THE WOODEN TEUTON

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 194, 6 May 1918, Page 8

THE WOODEN TEUTON

The German bureaucrat is notoriously impervious to reason, but Duderstadt, in the Prussian province of Hanover, would seem to hold the record for the woodenheaded variety of the species. The Bochum "Volksblatt" says:-"On the occasion of the egg-card distribution at Duderstadt a resident was refused his voucher on the ground that he was the owner of five cock-fowls. The man natural! v objected to this discrimination against him, and put forward the explanation that cocks do not layers. He could not impose on the officials, however, by any such specious argument as this. They fixed him w.ith their (.'littering eyes, and sternly informed him that from the point of view of tho State cocks were fowls, „iid fowls laid ejus, and that therefore his fowls laid eggs— whatever he might choose to call tho birds. From this position neither logic nor entreaty could move tliem, 1 and tho unfortunate man had perforce to go home cardites. The five cocks on their part decline to supply him with eggs, and hens are no longer to,he procured in the vicinity at any price."