THE OLDEST JOKE OF THE WAR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1572, 4 July 1916, Page 4

THE OLDEST JOKE OF THE WAR.

It was a balmy evening in the year 54 B.C. The great Julius Caxsar was seated iu his tent pelting his eelehratod memoirs. A pleased smile passed over his well-chis-el led features, a, happy phrase had occurred to him, he glanced round for his well-known satellites that he might indict it upon them; they were gone. Mark Anthony preferred to coin his own phrases, and Brutus — well, Brutus, as (hat coarse young gentleman afterwards admitted —Brutus was “fed up.” At this propitious moment the sentry appeared. “An old man craves admittance, 'Mighty Ciesar. Shall 1 hand him over to the torturers to enquire his business?” “Nay! Nay! My gentle Caligula!” replied the Warrior- Historian. “Perchance he may have some literary talent; let him enter,” An old man enters, his hail’ is white, his body is feeble, but the dauntless spirit of the old Roman soldier leaps forth from his Hashing eye. “A boon! (Ireav Caesar, a boon!” he cries.

“Hearken to this,” interrupts (he great man. “Having pacified the Aedui and the tribes of Northern Gaul, I determined to (each these haughty islanders a lesson. Is not that, a happy note? ‘Pacified?’ 1 swept their land with (ire and sword, and gave them peace —the peace of death."

“It is indeed happy,” echoed the Aged One. “That phrase will long outlive the kultuv of the savage tribes beyond the Rhine. But I crave a boon. Take me with thee across Ihe seas lo fight those islanders.”

“Nay, <»KI man, that cannot he,” said Julius. “Only hale and hearty men are wanted. No toothless old dotard can go with me.” The old man came nearer and whispered. It was the great- war joke! Its effect was instantaneous. The great conqueror shook with merriment, his peals of laughter alarmed the camp, his face turned purple, and even his bald head glowed with a ruddy glow. “Old man,” he gasped, “never have I heard a happier jest. Never since I pacified the Belgae, have I enjoyed myself more. True, my word is passed, and thou canst not accompany me to Britain. But thy jest shall go, and planted in that fertile soil if will live for ever."

And so it came to pass; centuries elapsed, but the jest could not die. In times of peace it might sleep and be forgotten, but with the sound of the war trumpet it woke with renewed strength and vigour l . Old grey-haired men mumbled it as they girl on their armour and reached down their trusty spears. Babes lisped it at their mother’s knee. Stern-faced Puritans hearkened lo it with grim smile. Gay cavaliers made merry with it- over their wine, Marlborough’s troops, when not “swearing horribly in Plunders,” told it to one another ns a new and happy jest. Even the stern features of the Iron Duke are said do have relaxed when first ho heard fhe merry quip. The Crimea, knew it, and so did the Boer War. W hen this great war broke out it was heard again. In hundreds of recruiting oftices and by thousands of recruits were these words spoken. Words that might well have figured on recruiting posters. Words that ought to be engraved in letters of gold and preserved amongst the antiquities in the British Museum. The plea of the toothless patriot : —“I want to light the Germans —not 1u eat them.” —W..LW. (Scotsman).