HUMOR OF THE TOMMY.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 November 1915, Page 11 (Supplement)

HUMOR OF THE TOMMY.

NOT DOWNHEARTED YET. THE GOOD BOY'S BOOK OP BEASTS. The humour and high spirit which! mark the soldiers' journals are the subject of an article by E. B. Osborn in the Morning Post. The Searchlight, a. chronicle of the doings and sayings of No. 2 Company, London Electrical Engineers, is taken as a typical example. The L.E.E., who seem to be a fin* allround lot of sportsmen, keen about all kinds of diversions, from racing to ratcatching are chiefly concerned with the war in the air. A telephone call means much more to them than, say, the point of etiquette which vexed the soul of u 'telephonist of the Cornwall R.G.A. When rung up from Essex, he replied: "Do Oi spaik to 'e, or 'e spaik to Oi!" the slow words coming through liko spoonfuls of Cornish cream, which differs from tho Devonshire variety. Here are the reflections of an electrical sapper when the tang of a telephone call tingles in his car: Does it bring orders for fire and blood? Have the Germans come, with the tide in flood? Shall we shortly see our Thame* haven mud All goryt Or is it another Zeppelin scarePhantoms that haunt the Tilbury air-» Or clouds in the gleaming searchlight's glare Deceptive ? Or a biplane bold, high up in the sky", Inviting our air-guns to do or die. And with every miss invoking my Invective t Is there something wrong with my s'trength return? Or a tale that the cookhouse fira won't burn? * i Or an urgent call for the troops to learn Sanitation? Of warlike lore must I swell my stock By singing the songs of Hiliire Belloc? Or have I to lecture about inoculation?

And the "sth East Surrey Magazine" is packed with the true stirring stuffthe Btuff which is literature, because it is not literary at any cost. There is much verse, for example, which is naturally Kiplingesquc; not artificially or artfully so. This appreciation does not apply to n series of "Nature Studies" which might conceivably swell out under intensive culture, into a good boy's book of (more or less) bad beasts. Of the elephant it is justly said:—

His cleaning methods most will whack, to wash he sneezes on his back, and of the camel:— He's not like us, for see him smirk When asked to do a job of work.

1 "Bubble and Squeak" is an excellent I title for conversational columns in which wo are told all about the three 'oon seasons in India—the platoon, monsoon, and home-soon seasons, to be explicit. A talc of unspeakable silliness Sometimes crops up there; such as that of the girl just out, who hearing platoon drill mentioned, sweetly said, "Oh, yes' I simply love it. It is such an improvement on the khaki you came out here in." The East Surreys seem not to be seriously incommoded by the- climate, except when a sign, in a native's shopwindow, "Boots for Ale" or the remembered chinkn-chink of ice causes thai) East-of-Suez thirst to get up on its hind legs, or the air throbs with:— A horrid, filthy, beastly smell, And fire and smoke as though from hell, A gurgling sound, a swill, a swipe, The durzee man has lit his pipel

However, they all take the hint given by fortune in a most vaguely sinister aud disturbing of ballads: "Par mon con. aeil prends tout en gre, Villon!" They would never write home anything like the criticism of a certain landing place at the Dardanelles: "If I owned hell and beach 15 I should try to lot beach 15." Humour and high spirits make these little journals ithe best of reading. And they bring home to us, as nothing else can, the gaiety which is still the better part of gallantry, and as history assures us, has been in all ages a characteristic of great fighting races. It it easy enough to be heroic In the hour when, to uso the antique phrase, It comes to push of pike. But it is difficult indped—as we non-combatants well know—to wait patiently and bear cheerily the dull discomforts of a long preparation, and so keep one's stock of moral unimpaired.