THE HUMOUR OF RUMOURS

Dragon, 1 December 1942, Page 11

THE HUMOUR OF RUMOURS

Rumours are funny things—sometimes. But much funnier, are the people who start them. The people who pass them on are just pathetic. Yes, I too have been pathetic, and have always regretted it when the truth comes out. The chief causes of rumour-mongering appears to be impatience, high creative ability and love of sensation. That it is a nuisance and a danger to our national security is not countenanced by the rumour spreader. He lives for the moment when he sees his conversational partner drop a spanner on his corn with surprise, or in the case of the fair sex, swoon with exquisite ease at the mythical bombshell.

A woman rushed into a shop in Auckland and said she had heard over the radio that the Japs had landed on a beach up North. The shopkeeper asked a few more questions found this to be the true story. The woman was in the tram, and heard it from a passenger. She OVERHEARD it. Good. Later, the shopkeeper heard from his wife that in a radio serial given that day, part of the story concerned "Some CHAPS who, after drifting in a boat at sea, had landed on the SHORE.” The Dame Rumour had heard part of this recounted amid the noise of the tramcar in motion. She had a son on coastal duty. Her nerves were probably bad. She thought the other passenger had said "Japs." And in order to justify herself in passing on the news she had said that SHE had heard it on the air. She also conjured up a mind picture of Japanese landing on the shore near the coastal defence where her son was stationed. But she said "beach" because that was New Zealand idiom. Simple?

Our Brigade, in common with other military units, look to causes and origins much simpler, psychologically, that those given above. The Tanker's thought descend much closer to Mother Earth, than the sublimation of Truth to emotions. The cartoon opposite suggests what the Tanker thinks in regard to the Origin of Rumour.