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Manawatu Standard, Volume XLII, Issue 1010, 13 November 1917, Page 5

A letter recently received by one of. our suburban Mavors from a Frcnclr girl is strong testimony to the commonsenso gnd sclf-rcspcct of the average Frenchwoman, sa vs a writer in the Adelaide Observer. This sensible girl wrote from a village in France saying she had become engaged to an Australian soldier, whose people lived in the suburb over which the Mayor presided. and though she loved him very much she knew nothing agout him or Ids people, and to whom should she write but Monsieur le Maire, to liud out if it would be well for her to niarrv the brave Australian. (In a Fl'Oneh village it is the Mayor to whom everyone goes with till joys and sorrows. He is something like the captain of g ship, father of the Hock, as it were, even to the right of performing marriage ceremonies.) The letter was written in French, in a pretty, foreign hand, and this rather flabbergasted the Mayor, who is an excellent Creek and Latin scholar, with u __ poor acquaintanceship with the graceful French language. However, the diiliculty was soon overcome, and the wise little 1' rcncli girl having sent the full name and address of her fiancee, he soon found out all about the soldier, and was able to send the writer a, most satisfactory account of the young man and his relatives.