HOTCH! SCOTCH! POTCH!

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 14, 18 June 1920, Page 10

HOTCH! SCOTCH! POTCH!

(Contributed by "The Groper.")

To Birdwood : — Nofc to thee, but thanks to nature, Thou art acting but thyself, Went thou awkward, stiff, affected, Spurning nature, torturing art, Loves and graces all rejected, Then indeed thou' d'st act a part. — Burns. A modest Scot extolling the greatness of Scufctish genius was rebuffed by a bored listener of English blood, with : "Ridiculous inan ! ridiculous! I don't know that a literary man of supreme genius was ever produced by your country." The droll reply was "Mebbie no — but there wud be Wattie Scott — and Robbie Burns, of coorse, an — an — Wullie Shakespere." Indignation personified blared out : 'Shakespeare? Don't be a .fool, man! Shakespeare was an Englishman of the English." Scottie temporariiy flattened and "breathing as if recovering from the effect of a half a brick on the solar piexus, rallied with : "Oh, weel, he wassic a brilliant man ye micht o' pardoned rae fur the suggestion." is it not a misfortune that brilliant English Birdwood did not hail frae the land o' oat cakes and whusky? That the commander of the Anzacs and father of their fame should be Tete! ved as. a king is as it should be. Napoleon conquered because he sat enthroned in the hearts of his grenadiers and "made his marshals from mud." No commander however great in stragetic conception can catch and fire the imagination of an arrny without the personal touch. General Sir William Birdwood is verily "a soldier and a man." He meets men on their own levels and in so doing raises them above it. This is genius. The "would be's" and spurred martinets who mar almost every military esta-blishy ment cannot do better than study Birdwood. He's worth while. Officers already popular with their men need not a physician. General Birdwood, like his Gallipoli chief, Sir Ian Hamilton has a fine gift of cxpression — a quality that every "officer should cultivate. One can imagine many a sombre hour in the five grey years of war made radiajst .by the "Soul of Anzac." Long may Sir William Birdwood live to smile. Had Birdwood not been a soldier he might have been a Mark Twain — who knows? His Scotch story about some folks taking their old umbrellas to church and returning with a new one is quite credible. A local Scot said, "Man, .ye ken 1 hinna been tae kirk for thirty-eight years." When asked for the reason of his neglect he replied : "Weel, the last time I went wus at the Waimatuku thirty-eight years syne an yin o' the elders stole ma bridle." Diggers say that : — Hall-Jones made a fine speech at the smoke concert — The "Groper" concurs ! Padre Gilbert's remarks were short, sharp and felicitious. A demonstration that brevity is the soul of wit. We hope Glendenning heard it. Denny Cuthbertson may be Birdie's next Chief of Staff. Denny was certainly interested in the General. Heard in Dee street (near "News Office), after the Prince's departure : — "Well, Mac, y,e see yon plantation wi' the fairy lichts erctit by wee Crosby-Smith?" "Aye! man what aboot it?" "I wis wonderin' how high it wud be?" "0 wis ye, weel she can told ye that — it will pe the hicht .o' tam nonsense."