A PROPHETIC JOKE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 2607, 17 July 1923, Page 3

A PROPHETIC JOKE.

One day recently (says the Dunedin Star) a cablegram announced that the Belgian Customs authorities had kept General Godley standing for an hour in his pyjamas whilst they searched his baggage. To readers at large this would simply be a little personal touch in regard to the Ruhr occupation, perhaps leading to the hope that General Godley did not catch cold. Five hundred Cadets (or ex-Cadets) belonging to Dunedin will perceive the working out of a prophetic joke. For at the time that the General came to Dunedin in 1913, to organise the Cadet movement, there was much outcry about the Cadets having to parade in shorts. Young fellows who wore trousers all day did not feel happy at being obliged to turn out at night in what they callEfl bathing pants. Nor did their parents approve of the idea —it seemed to them like'asking for a touch of rheumatism or something worse. When the General came round he was asked to remedy the grievance, but did not see his way to do anything, and answered that it was the best thing for tiie boys to bring them up hardy. After a big parade one evening there was a meeting of the Officers' Club, and this matter was brought up, whereupon one of the younger officers, with temerity that horrified the seniors, approached General Godley and said politely but quite plainly: “Sir 2 would you like to stand in your pyjamas for an hour?” Major This and Colonel That shuddered as the question was put. Wonder whether the General remembered the circumstances as he stood in that Belgian frontier office? May we add to the above that the gallant general's discomfort was not comparable to the double parade under an Egyptian sun—nuff said!' '' ... ,