A CRINGING COWARD.

Taihape Daily Times, 27 November 1918, Page 7

A CRINGING COWARD.

WHEN THE HUN IS CORNERED Under the heading, "The Hun as a Blubberer," IR.ELH. writes in jthe London "Daily Mail": — "The influence -which, in the end, makes a nation great or small is its temperament. Either it can bear itself proudly—its spirit unconquered'—in a period of .adversity or it cannot. "How will the German temperament disclose itself when the pinch comes? Never yet has it been seriously tested. In previous wars it has known only success: in trade it has been flattered by constant prosperity, and in the present war it has had the 'map' to soothe it. "So far. then, the inwardness of the v German temperament is an unknown quantity. But I have come into contact with ia good deal of ft as a result of having to call upon, and put some pertinent questions to an interesting variety iof unintcrned iHiins in our midst, and this much I am prepared to say:—Just as the Hun is the worst tyrant; bully and ravisher in the world when he has the power to exercies his instinct, so is ho the most cringing coward known to humanity when he is cornered. "My experience with our Huns has been that they always begin to weep when the inquiries become searching. At first it is rather embarrassing to see a big, fat, healthy German blubbering like ia baby. "There was the rich German whom I visited at his luxurious house in the South of London to ask how he came to get petrol every month for his motor car at a time of acute shortage, When he was pressed for an answer tears of extraordinary size and number—like great, raindrops—coursed down • his cheeks. Somehow they created the impression that he could produce them to order. When he could cry no more he said that he "only got two gallons a month to give the car a ruu and keep it in order." With a sob, he I added the justification:—'lt's a very beautiful car.' ■ "After a while you realise that this 'capacity to cry is part of the nature of the German. There was-'a Hun manufacturer who had contracts with the War Office early in the war, and who, when I asked him a few points about his business, wept so copiously as to suggest that he would never be able to answer. And the German householder who, having given peremptory notice to a British family to clear out of a house, cried like a child on being asked about it. ( "The German women cry less than the men. "A woman I saw at Highbury represented her cult. "What right has anybody in England to say a word against our own dear Kaiser?".she demanded fiercely. "But when the Huns have been conquered we shall have to be careful of their capacity to weep. They will use it for all they are worth to excite sympathy."