UNDERCURRENTS.

Waikato Times, Volume 110, Issue 18406, 13 August 1931, Page 6

UNDERCURRENTS.

HERE, THERE & EVERYWHERE. (By “Gleaner.”) A TRUE STORY. A sweet young thing approached a local detective the other day and inquired in a tone of plaintive bewilderment.' "1 often read of drunken men who have been gaoled being balled out How do they bail them out, detective!" A SPRING POEM. Here is a chestnut told in a different form in an American paper— One evening In Oclober, When 1 was far from sober. And dragging home a load with manly pride. My poor feet began to stutter, So 1 laid down in the gutter, And a pig came up and parked right by my side; Then I warbled: "It's fair weather When good fellows get together," Till a lady passing by was heard ta say: "You can tell a man who boozes By the playmates he chooses." Then the pig got up and slowly w. away. GENERAL PERSHING AGAIN. Reverting to General Pershing» now famous, or 111-famed, whichever way you like to look at It, war book. At the end of the war the doughty soldier, who could not defeat a handful of Mexican Irregulars, but won the Great War against the greatest war ' machine ever heard of, said—“lf it had not been that the Allies were able to hold the line for 15 months after we had entered the war, with the support of the loans we made, the war might have been lost.' We gave the money, well knowing that it would be used to hold the Boche until we could prepare." And that Is the man who 13 yea-» later said that the British and French troops were broken, with their morale ’completely gone. The politest thing one can say Is to suggest the excuse that when Pershing wrote his book the enervation of peace had so Impaired the brain of the once so wonderful military genius that It had be« come receptive to hallucinations. NEW BURNS POEM. It is seldom in these days, says the Dundee Courier, that a hitherto unpublished poem of the great poet Burns comes to light. But Mrs John Moffatt, St. Andrew's is the happy possessor of such. The poem below was copied by Mrs Moffatt's grandfather, the late Mr Edward Sanderson, well-nigh 100 years ago.

The verses are prefaced with the following words:—“Composed by Robert Burns and presented to the nobleman addressed upon being called up from the servants' hall (where he had been sent to dine along with them) to add to the entertainment of his company, along with which company he had been asked to go on an excursion to the Bass Rock. On presenting which he put on hla hat, turned on his heel, and retired." The verses are as follows:—

My Lord, I would not HU your chair, Tlio' ye be proudest noble's heir, 1 come this night to Join your feast As equal or the best at least: 'lts true that cash with me is scant, And titles trifles that 1 want The King has never made me kneel To stamp my manhood with his seal. But what or that! The King on high, Who took less pains with you than I, lias Mled my bosom and my mind With something belter than Its kind Than your broad acres, something which I cannot well translate to speech. But by its Impulse, I can know 'TIs deeds, not birth, that makes men low Your rank, my Lord, Is but a loan: But mine, thank heaven. Is all my own! A peasant, 'tls my pride to be; Look round and round your hall and see Who boasts a higher pedigree! 1 was not fit, It seems to dine With these fox-hunting heroes nne. But only came to bandy Jests Among your Lordship's hopeful guests. There must be here some sail mistakeI would not play ror such a stake Be a buffoon lor drink amt meat! And a poor earl's tax-pant seat! No, die, my heart, ere such a shame Descends on Robert Burns' name. HANKOW Hankow, where It is reported that 10,000 have died as the result of floods, is one of the three cities of where the Yangtse and Han rivers meet, the others being Wuchang and Hanyang, Hankow Itself before the war was divided into two parte—the Chinese city and the foreign quarter. The latter in its turn was subdivided into British, German, French, Russian and Japanese concessions, each with its separate municipalities, police, etc. China’s entry into the war against Germany and the victory of the Allies meant the reversion of Germany's area to China. The breakdown of treaties following the fall of the Tsar gave back to China Russia's piece. Later still came the sorrowful day when a British official knuckled under to an undisciplined mob of coolies and handed over Britain's concession to the Cantonese The French and Japanese held on against all threats. In the parts previously allotted to foreigners many handsome modern European buildings exist,together with all the amenities dear to the heart* of Westerners. Of the Chinese city the less said the better—it is a den of slums and filth. Across the Yangtse Is Wuchang, a city with many fine Chinese buildings and the seat of several missionary socalled universities. At Hanyang, across the Han, is a fully-equipped modern arsenal which turns out anything from rifles to big guns. Floods are really a comparatively common occurrence, only In an innocuous degree. They are caused by the melting of the snow on the mountains of the Upper Yangtse. varying naturally In their volume with tho Intensity of the winter. So great is the difference in the river high-water mark that whereas In summer from the bank one can only see the tops of vessels' masts, In winter the water 1* level with the road. LADIES—AND GENTLEMEN While many women writers hav* adopted masculine pennames. not many men have returned the roniplimenl, but Hie late Mr Oliver Madox Huetfer, who published several novels under the name of ‘‘.lane Wardle," was hot quite alone in his choice of a feminine pseudonym. Alphonse liaudet at one lime wrote under the name of “Marie Gasion." Theodore Hook signed his

early work "Mrs Hamsbotham," ‘‘Susan Crick” hid Hie masculinity of Horace ' Mayhew. "Ruth Partington," once very popular in America, was In private life Mr 11. P. Shllllber, and "Mrs Horace Manners," who wrote pungent prose in a weekly Journal years ago. was no less a person than Swinburne. Whittier, too, sometimes used ,i feminine pseudonym, while, most notable of al'., ' "Fiona Macleod" effectuatls veiled un- | til his death the identity of tile poetI critic William