It is Town Talk

Free Lance, Volume XVI, Issue 847, 29 September 1916, Page 26

It is Town Talk

—That it's a funny thing, but the girl with a name like; a. : flower generally has • ' a f ace .like a vegetable. —That "Germany," s ays a German writer, "stands alone at the head of*" 6 - nations as. the personification of Kutur." Thank goodness! ' —That there is one royal' road into Germany. Just carry a sample of food stuff —anything eatable will do—and the door will, be,;flung-wide open. —That the New Zealand girls are not feeling wildly enthusiastic over the returning New Zealand soldiers who bring English or French brides back with them. '" ' ' ' ' ■ " '~•,''■! —That one of the.London policeman's • sudden tests for suspected German spies -is to ask them to pronounce the word "squirrel." Most of the disguised Huns are tripped up by it. —That an applicant before an;Eng- ' : lish military tribunal described himself as a ' "Travelling Baptist Minister and boot repairer." ' 'Souls ' and Soles'' \ would haye been, shorter. > . \—That Kitchener's prophecy __ still ■■'- holds good, via,, that the final victory in this war will be won by our last million men in 1917. Though being dead he still speaks, and his counsel is: ,' w Stick it out?'' • " >-.- —That a Sydney pressman lowered himself on a rope from an upper story in order to get a scoop about a secret . meeting of Premier Hughes. and the Labour Caucus.' That scribe should have * been "a picture .actor. —That. Prince Willielm, the ten-year-old son of Willie the Knut, has been, made ~ a colonel or something; in the' Hun army. When he is a man he "will still,be in time to assist his father in not taking Verdun. . ■ ...

the Huns darkly affirm that they devised a new explosive of great power which "gives the highest satisfaction." Two chemists were blown to atoms while testing it. Probably they do not share their fellow-Huns' "satisfaction." ■

—That the English -for M. Take Jdnescu, the Roumanian statesman, who backed the Allies from the begin-

ni-rig, is Jack Johnson. And he is a born fighter,-too. as he has proved \hy 1 getting his own way and joining the Allies in. defiance of- hordes of pro-Ger-mans. . ; -■'•'■

—That a social aspirant is never too old to.climb-

—/That, eight-four new spots have "lately been observed upon the face of the sun. Very likely- old Sol freckles hinn Belt: .."; ' :

—That a propos' of the Great Push, Germany complains that the boorish English are ■ so impolite as to shove. .'..yJfftwSilii. '.■''■.

—That tlje/nMv Zeppelins have wonderful win power. Thej' probably were tested against one of the Kaiser's-speeches.

—That the Germans 7 present price on Belgium is £2,000,000, , but there is a growing belief that they can be persuaded to reduce this to about Is ll£-d.

—That a French aviator saluted Berlin with' hand-bills. German Zeppelins salute London's non-combatants with hand-grenades, thus proving the superiority of kultur.

—That deposits in .German savings banks, according to a Hun report, have increased about £12,000,000. The money was saved presumably by the populace not having to buy food.

—That a well-known Christehurch Benedict, so 'tis alleged, was caught by a man in blue one night not so long ago in an unlighted motor cat with, a ceitain visiting-, stage charmer: The Cathedral gossips want to know "Who's the, lady?"; / ~"

'■.'—That a German prisoner, formerly a London waiter, confessed \to • his captors that the German officers told them that all that were now before them were Kitchener's conscripts, who were- quaking in their boots and ready to throw down their rifles ! ■ - . '

v —That since the Zeppelin scares have roused- London periodically and suddenly out of bed at any old time of the flight the fashions in ladies', "nighties" have, changed at least once a week. The-la-test, craze when the last mail left London was for robes du nuit of the-faintest salmon pink hue.

■ —That the much-advertised "feat"'of the German submersibles in crossing the Atlantic is regarded in the British Navy as the joke of-the war. In pre-war days British-built submarines have gone tinder their ocvn power as far as China and Australia,", and , during ( the war Cahadian-b'uilt submarines have crossed the Atlantic again and again.

—That Hun leagues have been formed for the speedy annihilation of England by air and submarine. In -one" week some couple"of score or so of women and children in England have been either killed or wounded as the result of the latest Zeppelin i-aids.- At that rate it will take about, one million years to "annihilate" the Old Country—and that without any more people being born. And as Germany lost two Zeppelins and some'forty or fifty-of- their crew it looks as if she will more . speedily perish in the attempt.

—" N.Y. Life."

—That London housewives are combining to defeat the Meat Trust. Taking joint action, in fact. —rThat Miss Lloyd George, daughter of. the "little Welshman,'' has become engaged to a young man named Evans. By way of contrast her papa is busily engaged in' helping to. give the Huns particular " 'eavens.' " —That the vague rumours that Captain Malcolm Ross was amongst the missing are happily altogether unfounded. His cabled report on the recent Somme fighting is reassuring on that point. —-That "a soldier who lost his thighbone on the field of battle gets a new one"-—so runs a wonder-storv from a French, military, hospital. It seems only a. question ,of time when soldiers will carrv extra, 1 or spare parts, just like a motor car.