GREY-BEARDED RECRUITS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 96, 15 October 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

GREY-BEARDED RECRUITS.

Pathetic scenes were witnessed in Vienna quite recently, on the first day of the mustering of the oldest classes of the Landstrum, a levy of men between the ages of 43 and 50. Many grey-bearded men appeared, accompanied by their wives, who waited in feverish anxiety to learn whether their husbands were to be taken or not. The summoning of these older classes involves serious discolation of the family and commercial life of the city, and is causing more distress and exciting greater apprehensions than anything e'se which has happened during the whole war. In Vienna the retail price of coal is 435, an increase of 40 per cent, since the war broke out. The municipality of Budapest has bought large quantities of foreign beef to sell t« the public at prices ranging from 17d'. to halt a crown per pound. Official reports give 689 cases of smallpox in Gallicia between July lb and July 24. A RIDICULOUS STORY. Here is a ridiculous story sent direct from the front by an officer. 6ays the " Club Member 7 ' of the "Liverpool Post." It sounds too amusing to be true, but it is worth relating. Some of our men in the trenches became on quite conversational terms with the Germans opposite, both sides slanging each other in English. Our men put up a recruiting poster, which elicited a volley. A little while later one of our Tommies shouted, " i'ou might give us a truce at eleven to-morrow, because our King and Lord Kitchener are coming through this trench." At the appointed hour two Tommies held up two tall hats on sticks, which were absolutely riddled with bullets. When the attack was over our spokesmen yelled. "You blooming idiots, do yon know you've been and shot Bernard Shaw and Lord Haldane?" That Mr. Lloyd George's readiness of wit is remarkable we all know. It is said that during one of hie public speeches, the late Chancellor of the Exchequer asked the question: "What do our opponents really want?" "I know what I want," chimed in a member of the audience in a husky voice that told its own tale, "I want a change of Government." "No, you don't, "answered Mr. Lloyd George in a flash, "what you want is a change of drinks. "