WAR NOTES

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 17 May 1917, Page 7

WAR NOTES

FRANK

TO BE FIGHTING ON TiHL THE kn UF VICTOR I.

Frank Slavin, the famous old boxing champion, who is now in the Canadian army, has just returned to the trenches after a breakdown. He was offered two months’ leave to recuperate in “Blighty,” but he persuaded his colonel to allow him to resume his duties at the front at once. A letter has just been received by a friend to say that he is quite ready for the Huns again. “I don’t think Fritz will last much longer,” he says. “He would not want peace if the shoe did not pinch somewhere. Just imagine me in my early days wanting to quit the contest under any circumstances before it was decided—especially if I was winning. Ridiculous!

“On December 29 I broke down after seven weeks under the worst kind of fire in a dug-out. With the Huns shelling us day and night it got a bit on my nerves, but I am now getting ■all right again. I hope this will be a more happy year for the greatest Empire the world ever saw, and that it will witness the consolidation of the British race, and make us stronger than ever. We did not know our strength before this war.” In another letter he says: “I am only a shadow of myself of yore. Fifty-seven days of shell fire to my right, to my left, behind and ahead, is a bit too strong for a man of even my strength, but I hope I shall be back in time to drive the last nail in the Kaiser’s kultur, which will not now be long. “Had Major McKinley or Roosevelt been President of the United States when this war broke out Germany would have been out a year ago, as the States would have acted as a nation with some respect for a signature to a treaty.”

WOMAN’S WAR-TIME MANNERS.

The motor-’bus drew up at a street corner. Five people had waited to get in, one grey-haired man, and four women, all young. A keen, cutting wind was blowing, and the man turned up his coat collar to shield his throat. Every woman wore a fur coat. The best had cost many pounds. The step of the ’bus was exactly opposite to the man as the vehicle stopped. Seeing a woman by his side he courteously mentioned her to enter the ’bus first. The other four hurriedly jumped in, brushing past the grey-haired man. Then he mounted the step. “Outside only," said the conductress. The man had to go on to the top or walk. He chose the top. “Push and go” had won and courtesy had received its own reward. It had not even received a smile of appreciation, lot alone a word of thanks.

When the doctor allows the grey-hair-cd man to return to his work ho will have learned the lesson that many a man has already learned. It is learned every day in the tube, in the restaurants, everywhere where the public congregate.

Modern woman—lf one can judge from experience—is trying to have life both ways. She expects the deference duo to her sex, which foolish writers have described as the weaker of the two, and she demands the rights of Man in her daily life of work. She forms more than 50 per cent, of the tube travellers morning and evening; and you often find her pushing her way aggressively at the gates of the cars and proving herself an expert in the art of getting in first; she crowds the smoking carriages, and, if there is only standing room, you often sec her look round at each man with an expression implying a command that one of them shall give up his seat. If, passing out of a restaurant, a man should courteously open the door for her you often notice her sweep through without the slightest acknowledgement of th e deference has has paid.

The behavior of this war type of women makes us wonder what sort of mothers they are, or will be, in the training of children. —London Weekly Dispatch.