PADDY ON TERMS OF PEACE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11215, 22 October 1914, Page 4

PADDY ON TERMS OF PEACE.

" 'Ave a look at it," Paddy the Boots remarked, as he handed a piece of the newspaper to the pommy porter. "It will do you good to read it as a fine business document. Terms of peace what Germany meant to ask for as soon as the 'viet-ry was won. Told to a rich Gorman Yank, an' repeated by the Frenchman Clemensaw. 'Arf of France to be cut off an' ioined on to Germany. Four 'uudred thousand million quid to be paid by France. French army to stop recrtiitm'. No French tariff to be s'tuck up against the naade-in-Gormany goods.' « " And this, too," said the porter, who bad begun to read. "France fer to give three million roifles. three tbaheand cannon, an' forty thahsand 'orses. An' to be Germany's alloy. By croifies, it's pretty'ot!" "Can you imagine Germany as boxin' chanipyun of the world?" Paddy asked. "If that was so, I wonder what guarantee she'd want before she stepped into the ring? We thought it was had enough when Tommy Burns got six thousand an' Jack Johnson could only get two thousand—or was it one thousand? But Germany's about the graspin'est' proposition the world ever seen. If she was the champynn, she'd make a rule that win or lose she must 'ave all the purse, together with* the other chap's cottage property and his wife's joolery." "All Germans is greedy bahndfers," the porter remarked.

"Well.. no," said Paddy, "takin' |em one by one, the funny thing about it is that > they ain't. I've played chess at times in the German wineshops with the Fritzes and the Augusts, and when they've beat me they haven't wanted to empty me pockets an' loot me box o' fags an' out the silver mountin's off of me braces. They've took their glass of wine as conq'ror, an' said no more, abbut it. But, strike me, when they start makin' war as a nation, they go clean off their onion. Did y'ever hear of such a clean sweep as what that German in America said they'd do?" "It wouldn't bo allahed to 'appen," the porter said. "I dare say not," Paddy agreed. "It's hogdshness, that's what it is. Shove another snout out of the way, an' then eat up the 'ole.trongh. Them Prussians is about two thousand years behind the times, after all"