WHY THEY WED ENGLISH GIRLS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 266, 13 April 1917, Page 4 (Supplement)

WHY THEY WED ENGLISH GIRLS.

Ol'R OVERSEAS SOLDIERS hA PLAIN. By E. C. BULEY (Author of Deeds of Australasians ).

When I was a small boy I delighted in those stories which began "An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman,'' They usua'Jy ended. I remember, in an immense scoro for the Irishman.

ThosK stories are recalled to me in the satisfaction I get nowadays in attendng a certain club for Overseas soldiers where I can meet at one table, a Canadian, an Australian, a South African and a New Zealand^r. When this group gathers— the Three Musketeers of the British Empire, with tho Australian thrown in as a modern d'Artagnan there is good talk, with a good story now and then. So we foregathered the other night. .Soon the conversation turned upon the experiences of the club secretary. On tho previous day he had presented a travelling b;ig to a member of his clerical staff, who was marrying a bright English girl. When tho presentation was over his right-hand man. a sergeant, hid asked for an extra hour for luncheon. An hour later, the sergeant had telephoned through to him in triumph.

" I have bjgten Bil! by twenty minutes," was tho message. Tho point was that his expedition had left Bill tho last single man amontr live young Overseas soldiers, all single and unattached three months before. "New. this is going on everywhere,"' I sa'd, 'and I want you boys to explain. Are the Englrs'i girls nicer and moro attractive than the girls you left ihmYind you? Or is it that you are lonely away from home, and more suscoptiblo to their charms? Or, again, is it because you have better opportunities here for meeting tho right girls?'' They tackled the problem manfully, and with knitted brows as it merited, Athos, from Canada, delivered judgment first.

"The English girls,"' said he, "are pretty and charming, and good. But there arc ju*t as good left in Canada. It's net that^ "I think it's more this war. The men who marry hero are oftsn the quiet sort —fellows who hadn't much chance with tho girls at home against the Wright young sparks with a lot to say. When the time came to put on khaki the bright I>oy.s were not first to enlist, you can he sure. Then tha girls discovered their mistake, mayl>e: hut it was too late. The quiet men found in England that their uniform got them a hearng. They gained a confidence they never had l)efore, and so they won good English wives. That's about it, I t-mnk."

By this time Aramis, of Africa, was eager for h/'s say; he was talking almost before the other had finished. "You may say what you please," he contended, "but the English gir's really are fresher and more charming than those, I am .accustomed to see. "And they are such bricks. See th« way they turn their hand to any work that's going; and watch how little fuss tney make. I've seen them in hospital, visiting their wounded menfolk. By iing! any fellow who comes here from Overseas and gets a gcod English girl is a lucky chap; that's what I think.'' "ltd be funny," argued the Australian, "if they didn't have red cheeks and blight eyes in a country and climato such as tins. They look all right, but you want to go deeper than that. "Now, the English girl has got n taking way of looking up to a man, as if ho were something a little stronger, whose protect'on shg was seeking. I hear though." he added, reflectively, "that they don't cling quite so gently after you are married to them. . ."

'And that." interrupted Porthos from New Zealand, ''is why I'm going to help you to marry one of these English girls this day five weeks." "But the re.i! reason," he continued, as the laughter died down, "seems to mo to hp that the English girls have !n>en specially good to us. When I was in convalescent camp there was a rogue of a .Scotsman used to borrow my hat to walk out in. because he said the girls were so nice to the men who wore tkosn hats. "It xva-i true, but not because of any special merit rf ours. It was their golden hearts that made them so good to strangers so far from homo and fighting in a good cause. Ay, many a time the kindness of an English girl has brought tears to my eyes." Port lies is 6ft. 4in., a quiet, impressive man; and we listened with respect to his conclusion.

"It's a trood tiling." he asserted, "that our boys are finding nice frirls to marry hero. Maybe the crids will take their brother- Overseas after them, and they may find in our sifters }\:A the fresh charm we have found in theirs. Taht means vet another Jink of Empirc. f!o~sp't it ?" "(iond old Kmp're!" we replied in chorus; and let it go at that.