Entre Novs.

Free Lance, Volume XVI, Issue 847, 29 September 1916, Page 11

Entre Novs.

j|.: . CERTAIN Wellington tram conjOa ductor declares that the Empire

, " City birth-rate in . 1905 must asive-been stupendously, high. He says that the number of children of 11 or 11-§- years of age travelling on the trains that have come under his notice is really .astounding. . (NJ3. —Under 12 they travel for half-fare.) The same conductor also congratulates many Wellington mothers on their splendid chilr -dren. In his opinion some of the infants, allegedly under three years of age, that have come under his official notice are the biggest specimens he has ever seen. (Be it' again noted that infants .under three years of age ; are carried free on Wellington's' municipal trams.) ~Our conductor in'the'-course of -collecting fares has questioned the age ■of some of these 1 healthy-sized juveniles, but his only thanks for conscientiously performing his official duty is to receive a curt arid chilling reply from the child's indignant mamma. He sug-gests-that all mothers, when accompanied by their offspring should be compelled by city by-law.to carry with them the latter's birth certificates. He opines that the tram revenue would theri go up by leaps and bounds..

A propos of that black-list, the draw-ing-Tip of which by John Bull, created some ferment in the" dollarsjoving, soul •of Uncle Sam, "Exile" writing in the Sydne}' "Bulletin" supplies an instance which illustrates the need for somerthing of ■ the kind. He . says : ''A San Francisco man told me this story. One San Francisco firm—it is not on the list —made £600,000 profit last year with three big steamers running groceries to Germany via. Denmark. The method was simple: An Amurrikan named Bade acted as agent at Copen- "

hagen. When the grocery ship ,_ carrying rubber, cotton,' and nickel as well, got into ;the Skager-rack it wirelessed Bade, •■who telegraphed the German Admiral at Kiel. A destroyer dashed off and, seized the Yankee steamer, forfeited ;the cargo and paid the San Francisco firm,; what price it asked for the food. The British Admiralty was made. wise to. the plan, and captured the three ships during May and June, and took baked beans, fat, petrol and all- —into Kirkwall, where the empty ships "are now tied up. And the groceryrunners foamed at the-mouth and got the U.S.A. Government to protest.

, There's no red tape binding General Sir, Sam Hughes, the Canadian Defence Minister, hand and foot. Recently, when preparing a huge camp, he ordered one of the Canadian Permanent Force officers to have, a water supply for 20,000 recruits ready in three weeks. "It can't be done, General Hughes," the luckless officer complained. Sam took only enough time to express his profane opinion of any,man who said things could not be done, and cashiered him on the spot." Then he sent for Sir William Price, owner of five millions' worth of lumber camps and a driver.of men., "I want fourteen miles'of water mains laid in three.weeks; go ahead and do it." "I am "perfectly willing, but I'm not up, on . army regulations," -answered the timber magnate, "and I have no official rank." "Blank the militia_ regulations," said the Minister of Militia, "you are hereby created

brevet-colonel, ranking oyer all blankety regular engineer officers, and so go and order your uniform; full colonel, remember.'.' "Shirt sleeves are good enough, for me," responded the full colonel!, and in shirt sleeves he did the job in fifteen days. Some hustle. ,

The . Seventeenths before leaving issued to the relations and friends.-a neat souvenir printed on note-paper. Their monogram occupied a proud and prominent position, aaid was very effectively reproduced. Beneath it the following very appropriate lines were quoted from Wilcox's "Greater Britain":— • The battle is .not of our making, . never our plan. Yet all that is sweet forsaking, We-march to it man by'man. It is.either to smite or be smitten, There's no other choice to-day; And we live, as befits the Anzac, Or we die, as the Anzac may. ■» # * # - •» Mrs. Cajsfnull, of Fitzroy, bore three children at one birth last week. In these hot times, some just reward, Her country should afford her. We think she should be sent, -a r.ew { Distinguished Serrice Order. •» ' ■# .«■ ; * "The soul of the new British Army" is neatly illustrated by an English writer with the following true story, told by a woman. She was. riding on the top of a London motor-'bus one day and her husband was sitting beside her. They were "going for a blow"—Londoners' have a habit of taking'. the air in this fashion. They chatted with a young soldier. Suddenly he made an amazing confession:' "Ma'am," said he, "you don't, know what a treat it is to have anybody to speak to you. I often.wish . somebodv would ask me to come home with him and have a cup of tea. It would be good to see a home again, even for kalf-an-hour." The lady whispered to her husband: "Tom," she said, "let's ask him to tea.V . But, Tom was shy. He hesitated. The opportunity was igone, for the lonely soldier, got off the 'bus. Those two good people have never ceased to regret the lost chance. They talk about that lad and they wonder whether he- is dead or wounded or still lighting. ' >. , i * * ' . * * • He is a homeless hero, who is longing for home every, day and every night. He does not talk about his" longing or write about it, but it is there all the, time in the heart of his heart. He knows that he may be one of those who will, sleep under the little wooden cross, and not one of those who are' lucky enough to get . a "Blighty, V which is the soldiers' name for a wound that carries a ticket to the Old Country,' a

