TRENCH HUMOUR.

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

TRENCH HUMOUR.

Here is evidence of German humour practised upon Polish peasants. The Germans pretened everywhere to pay for supplies with documents written in German, which the peasants do not understand. When translated, the peasants found that these papers had inscribed thereon, "Whoever presents this at the end of the war will be hanged." When the men in the second line of trenches on the British side came out of the trenches when the weather was good, at certain places the time had been pleasantly passed by punting * football about the village greens. A German aviator, noticing this, sent tn a report that the British forces were completely disorganised and running about their post in blind pani?. An inscription on a cold-storage v.agon taking provisions from Brussels to the Front read: "All the ice has been removed and this car is filled with hot stuff for Berlin." Here is a letter from a British private showing Tommy Atkins's brand of humour: —

"There's one chap in our campany has got a ripping cure for neuralgia, but he isn't going to take out a patent, because it's too risky and might kill the patient. Good luck's one of the ' ingredients, and you can't always be sure of that. "He was lying in the trenches the other day, nearly mad with pain in his face, when a German shell burst close by. He wasn't hit, but the explosion knocked him senseless for a bit. " 'Me neuralgia's gone,' says he, when he came round. " 'And so's six of your mates,' says we.

" 'Oh, crikey!' says he. "His name's Palmer, and that' 6 why we call the German shells now 'Palmer's Neuralgia Cure.' " The men who live in dugouts frequently call their abodes "rabbit-war-rens" and themselves rabbits, and whei the big guns give ten seconds' warninc they cry, "Here comes the gamekeeper !" and dart into their holes. "A ROYAL BUFFOON." French papers state that a German major who was taken prisoner at Souchez, and who prior to that was with the troops placed under the orders or the Crown Prince, made the following statement; — "If the Crown Prince keeps his command in the Argonne he will go on sacrificing his men until there is nothing left of his army. He is a royal buftWi endeavouring to justify the hop? 3 of his people, and fondly imagines )« can wipe out the disgrace of the battle of the Marne."

Man's highest merit always is, as much as possible, to rule external circumstance?, and as little a 6 possible to let himself be ruled by them.—Goethe.