A GLORIFIED TIN GOD.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 2, 6 December 1915, Page 2

A GLORIFIED TIN GOD.

“The English officer is a sort of glorified tin god aong the Tommies, but he is treated with very little respect by the colonials,” said a returned trooper to a Napier Telegraph reporter. He went on to say that the English officer was the direct antithesis of the colonial officer. The one treated his men like dirt, the other treated his men as his equal, with the result that the colonial proved a much better soldier than the Tommy. He related an incident he observed in a certain harbour. A large English transport had just arrived, and a good many of the men had come ashore. They were awaiting orders on the wharf, and, being tired, a good many of the men followed the example of some colonial troops who were present, and sat down and rested on various packages that were lumbered promiscuously about the place. Presently a dapper little English officer from off the transport came along, swinging a military cane. Perceiving the men resting, he approached the “Tommies,” and switching them with the cane, ho bade them in no uncertain voice to “get off there.” The Tommies sprang up immediately, and to use the returned one’s own words, “kowtowed with a sycophancy that made us ill.” Presently his martial eye perceived the New Zealanders resting, also, they not having taken the slightest notice of him. He came up to them and repeated the command, and raised his cane to strike the nearest one. This happened' to be a Wellington Victoria College graduate and a well-known footballer. Th© New Zealander gazed at the officer, and then, in an ominously quiet voice, told him that if he would like l an unpremeditated “dip” from the end of the wharf lie would only have to use the cane. The little officer, 1 gazing at the broad proportions of the New Zealander, after a few “words,” 'and snorting his indignation, retired 'amidst general smiles.