INTERESTING ITEMS

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 197, 29 April 1915, Page 2

INTERESTING ITEMS

BOREDOM OF WAR . MR LLOYD GEORGE AT THE FRONT. Mr Lloyd Geopg e has been interviewed on the war, and in an interesting article in “Pearson’s Magazine,” his views are given. With Sir John Simon and th'e Lord Chief Justice (Lord Reading) he visited the French lines.

Asked what impressed him most at the front, Mr Lloyd George replied: “The boredom of it. It was wait, wait, wait, with nothing to do, nowher e to go. The men relieved hung about in desolate fashion, looking bored to extinction. Of course, we saw only the French.”

“You were not regarded as a Jingo-” remarked the interviewer; “therefore, why are you so whole-soully for the war?”

“Belgium!” There were resentment, passion and defiance in the very tone he said it. “Th e invasion of Belgium made the vital difference, so far as I was concerned, between peace and war. And, I might add, the violation of Belgian neutrality turned our people from a de'ire for peace to an insistence on wa r. ” " SINGING AS THEY GO.” THE GOOD-HUMOURED ENGLISH IN PRANCE. In a letter written from St. Pol there occur the following passages with reference to the English troops: “W e adore them, because the British soldiers are so generous. They pay well. Thir pockets are always full of . sweets, chocolates and cigarettes. They have mere than they can cat, and they give all that is over to little bare-foot-ed children, who follow them to within a hundred of the trenches, shouting; 'ClgTrcUas, please!’ ‘Cake, please!’ “In the even in- the .soldiers sing in the small cafes The Scotch songs are especially beautiful. It is very moving to hear the Scotch airs behind the eloped shutters while the-cannon thunder a short distance away. “Despite all troubles, the brave English preserve their admirable good humour, (going to the trenches singing. They leave singing, although covered with mud right up to the eyes; always distributing cigarettes and chocolates, whieh they receive even in the fir imp line.”—“Central News.”

ENGLISH WOMEN AND HINDUS. WARNING AGAINST MARRIAGE. An important circular has been h sued by the Registrar-General warning English women not to roarrv -Hindus, or Moslems. The warn ■'tig comes as a result of Lie anpsa’w.cs in England of a. large number of Hindus and Moslems, seme trainirjg fer the ft out. and ethers in hospitals after being wounded in the battles in Prance. The Indian allies have never been mere highly honoured than at the present time, and because of the interest of many women in their welfare, it might not inconceivably be supposed that marriages would often develop from this interest. No doubt that was in the mind of the authorities when the order was issued. It is explained in the circular that the marriage of a British Christian woman with a or Mohammedan. even when valid in all respects in Great Britain, is not necessarily so when th e husband returns to India.

“TOMMY” JESTS AT HIS SCARS. A spectator of cue of the detrainings cf British wounded at Boulogne tells mp (writes the Paris correspondent of “Truth”) that a man who has lost a leg replied to a small crowd of Englishmen who were waving their hands to him:—“Do I look downhearted? No. I now have only one hoot to clean every morning, and a pal of mine who has lost’ the other leg has agreed to join m e every time a pair of boots has to he purchased. So we are better off than you.” Great cheerinig was the acknowledgment of this retort.