NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 27 January 1915, Page 2

NEWS FROM ALL QUARTERS.

OFFiCEKS AND MEN MEET FATHER NEPTUNE. The Atlienic crossed the lino on 73th November. An officer writes:—At 2 p.m. to-day the Crossing- tlie-line ceremony began, and, in spite of the raiu went off vory well. Father Neptune and Mrs Neptune came aboard with their usual retinue—dentist, doctors, two barbers and their large bodyguard stripped to the waist. Neptune was appropriately dressed (largo flowing board, etc.) <ind Mrs Noptuno looked a pretty littlo mermaid (she really looked the part).

Tho ducking lasted over an hour. The victim was unceremoniously seized by tho bodyguard, dragged to a chair made of a box well greased, ind made to tip backwards.

Before being seated n> the chair, in front of which sat Father Neptune and his mermaid, the victim was inoculated (a joke on tho typhoid inoculation) by the use of a large garden syringe and soapy water generally squirted inside the victim's shirt. He was then lathered with a whitewash brush and plenty of soapsuds, and scraped with two enormous razors made of wood, about two feet long, and tipped) head over heels in a canvas bath full of sea water. He was then sot upon toy several huge fellows who ducked him. and as ho scrambled out of the bath he was well hosed, and as he ran from that Me was daubed in the face with a mop covered with soot, and finally well peppered with flour.

Most of Che officers wont tlirough and hundreds of men, all in tho greatest good humour."