HUMOURS OF THE CENSOR.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 348, 30 November 1915, Page 3

HUMOURS OF THE CENSOR.

KIPLING EXPURGATED. “B’y general, desire,” began the war correspondent in the Russo-Jipanese War, but the Japanese Censor was too i quick for him. “You are mistake..,” he said; “there is no general of that name.” “The story,” says the Daily News, ( “has usually been regarded as apocyphal; but it pales its ineffectual- fire in the brighter radiance of some of our Censor’s efforts. The name of Loos has been on most peoples’ tongues for the last week. “Yet in the long story which we published yesterday, giving the first authentic and detailed account of the battle from the soldier’s point of view, the diligent' Censor carefully removed the name of the offending village wherever it appeared. “No one of who read the story could possibly doubt its scene; but only the imagination of the reader was permitted to supply the obvious; “A more, startling instance of the same unwinking vigilance occurred a day or two before, when a correspondent had the audacity to quote the not wholly unknown lines: The tumult and the shouting dies, • The captains and the kings depart. “The revised version of the second line after submission to the Censor.

read as follows: ‘The captains . . depart’ One might not mention kings. If the Censorship, as is rumoured, is maintained for some months after peace, the public may yet be startled to hear that in its final burst of enthusiasm it sang, ‘God Save the . . ..’ ”