ENTRE NOUS

Free Lance, Volume XVIII, Issue 988, 11 June 1919, Page 9

ENTRE NOUS

ear Free Lance, —Seeing that you are enlarging the '"'Free Lance" could you manage to confer a boon upon the community by setting apart a column or so of space in which our medicos may give explicit details in flain English (which many people brieve may be the universal language) of all new diseases as they come along? Nowadaws the average person cannot find out what "botulism," "anterior poliomyelitis," "lumbar cerebro spinOil jfluid,*' etc., really are, without .holding a stop-work meeting and 'breaking into a medical library. We are most anxious to know what trouble is coming our way, and what new ills our flesh and brains are heir to. But do please tell us in terms we can recognise after ordinary schools' education. When a man pays a medico to relieve his tummy-ache, I don't think it's a fair thing for the medico to call his pain "super neurotic gastritis," or something like that. Let's have a "Free (and easy" Lancet" column, so to speak. * * * * In this connection let me igive you an incident that happened yesterday at my next door neighbour's where my better half was having afternoon tea—with perhaps 'a shtick' in it. The second cup had just been poured out when "Pat," my neighbour, arrived home looking ready to drop. In a feeble voice he said to his wife : ' 'Bridget, darlin' Oive bane faylin' rather eehlapy all the afthernoon and wint and saw Dochter O'Pillim. He says Oive got the new disaze they do be callin' 'large, thick elephant, it is.' For Hivin's sake let me go to schlape, It's lyin' hiwy on me hid and me chist and me stummick. But, by all the Saints, Oi don't want to lose it." "Yes, Pat, darlin' O'Pillom's a good koind dochter but he'si mistaken yer symptoms entoirely. It's sufferin' from bottle-ism ye are." I think myself Bridget's diagnosis is correct.—l am, etc., Mick Smooee. * . * *" * •* Christchurch journalists, seeing everybody else belonging to some club or other, have decided to form a club of their own, where they can drink lemonade (perhaps) and bore each other stiff. Aa there are not enough journalists to keep a club going long enough to give the charwoman a week's work membership is to be extended to pet-sons with kindred interests, "though other persona will also be admitted." It will probably wind up with a few journalists and- a great many others. * * * * One of the remits that the returned soldiers met with at their recent conference was a gem from Motueka.. "That the Government accept not only the valuation of the land as it appears on the face, but that they allow for what the said lands are likely to reap in crops as well as stock." Delegates looked at it from various angles, and, having tried it horizontally and perpendicularly, passed. The chap who conceived the idea of using postmarks _ for propaganda purposes struck a bright notion, but it was one that would soon wear out, like the big gun that the Germans used

in the bombardment of Paris. The first time the legend appeared everyone read it, and was greatly interested, but nobody reads the legend now when he receives a letter. He takes it for granted that it asks him to buy war bonds'. But in some countries it must be read with daily anxiety. A Christchurch paper mentions that in the postmark of letters it had just received from Switzerland the legend was ' 'Spart Fleisch: Economisez la piande"—German and French for "go slow with the meat." A nice thing bo find on your table at breakfast alongside the bread made out of old straw hats 'and the rissoles composed of minced acorns and onions. * * * * Ashburton is the place where Prohibition is doing splendid work in uplifting the ideas of the people who formerly gazed on the froth when it was thick. The new and engaging sort of ideas it breeds may be estimated from a letter in the Ashburton paper protesting against the notion that returned soldiers should get back the jobs that were held down by petticoatjs in tiheir Girda were - better than men, said this genial soul, "and if a business man can get more efficient and cheerful service from a girl at a less wage then surely I am entitled to employ them." The girl, he added, is more pleasing "than the grouse and discontent of returned soldiers too war-weary to offer efficient personal service." Before sending us their guineas for a dinner service for this genial patriot, our readers will oblige us by waiting until his name and address are available. With unnecessary modesty, he omitted to attach them to his letter. * * •» « Away back in the '80's or '70's a German in Christchurch received for the Lutheran. Church a aet of three bells from Kaiser Bill's grandfather. When war came in 1914 a- feeling came that these bells, reputedly made from French cannon captured in '70-'7l, should be dealt with, and after a while they were arrested and smashed up, amidst the agonised yellst of even the stolitest of the Anti-Huns. Subsequently they were melted into an ingot, and a few days ago the ingot was sold by auction, a brass founder buying it for Is a pound, which made £116 for the lot. The sad discovery was made, on analysis, that the metal could not have been gun metal, being almost entirely copper and tin, with only a trace of iron and German sausage. Christchurch feels that somehow it has committed something like an unprovoked assault. What will happen to the bells only the brass-founder knows —-he will probably make them into door knockers or gongs. The £116 is to be credited to Germany against the indemnity of £0 0s Od, which is New Zealand's share apparently. - * * * * Here is an impressionist sketch of the new General Manager of Hail ways from the pen of 1 'Dooley, Doctor of Philosophy" in the "New Zealand Railway Officers' Advocate": —"Now take me frind tli' new Jinneral Manger. a man f'r whom I have a shtrong regard, f'r 'im an' me has much in common. He is a shtrong fightin' man an' I'm a trifle pugnashous mesrelf, besides bein' a dead shot wid a halfbrick. Now I tell ve he ia a diplomatist ! See how he deals wid the dipv»-p----tations an' dilligations. He picks wan up, plays a chune on it, lays it down quickly, takes a rassle out ov another wan. an' thin takes a B flat in wan hand an' a D.F. in th' other an' makes thim both aing out together! Just like wan av th' Swiss bellringers! Th' proper study av mankind, as Hogan says, is man: an' th' new Jinneral has studied an' managed thim cattle f'r many wearisome- years."

