OTHER MATTERS, AND MORE SERIOUS MATTERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 November 1915, Page 3

OTHER MATTERS, AND MORE SERIOUS MATTERS.

To the Editor. Sir,—As I was in Wellington seeing my son (Gunner Wright) away in the Willochra, I did not hurry to reply, but I notice that the continuity of this correspondence has been kept up first by a Stratford gentleman named Robinson fiercely enquiring from himself ''what he knows about rum," ami then in a quarter of a column of your space proving dearly to the youngest of your readers that he knows absolutely nothing about it. In fact, "all the nothings that ever was,'' as the child said, would equal his knowledge of what army rum really is, although he seems to know all about the stuff that is sold as rum and which my officer friend spat out after he landed in Wellington. But poor Mr. K.'s excitement was so great at working ofl" tliit old Bulletin gag about "whisky, brandy, gin and other spirit concoctions, which are all produced from rum (poor rum), flavored and colored to taste," so that like the parson who forgot to announce the collection, in telling us of the man in Demerara who replied to a guessing competition about it, Mr. K. forgets to tell the only thing we are inquisitive about, what the man said. ''Then if we only knew how this vile stuff was made," not Army rum, which can't be bought for £1 per bottle, "we would swear off," etc. I myself got crook rum so long ago that I have forgotten, and rum and I have each played in our own backyards ever since, but I never heard of poor Tom Bracken, whom I knew personally, drinking Army rum. Had he done so he might have been alive and well now. And after all this excitement R.11.R. gets into the glue pot, where I can say, "Ta, ta!" to him, and pass on to "Puzzled," who properly points out the personal spite shown in ''Medical's" (?) letter, for which I thank him, but as I hold both bowers, ace and joker in this game, I prefer to go on the lone hand. "Puzzled" deals with the hospital question, while I am trying to keep to the trench side. In replying to "Puzzled,'' Mr. Maunder blunders badly, for in the Mamma's case the tenders for medical comforts were drawn out by the doctors advising the Defence Department, upsetting Mr. M.'s statement that doctors are not on the Army Council. Now we come to "Fat," I mean "Clearhead's." remarks, and they are as relevant to the discussion as the proverbial one, described by a Lord Chief Justice as "the limit." A man once asked the name of the place he was stopping at. "Stony Stratton," was the reply. "Then," said he, "it is well called Stoney Stratton, for, I never saw so many fleas in my life! I warned Mr. Maunder that I carried too many guns for him, and those high-explosive shells of mine registering 100 per cent, direct hit 9 have cleared away his barb-wire entanglements, consisting of irrelevant illustrations and evasions of direct questions. He gives us Boer war experiences, and wanders up and down the world via the Potomac (U.S.A.), the Arctic, India, etc., and back to the Boer war again, like men wlio are bushed, wandering around in circles and coming to the starting point. Then they know they are lost, but with true Scotch foresight he gets a "medical" (?) ally, evidently anticipating ambulance work after another attack, which, should it eventuate, and "Medical" (?) puts up his head to see what is coming. I should advise him not to be smoking a borrowed pipe, for a high-explosive coming along whips off his nut, and have the Scotch owner crying, "Where's the head? He's smoking my pipe!" Just one point, which I only saw yesterday, although I .could easily give one hundred. Dr. Powell, a big American rangatira, having a "show-him-everything" pass at the front, says no rum is allowed to be sold but only distributed, the men getting it at daylight now if possible, while the most pronounced prohibitionist is converted within 24 hours of his arrival in the trenches. As a business man would do, I will now reduce the whole discussion to concrete form, in the shape of three questions, and the man who cannot answer them at this stage in an almost "yes" or "no" form had better remain silent, but whoever the opposition puts up to reply might settle an argument as to whether "Medical" is under medical treatment for D.T.'s or water on the brain. One man in the train said it was the latter, and another said his familiarity with "fill 'em up again" indicated that "Medical" had been assisting in playing a game not unknown in Taranaki, where one man does the shouting and the others the drinking, and after taking too much that wasn't Army rum he wrote that letter over his signature, and if this information is supplied, for it is about all your readers now want, they will shortly be expecting to see the T.C.N.C. ("this correspondence now closed") flag run up over "Other Matters." The questions arc: Is Kitchener wrong? Should a soldier collapse with cold, will water revive him? And what authorities, 'including Lloyd George, who have been in the trenches (all others barred) forbid the issue of rum? A few remarks on the more serious matters of the pension scandal, discharging unhealed soldiers, and a word or two to the patriotic fund people on what are they doing with our money, are held over for a little.—l am, etc.,' W. R. WRIGHT. Rahotu, November 10. [We would like correspondents to be more brief, otherwise we cannot guarantee insertion of letters.—Td.]