How Gussie Goes to Battle.

Free Lance, Volume II, Issue 79, 4 January 1902, Page 16

How Gussie Goes to Battle.

—Melbourne "Punch."

Lord Kitchenei's command that foi the future, in order to impiove the mobility of the columns in pursuit of the Boers, officers must not carry grand pianos, harmoniums, kitchen ranges, and trifles of that kind about the veldt, has, we understand, created much agony of mind amongst the wealthy relatives of delicately nurtured young officers now in Africa :—: — The Bedgrave mother eats in tears, she's thinking of her son Whoa marching round the treaoheroui veldt with nothing but a gun. He cannot take a blue-stone house to shield him from the blast, Or to keep the damp from off him when the dew is falling fast. His kitchen range is thrown aside. It fill* his chef with ire When asked to cook a dinner on a gridiron made of wire. And the laundress with her tools of trade is fairly out of sight, And noor Gussie goes to battle in a ahirt that isn't white. His grand pianofe left behind. Poor Gussie cannot play Sweet creations of Beethoven's when the guns are put away. It tears her heart to think perhaps he doesn't rest his head On a dainty feather pillow in a noble iron bed. She would like to meet Lord Kitchener to ask that haughty ouiss If her boy when tired of marching cannot take a penny Tjus, And to bee the cast-iron general at this distressing: crisis Not to take from Guss the cute maehino with which he makes his ices.