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Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14651, 4 March 1918, Page 2

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The~ suggestion that the staff oiv the j Y.M.C.ArVlraw big salaries is not in-1 freouently. whispered by detractors ot the* ■ Association (says the Wanganui "Chronicle"). 'fliers is not a grain of-.truth-in :-i. : Many of _ the workers at the front are business,'men, who are helping the r.oble cause of the V.M.C.A. without a penny of -salary or ren-jmera-tion. Those who are" paid receive salaries aboiit- equal to that .of a navvy, while married secretaries make an average coal miner's wage. Many of .thesH secretaries have given up good appointments to accept, this meagre remuneration; -und. gain the opportunity to serve their country in its hour of need.

In connection with, the Hobart regatta this year, when the booths were, in the usual way, pi.t tip for auctior, the secretary of the Temperance Alliance made the higtest bid, and bought the lot. He did not sell beer, neither did he make money, bu.t, no doubt, he was satisfied with the knowledge that it was a dry regatta, says a corespondent of tre Melbourne "Argus." Thm j interdiction of the sale of liquor in the ground was the occasion of a pleajsart jest. A mysterioxis advertisement appeared in^the newspapers inviting "peo- ' pie to visit tent 30," where "everything is free." Rumour already had it that some of the licensed victuallers had « plan for defeating their enemy, and it ! is quite safe to say tl: at 99 out of every ' 100 neonle who read it assumed it j meant that beer was obtainable. The I idea was. strengthened by a mysterious [■■ distribution of "complimer tary" i +ieketp. Word weni\ rnT.ud. and the j day was not well aired before many \ thirsty men sought and found tent 30. ■Inside they found a recruiting officer i ready to tell them wly they . should erlist, and a medical officer offering free examination. Whether in a oon- '• sequence of this ioke, or by . other i means, fifteen recruits were got on the j .ground.