“FIFTH COLUMN”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 August 1940, Page 6

“FIFTH COLUMN”

KEEPING A WATCHFUL EYE. ZEAL CARRIED TOO FAR. Zeal against the Fifth Column can be carried too far, as an East London (South Africa) journalist has discovered to his embarrassment. He was approached by a citizen, who said he had some information to impart. The man said that a woman friend of his had a neighbour, a rather odd fellow who claimed to be British, but who might well be a German. This man had recently come to live in the neighbourhood. His behaviour was odd. He seemed to have no regular job of work to do. for he lounged about his garden all day, or was seen about the house. But every evening he went out, and never returned before one and two each morning. Moreover, a typewriter was heard busily clacking in his home during the day, sometimes for hours at a stretch. The citizen said that his woman friend was shy of laying information herself, and she had approached her friend, who had decided to approach the Press for advice before going to the police. The journalist agreed that the circumstances certainly appeared suspicious.

With visions of descending at midnight on a Nazi gathering, he proposed that he should investigate the affair. The citizen agreed. “And now,” said the journalist. ‘‘This man’s address.”

The citizen began to dictate it, and

the journalist began to write; but he stopped half-way, appalled. He was writing down the name of his own new house.