Passing Notes.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 9, 14 May 1920, Page 10

Passing Notes.

BY JACQUES.

Laugh wher© we must, be candid whergwa can. — Pope.

In responding to the toast of "Mr and Mrs Bicknell" at a recent valedictory gathering, Mr Bicknell said that "he had been associated with what he considered the eream of the people during the last few years — those who, although they remained at home, were prepared to do their mite.'" — "Southland Times," May 5. If it is true that we're the cream Who stayed a-t home and gave our mite; Why, then. the skim milk, it would seem, Are those who went away to fight-. The House of Commons read for a second time a private Bill providing for registration of the alleged fat-her of an illegitimate child. The father would be required to confirm or disprove paternity. — Cabled item, "Southland Times," May 10. "That child is wise indeed that knows its father" — - We've quoted oft, and cynically smiled; But nowadays the reading should be, rather : "That man's a Solomon who knows his child." The advantage, from the point of view of the thriftier ratepayer, of having no Labour representation on the City Council was strikingly exemplified tit the last meeting of that erratic body. There was a vacancy in the Electrical Department, the value of which was assessed at £156 per annum. Presumably the services required were worth that amount, otherwise the Council had no right to pay that price for them. Probably they were worth more, since, though the vacancy was advertised there was no suitable response. The Council, at length, decided to promote a junior from another department ; to the vacant position, but, mark you, on the motion of Cr McDonald, the salary was reduced from the original £156 to £130. True, the latter sum represented an advance on what the lad had been receiving, but that is beside the point. The whole thing lies in a nutshell. Either the appointee was not equal to the duties of the office, in which ease he should not have received the appointment, or, on the other hand, he was so, and therefore entitled to the full value of the services required of him. In the latter case, the Council's action in reducing the salary was distinctly dishonest. But, then, what can you expect ? We want a Labour man or two there — or, better still, a new Council. WANTED (by good Christian gentleman), CORRESPONDENCE good Christian old lady, view matrimony.— Address Christian, Times Office. (Recent Pecksniffian advt. in Otago Daily Times. ) I want it clearly understood, That- 1 am very, very GOOD. And, pray believe it if you can, I want » pious CHRIS-TT-AN. As part and parcel of my plan, I'm also quite the GENTLEMAN. And (let me whisper in your lug) I'm looking for a bally mug. Kennington senfc some brave lads to the front, but has still some leffc, This

was shown at the recent Leap Year social given by the ladies (unmarried ones, mind you) of the district Quite a number of these reckless daredevils accepted the challenges issued, and, feeling secure in their own strength, rashly entered the camp of the seductive cncmy. Alas,. some of these, it is said, have paid a terrible price for their temerity, while others, who escaped, after thrilling experiences, wear that same look now as was seen on the faces of the sailors of the "Emden'' after the "Sydney" had fmished wit i her, and other symptoms suggest something very like shell-shock. Among those captured, many are shortly, I understand, to be led to the gallows — I beg pardon, the altar. (But thr is, perhaps, after all, but little differen.ee, if any; both are associated with the noose). "Miss Ettie Rout." How many of our smug pietists and prudes have raised their hands and eyebrows in holy horror at the bare mention of that name! For years it has represented in the narrow minds all that was most evil and debased in her sex, the bearer of it anathema. To them, in their stupid ignorance of the woman and her mission, she ranked even lower than those street prowlers from whose dreadful infection she tried to save the sons of those who condemned her. Even those who were inclined to applaud her aim shuddered at her methods. But ■ Miss Rout knew how necessary her own I methods were. She did not, as so many j of us do, close her eyes to obvious facts; she faced them fairly and squarely, and coped with them to the full extent of her powers and opportunities. She knew men as even their rnothers did not know them. She knew of their appetites and passions, unsubduable as the tiger's lust for blood, and intensified a hundred fold by the brutalising conditions and evil associations of the war. She realised the strerngth of their temptations, and their own frailty in the face of them, and felt the utter futility of exhortations to self restraint — in the case of the large majority of them, at least. So she set about grappling the problem in her own way, and that it was a good way is shown by the fact of its adoption by the English and Australian military authorities, though without Any acknowledgment to her. It remained for the New Zealand Government, at the instigation of our ignorant and myopic unco' guid, to repudiate her and her wicked ways — to its everlasting shame, he it said. Her whole plan was based on simplest commonseuse, given the certainty of association between young fellows remote from home influences (I am speaking of the majority ; many were, no doubt, continent) and the loose women who are to he found e very where willing to cater to man s animal appetites ; and- given the almost equal certainty of loathsome physical consequences of that intercourse, the only sensible course is to accept the facts and endeavour to minimise, by any possible means, the evil resnlts. This Miss Rout did, and to her system of prophylaxis many a New Zealand mother owes the fact that her son returned to her free from the dread taint of syphilis— though, in the very nature of things, she can never know it, and will, no doubt, continue to harbour in her mind a hor-

ror of her benefactress. But ths Dh know many things that their mothers 2 sisters do not, and what Miss Eout' self-sacrificing work has achieved is ' ^ of them. And because of what they kn0 # they, through the R.S.A., are going Jj give public expression of their gratitud9 and esteem to a heroine whose boots few of her detractors are worthy to cleaa And it is good that they should do so For, though Miss Rout entered on her i self-imposed mission without hope ot desire of praise, and with as little can for blame, yet it must prove pleasing ta "her worn tired soul to Iearn that the "boys" whom she loved and pitied, and for whom she laboured so hard and endured so much through the lopg years o! her almost single-handed fight, still hold her and her work in grateful- remem. "hrance.