INTERESTING NEWS

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 251, 14 July 1915, Page 2

INTERESTING NEWS

HANG THE PIRATES. Mr Frederic Harrison, in a letter to the London “Times” says: “The crew of US are not prisoners of war, but common pirates and murderers; and they should be treated as such —tried by the Common Law of England at th e Old Bailey. As an old lawyer, I can remember a gang of foreign pirates and murderers being tried and hung at the Old Bailey in 1864, and another gang in the same way in 1876; and I recall th e thrill these executions sent through the whole seafaring men of Europe. The Prime Minister in Parliament has qualified these crimes as piracy and murder; and they should be dealt with according to the established law of Britain and of the civilised world. The course would be this. Hand over the captured gang to Civil Justice —say to Newgate; bring them before a duly commissioned Court (presided over by Sir Edward Clarke or som e veteran of great authority), remand the prisoners until com. plete evidence of their crimes was obtained, and' defer actual sentence until it seemed right to proceed to extremities. In the meantime, let the world know that we count them criminals —not honourable enemies.” THE; LONG AND SHORT OF IT. At a recent gathering of drapers in the North of England the president said that Socialism was fast driving their assistants to demand shorter hours. The time was fast arriving, the president went on, pessimistically, When the young draper who demanded to enter the shop no later than 8 a.m. and leave at 9 p.m. On Saturdays, 7 a.m. tlli 10 p.m. would be considered a fair day! The meeting broke up in som e disorder at the prospect of any giddy assistant demanding less than a Saturday of 15 solid hours. Ye gods- How many hours do the North of England drapers crowd into a sin■lq working day? A CITY OF WIDOWS, , London may henceforth be known is the “City of Widows.” In a stroll down Oxford Street a week ago the writer encountered young} but net very merry, girl widows within an hour. The military wedding has been responsible for this sudden growth of the noxious weed. The officer with 24 hours' notice to get busy in' the firing-line is naturally anxious to fix up with the girl of his choice. His ohanccs of returning to her are small; but she can, at least, bear his name. They are married at 11 a.m. A car takes them from the church or registry office to the train or transport at the quay-side. In many cases the honeymoon lasts for only a, ccuple of hours, oft* less. We meet the girl-wife a few days later in the corridors of the War Office, asking if it is really true, and if there hash’t tteen some terrible mix-up in the names. She is informed by a very busy attendant that there has been no confusion of names or regiments in the case of Lieutenant Cytil De Vancourt, who was shot by a German sniper at La Bassee. She retires blindly to th e street, and the attendant politely requests the crowds of other waiting girl-wives not to crowd the corridors, as the casualty list will be published in all the evening papers. And the evening papers are always fill, ed with th e names of newly-deceased young husbands.

DOMINIONS AS DUMPING PLACES* The Colonial Institute has been at it again. It has been calling attention to thg million or so of sailors and soldiers who will be hunting jobs after th e war. Earl Grey suggests that, at a cost of two millions, a large number of these men might be transported to Australia and New Zealand. His earlship points out that these soldiers and sailors will inevitably be victims of rheumatism and sciatica, caused by exposure in the cold, wet trenches, but that farm work in the hot, dry lands of the Southern Ocean will assuredly cure them in time. This is great news. And it it so be hoped that the Dominions will extend the glad, hand to the sciatica immigrant before it is too late. The Colonial Institute makes no reference to the returned Dominion soldiers who has been bitten by a Turk or seriously mauled by hyenas while in Egypt, Earl Grey told the Institute that a very important official was at present touring the Dominions with a view to obtaining land grants for the rheumatic settler and the sailor with the awful pains in his joints. Th e result of the afore-mentioned official’s visit will be waited with some interest.