GAS-MASK COMPLEX

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21573, 8 February 1940, Page 10

GAS-MASK COMPLEX

BACK-SLIDING AMONG MEN Every now and then somebody with nothing better to do still goes snooping round counting gas masks and reporting progress—or lack of it, comments “Lucio” in the “Manchester Guardian.” The latest survey in one of the papers reports much backsliding among the males encountered in the principal London streets; only about one man in six carried a mask. The case of women is more difficult, says the maker of the survey, because they tend to throw the inquirer off the scent by using a combined handbag and mask container. It is noted that “many people carry their masks as if they are ashamed to do so—under coats, in attache cases, or even in paper bags.”

That is very wicked of them; it looks like a deliberate attempt to thwart the inquiries of the snoopers. Worse still, can one be absolutely certain that the official square box does really contain a mask? It may have nothing but sandwiches or office papc f; in it. That must be a ghastly thought for the long-nosed brigade with the gas-mask complex; should there not I - a D.O.R.A. regulation that would allow any self-appointed snooper to seize any box he chooses and see what is inside it? Without some such provision this is evidently getting a most nerve-racking war for the snoopers.