undertake a heavy march. He was soon a prey to the most excruciat-uig agony m the big toe and when, a mere cr.ppJc, he drew off his footgear .at the -end of a terrible day. lie discovered inside the toe of the socle what hni once been a piece of stiff writing paper now reduced to pulp, and on it appeared in bold feminine Hand the almost -illegible benediction: y,«d bless the wearer of this pan ot socks!” ,

A war paradox: Germany has bitten off more than she can chew, and yet, fronWßerlin food, reports, one "atiiers that she could chew a, great deal more than she can bite.

The significance of the whole of tho British Empire overseas springing to war when England became involved was not lost sight of by the German press and people, which had been led by their rulers to expect something quite different. They were told that England herself was on the verge of civil war with Ireland, and that Australia and New Zealand only awaited a European war to declare their national- independence. Now that events have proved the falsity of the pre-war predictions of Die Potsdam professors, the German press bitterly complain that England is mobilising the world against the German empire. When Queen Victoria died the Kaiser definitely announced to those about him that the last link that prevented him from devoting his life to crushing Great Britain and the seizing of the outlying British colonies had been severed, and that to that task ho proposed to devote the whom of his life and energy. A member of the diplomatic service related this story. He was some years stationed in Berlin, and; states that this bombastic declaration of the Kaiser was freely discussed in Berlin at the time. It was reported to the British Government of the day, which, however, declined to attach any credence to it.