YOUNG BLOODS

NZ Truth, Issue 1175, 7 June 1928, Page 5

YOUNG BLOODS

They Imperilled Army

Manoeuvres !

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Auckland Rep.) One recent evening, Lieutenant Ernest Theodore McKane was busy imparting to a body of Ellerslie cadets the rudiments of soldiery, when suddenly the officer's staccato command took on an unusual and very disconcerting echo. • "CTAND easy!" ordered he of the pips — and straightway moved to investigate whence came these weird mockeries of army discipline. Was it the screeching cacophony of condemned sarg'nt-majors clambering for supremacy m the parade-ground of 'purgatory? Could it be the long-lost souls of bully- instructors pleading- with Satan to desist his three-prong jabs? No, it was merely a small section of hilarious larrikins mimicking the lieutenant as he put the khaki squad through its drill. The officer remonstrated with the young bloods, pointing out that their caterwaulings were frustrating, his efforts to add claws to the British lion. Later, when Lieut. McKane was passing, the .'.-"mob," there was a further demonstration-'- of jeering and mudslinging, so m^ieh so that he again brought the youths to book about their behavior.. • "You are interfering with militai'y operations," said, the officer. "There is such a thing m New Zealand as law and order— and you must abide by. it." Then up spake young Charles Day. Bold and defiant, he informed the officer that certain discourse, so far as he was concerned, had a habit of "going In one ear and out the other." ' He didn't, however, find this so ' when he discovered himself springing to attention as the Auckland Police Court orderly's stentorian '. voice called him m answer to a charge of obstructing a military parade. ; Nor would- -Day experience Magistrate Hunt's heavy intonations passing clean through, his cranium without leaving some impression, especially when his worship's orders were m connection with a 20/- fine and costs. We fools buy things we can't afford, And sneer at old-time ways; When naught remains for bed and board We fall on evil days. But corrimonsense through all survives, When bad colds we endure. We save a coin to save our lives With Woods' Great Peppermint Cure.*