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Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 3 February 1917, Page 4

The notorious Captain von Papen, the recalled military attache at the German Embassy in Washington is, according to an order found on a captured German officer, now Chief of Staff to the commander of the Fourth Division of the Bavarian Guards on the Somme front. In the near future it will be imposslbe to detect an American girl by her accent, for a great movement' is on foot in one of Pie great colleges in the States to inaugurate a course that will take the Yankee twang out of women’s voices and replace it with the broad “a” of Englishwomen. An Irish religious Order has recently received a cheque for £I,OOO from a prominent merchant, being the recognition of their efforts to preserve his factory, during the Rebellion, when they were successful in inducing one of the Republican leaders to surrender the building to avoid its destruction and obviate further bloodshed.

An officer interned in Holland, in a letter just received, tells liow a ladies’ school out for a constitutional always chose a road right on the irontier line. The sentry at last began to wonder what school girls could find in so dreary a walk and stopped them. He made an interesting discovery. Their pockets and satchels were full of contraband things they were smuggling into Germany. A French officer on leave in London was relating his experiences in the Champagne advance, and he told a, pathetic tale of the finding by his men of the body of a young French girl in a captured dug-out. She was not more than seventeen, and had evidently been the plaything of a German officer, for hidden away in her dress they found a letter addressed to her brother, in which she begged of him to avenge her. The same officer also stated that among the things left behind by the Germans in a big underground shelter were a number of cinematograph films, all of them dealing with subjects that would hav" "he effect of stimulating the be.": ' the Huns.

A meeting of the Wellington Military Appeal Board will be held in Taihape shortly, probably on the Bth and 9th of February. It is probably not generally realised how large an amount of cargo space from the Old Country is being taken up at the present time by whisky and other liquors. One large liner for. instance, du G in Dunedin this week, has over 5000 cubic fool: of space occupied with whisky from Glasgow. The weight of this quantity i s about 180 tons. The Feilding A. & P. Show opens on Tuesday next, people’s day being Wednesday, the 7th inst. Entries are large for all events, particularly ring competitions, and visitors can look forward to an enjoyable outing;. Holiday excursion fares are available, and the train service will enable patrons to return home at a reasonable hour. A Xew Zealand artilleryman who has fought, with the Main Body of the Expeditionary Force since the landing at Gallipoli, with only two short furloughs, writes to his mother as follows: “Is it not time that they saved some of us Main Body men as curiosities? There are so very few of us now, and we have been fighting so long that it might be interesting to people to find out what wc arc like. The members of a certain Home Command Staff are still smiling at an Aimac’s retort to one of their leading members. The “brass hat,” finding himself ignored by the Colonial one evening when the light was failing, stopped the man and asked why he had not saluted an ciiicer. “Very sorry, sir,” was the ready response, •in this light I thought you were a Salvation Army man!”

At lust reports, no rain hud fallen in the Murchison district for 50 days. Bush flies arc reported from various parts of Westland. The country on the two sides of the Manawutu Gorge prebents at present a striking contrast, f rom Ashurst to Wellington the land is burnt up by the sun and in some parts of Manawutu 00 days without rain have been experienced. The stock m in poor condition. Prom Woodvilie to A a pier the glass is green and long, and the whole countryside looks remarkably well.

It is reported that plain-clothes police from another centre visited Palmerston on (Saturday with the object of asccrtaing how the anti-shouting regulations were being observed in the local hotels. Their investigations, it is stated, showed laxity in more than one instance, with the result that there will bo more heard ex the matter at the local Magistrate’s Court in the near future. A simultaneous descent was made on Pickling, where it is understood that invitations to “have one’’ were also in evidence, and that prosecutions are expected to follow.

A wealthy man well known in Louden considers he has been badly hit by the War Loan. Some time ago he was dangerously ill, and his doctor warned him that his days were numbered. Desirous of making bis last act a patriotic one, he realised many of bis securities, several at a great loss, and invested the whole in the

loan. Soon after his son, not satisfied with the family, doctor, called in a specialist, who declared that the patient was good for another twenty years. The millionaire is now intense ly angry at his unnecessary sacrifice.