A Sydney journal' pertinently asks now many of those dear, sweet young ladies who sent white feathersi during tlae war are now doing their bit by helping the V.A.D.'s to fight the 'flu? Tliere are slackers in both sexes. * * * * In order to allay the prevailing unrest and prevent it turning to Bolshevism like sugar turning into starch or vice-versa, there is a movement in Christchurch to get- municipal bowling greens. One serious would be averter of Bolshevism thinks bowls ought to be cheaper. At ijresent it costs £10 to start, he said, and he gave a list of capital expenditure— bowls, sub., blazer, trousers, shoes, hat and locker fee. Why should this financial hurdle be necessary? he asks. Let us do without these things*. How bowls will be played without trousers nobody knows, but Christchurch, game for anythink new, is probably game enough for thist. * # » * The trouble with Wellington is that it is too slow. So Dr. Thacker told the delighted people of Christchurch when he got home from the Town Planning Conference. "My general impression of Wellington," he said "is that the whole place seems to be slumping. There is no activity about it." And Christchurch was so bucked Qver this that it ceased snoring for ten minutes. Christchurch has. only two speeds—"slow" and "stop." * -it * * The "Maoriland Worker" is not improving in politeness. Because Mr W. A. Veitch, M.P., dares to hold different views from the Red Fed. extremists and to publish them his opinions are stigmatised as "clotted nonsense." "The ballot-box is merely a 'Punch and Judy' show to amuse the people," And the "Wucker" winds up a characteristic tirade with thi6 scream : ' 'What the worker wants is not political freedom so much as industrial freedom, and this he has made up his mind, to get by any possible means whatever, whether they commend themselves as constitutional io Mr Veitch and the 'Times' or not." * * * * When the Germans signed the Armistice in November last they escaped, by a Jiair's-breadth almost/ the most frightful terror which scientific ingenuity had up to that time devised for their extermination on the battlefield. In fact, they escaped two experiences which would have lasted them to the ends of their lives —one was the bombing of Berlin by the big machines which were even then turning up for their fir at flight, and the other was a new "super-poison gas" beside which the terrors of the mustard variety paled into insignificance. f- * * * The public already knows a good deal about the preparations for the big air attack on Berlin, but the secret about the new poison gas has< only .just leaked out. It was an American "scoop." An oily amber coloured liquid, bursting into flame with water, it had the sweet fragrance of geranium blossoms. A drop on the hand produced intolerable agony and death

achievement in the lethal art. Its manufacture was begun in August, f9lB, 'when 800 men were virtually imprisoned—so closely was the secret yarded—m the factory right up to t.he signing of the armistice. 3000 tons of this death-dealer were to be delivered on the battlefield in readi"es® new campaign on March 1, 1919- When the Armistice was signed, the problem arose, what was to be done with the immense stocks of this terrible product which were already stored up. Finally it was> carefully towed fifty miles out to sea and sunk m water three miles deep. But the formula is there, and if the Germans don't sign the Treaty they may yet ha.ve a taste of it. * # # » queer Korean custom came to light the _other day when the .Korean brrand Prince Yi, former Emperor of Korea, died and was carried in state to the burying place of hia ancestors. Mis death, by the way, was the signal for the outbreak of the recent great demonstrations for national independence. The royal burial ground is a.t Kimkokri, 30 miles from Seoul, and the illustrious _ corpse was accompanied in the procession by monster wooden horses, on wheels, which represent the means whereby the Imperial departed is to be transported from thisi vale of tears to the Great Unknown. They' are drawn by hand—many hands, rather —and the whole procession must have been a memorable sight. What, will happen to the&e wooden equines now that the Korean royalty seems to be going out of fashion remains to bo seen. Perhaps firewood will get scarce in Korea some day. * * » ■» Somebody in New York asked the other _ day: "What are the GermanAmericans doing -for recreation besides gathering as individuals in their favourite restaurants The reply came from a lady who had received a complimentary ticket to a concert to be given by a group of singers described as the Madrigal Quartet. The name conveyed nothing to her. but the seats were high-priced, indicating superior quality .amongst the artists, so she went. The quartet consisted of Johannes Sembach, Hermann Weil, Otto Garitz, and Carl Braun, all formerly connected with the New York Metropolitan Opera House before the ban was put upon the Teuton in America. *• * * * The lady relates that the audience waa mostly of German origin, and the event of the evening was a series of German folksongs. "There was an appreciable stir in every seat. Everybody bent forward in close interest. The first words heard were: "Nach der Heimat Moecht Ich Wieder: Nacli dem Teuren Vaterort." ("I would that I were in my old home, in the land of my fathers.") Somewhere out of the darkness a sob arose, then other sobs. Song after song was revived, and each time there was sobbing. "I heard of German sentimentality," said the American woman, "but never until then had I seen an example of it."