RELIVING THE FRENCH.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 January 1919, Page 3

RELIVING THE FRENCH.

DEAL GIiATITVPE SHOWN

A resident of Hokitika has just !'P- rC ceived a yerv interesting letter fiom a young officer who was in the firing line in France right up to the last. From ( tins letter we make these extracts, ! As ye were were, passing through P two villagos captured the previous day, R wc were given a rousing reception, and cafe, apples and the real French hugs * were served out freely. It was amusing to sec a dirty old, Frenchman, un- . shaven and unkempt, flinging his arms . around our skipper and hugging him. The poor beggars simply went mad, j aiul I should say we caught the tide of the reaction after ihejr four years . under the Hup. Finally we readied a lovely place, the boys in a big factory, J and. we officers in a house with ie.il sheets. The town was captured on the | 4th. November, and the inhabitants were simply in raptures about us. j Monsieur at our billet was really too j attentive. He filled us with Cafe, ; scraped our muddy boots, took away opr wet clothes anil dried them and buzzed about us like a bee. When our batmen appeared oil tTfc scene they were promptly buzzed off, Moiisieui seeming to consider it too good an opport unity to miss ol shotting his intense gratitude. Gratitude was only * a word to me before I arrived in that town —I didn’t know what it was— nor . did I know what real live Hate was. j The way those. French people hate the . Huns is an eve-opener. Its np wopder cither, after the four years of Hun oocupation. Both Monsieur and his daughter had served considerable per- ~ iods in the prison for most trilling . offences. For bringing in six reels of j cotton from another town and not ad- j vising the German “Kommandantur” , of his crime, lie was lined 30 marks or, j in default, six days’ imprisonment. I have heard of even more trivial offences . “ which roused the Huns’ anger to the i pitch of four weeks in gaol. 1 Then I have been shown over houses which have been systematically looted, i nncl despoiled by the Frit/.es, Mirrois I an' always broken, pictures removed from their frames or slashed out ol re- | cognition, plush covers ol lurnituie treated likewise, mattresses stolen or torn to shreds, and even plaster walls are smashed and disfigured! Well, thank ’goodness it’s all over. We are told that our next move is to the Rhine, where we are to do garrison duty until our time eonies to return to dear o|d New Zealand,”