spell in hospital, and possibly a complete discharge. ' "I/ucky devil!", said a soldier to a badly-wounded comrade who went by on a stretcher. "Lucky devil!" And yet these warriors with their sharp, ironical humour are the very lads who threw up their jobs long ago and marched willingly in their oldest clothes to the railway station behind a scratch ban ; d that blew its lungs out day after, day putting heart and pride into batches of recruits.

Writes one of our officers from the seat of war: "I am sitting .on the battlefield with a; good view of the battle, eating 'bacon and eggs! Nothing perturbs us. " Even in the midst of our consolidating the enemy trenches the postman arrived' . with the day's letters !" •

It is-.not often that the brains of the British Army get their due. An Ameripan observer, recently returned from a visit to the British front on the

Somme. offers these opinions, one or two of which are self-evident enough : — ' 'My own oiDinion is that this offensive is only the prelude to still greater things. The Germans on the whole are fighting with magnificent stubbornness, but are out-numbered and out-gen-'eralled. and." to coin a new word, 'outmoralled' by the Allies. The action that" I witnessed from a hillside behind Mametz convinced me of that." This neutral finally declares the ' efficiency and generalship of the British Commanders to be fully equal to that of the enemy.

Once- again is the old truism: "Always get your blow .in first" proved right up to the hilt. The latest proof '

is afforded by the following interesting / extract from a wounded soldier's letter:/ "I shied, a bomb right in the face of a German lieutenant, and he clubbed me over the head with a rifle before it exploded. Devil of a" whack he caught me, but he went up all right the next moment. Good thing he hit me, too, because it made me lie,.pretty-flat, else I think that bomb would have done for me, too. As it was, I got lots of little head-scratches from splinters."

Dear Fe.ee Lance, —We, all remember the ecclesiastical intolerance,. as it was then thought, of a certain skipper of the New Zealand Shipping Company in refusing a certain . divine permission to preach in his ship some 30 years back. A story, however, reaches me which goes _to show that the captain of an ocean steamer may perhaps be right in distrusting the competence of all longshore parsons, at any rate in bad weather. A number of clergymen were returning from synod by sea, whether in

a TJ.S.S. boat or not 1 no matter. On Sunday there was service in the saloon, . and one of the party was put ■ up to preach. He began thus :" "My brethren, as I was lying in my berth■.; last night, thinking; of the mighty ocean on whose bosom we are floating, a beauti-r ful thought came to me -——.''. Then he stopped. A sudden pallor,overspread his face, and with a hurried dive for the saloon door he left to -commune with the bounding deep. Then the. Bishop arose. "My friends," he simply said, "I think we had better let our beautiful thoughts digest." There was no colleen tion, and the meeting immediately adjourned.—Yours, etc.," StGr.A.D,

*■ ■ »'' « V:* ■;' ■. ,• There s'eems, room for some improve s -: ment with regard to the medical inspection of recruits when they first enlist. Only recently a full score of raw recruits were turned out of camp, the morning after they arrived, as medically unfit. They had been passed by the medicoes in their respective districts as fit, but'

on arrival in canip the camp medical / officer weeded them out of one batch of recruits and sent them hack . whence they came. -Doctors always did v dis-'.-agree, but in a simple- though important matter like the medical inspection of-' these yoiing men surely there should' be some uniformity. . . ;. '."'•.•'

: Here is a case in point, showing the inconvenience and humiliation that a recruit may be caused-through this" jack of uniformity amongst the- medicoes. A married man—a solicitor—enlisted. He passed .the doctor in his particular district. He settled- . up his -business affairs, making, arrangements at some expense for his .absence from' the firm of which he was a partner. He.sold up his home and removed his family "to near where he- was to he camped. He was much farewelled 5 received. presentation wristlet watches, etc., . etc. At last he arrives-in camp, only to be lacked out by the medical officer there for some disqualifying ailment. One can better imagine his feelings in ' consequence than express them.

"The Prohibitionists to a. man in Uncle Sam's Land," s ays "Puck," "will oppose the purchase of the Danish West Indies. One'of the islands, Santa Cruz, has had. a. long and notorious record' as a partner of the P v um Demon." . All the-same. Uncle Sam will take his chance with the Hum. '

* «■ •# .*• \ ■ Clipped from the war news descriptive of operations along the Somme: "From each : shell-hole came a German soldier holding up his hands and crying 'Pity,' which is. a word they seemed to have learned s ih case of need." K