"SKINNED" IN LONDON.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 October 1915, Page 11 (Supplement)

"SKINNED" IN LONDON.

CANADIAN'S ADVENTURE. TALES 'FROM BATTLEFIELD AND CITY. London, August 13. A Canadian soldier, now wounded in London, has been telling journalists what he thinks about it all. "Funny business, this keeping the courage up," he said. "Sometimes wlien we're advancing under fire, you'll hear one of the boys remark: 'Say, you fellowß, can you tell me if there's a war oil in ] this country t It kind of looks like it. Or another will say: 'Gee whiz! What a lot of soldiere! I think there must be a scrap on a-round here somewhere.' And you know just how they are feeling I when they talk like that, for you were very likely planning to say something of the same kind yourself—to show that you were'nt the least bit rattled. "It's queer, awfully queer! The things one would laugh at, too! In one bit of bayonet work, when we got the Germans on the ran, there was one stout one running, as they say, hellbent for election. And I've found myself smiling afterwards at the way he looked when he got stuck---something in the way one laughs at a pantomime I suppose. And yet I know it„is hellabsolutely hell. If there is another reverse over there it is not the fault of the Army. That's a cinch. A WORD TO STAY-AT-HOMES. "And it would be an everlasting shame if a soldier is to he to go on sitting tight for hours in 21 trench. under all kinds of shell-fire, and with gas coming along to suffocate him, iin-1 be expected to get up out of what's left of the trench then, and project himself—coughing and spitting phlegm—on the enemy, while there are stil! people at home threatening strikes, and the motion-picture houses are running continuous performances.

"When I was in hospital, an old ladi came around and ha 111! el me a little Gospel of Saint John, and said: 'Accept this, inv man, as a small consolation.' I was in pain from my wound, and from the treatment, and there had been a lot of ladies round sailing me 'my nun' because I am ,i private; and for once I found my.ieif -jnabic to he aaffblo and tell mvself the dear old tiling meant well. I said: 'I hop? von will pardon me, madam, I know the book—and I can't get any consolation out of it just now. It would on'y make me worry about things all the more, and it doesn't fit in at present.' She was quite indignant." BLUNT CRITICISM. He has some truths about tilings in England. "Money talks too much in England. You see it ever among the nurses. If a friend calls to see afier you in a private automobile tney are qurtG different to you. They run round tellirtg each other that Number Whatever-it-is has a friend who came to see him in an auto—l mean a motor, that'j what they call it. They call you 'Mister' if two friends come in an auto! I would not like to live in England without an automobile. They don't look at a man's face here and judge by what they look at his car. And, so far as I can sse, the people who talk So:a'ist and Democrat do it worse than ant.

"After coming out of hospital, I went into a hairdresser's to have my hair trimmed and a shave After thy shave, instead of a squirt of bay-ruin— o:- a rub with an alum-block or what-not, British fashion—l had a hot cloth laid on my cheeks, American fashion. 'Howmuch?' I asked the hairdresser, 'Eight shillings,' he said. I said it seemed stiff; and I've seen 90 many cases of 'skinning' of' Canadians here, that it protested that I wouldn't pay. 'l'll call the police if you dont.' said the hairdresser. I told him he could do f,o; but I would give him no more than half, and, so .saying, I paid down four shillings. I ought to have let him call the police instead. He took that four shillings. I've been told since that eight shillings was fraudulent for a hair-cut and a shave, and that even four shillings was away out. He had had his eye on the word 'Canada' on my shoulders, and had, maybe, heard of boom prices in the more remote diit-icts of the Rockies and the Yukon, lie said he was a Russian Pole while lie was shaving r,e. It souuded to nu to be more like a German. Alter I left (lie shop, I thought to myso.il': 'I expect he skinned me even at four shillings.' . 'lt's not the loss of four shillings I object to—four shillings is on'y a dollar; but I've come ofcr here to light for Canada, England, and a whole lot of other good things -n the main, and it gives me a pain in my neck t-j come out of hospital and be skinned by a German hairdresser, plumb in the middle of London! I didn't notice the name over the door when I went in, but I took a note of it after I cam; out, and it's ." It is only fair to the Old Country to add that this is quite an exceptional ad' venture, and that most British citizens here would give any wounded soldier their boota and shirt quite cheerfully if he wanted them.