COLONIALS ABROAD.

Taihape Daily Times, 25 January 1918, Page 6

COLONIALS ABROAD.

A London correspondent writes: Hundreds of young follotfTfrom overseas have during the past two year been fleeced of their hard-earned money while in the Old Country by harpies of both sexes, and scores of impressionable youngsters, h'avo contrived to get themselves matrimonally entangled with women who, putting it as mildly as possible, had travelled many miles from the path of virtue ere they met with the guileless soldier whom they persuaded to "do the right thing." by them. There was a case reported not many days ago in which an Australian soldier was shown to have married a woman who was so well and unfavourably known to the police that her "nom de pave" was more often on the lips of the detective in the case'than her real name. In another case a Dominion soMier married "a sweet young thing" who has had two illegitimate children, the father of whom posed as the righteously /indignant i" brother" hi the ".girl" and practically arranged all the necessary preliminaries to her marriage with the "tenderfoot" from over the seas. Of course all that this precious couple wanted was the soldier's allotment money. Once he was out of the way they resumed their normal relationship, and if by chance the soldier "goes west," they may think it. worth their while to try to ".improve the occasion" by appealing on his widow's behalf, to his relations overseas. But, I understand those relations have already been "put wise" to the facts of the case, and the soldier also.