Recruiting Officer (to brawny pitman who has just passed his medical examination). "What regiment do you wish to join?"
Pitman. "I don't care."
Officer. "Sure you have no preference?"
Pitman. "Well, put me in one o' them that spikes the beggars."
THE NEW ANÆSTHETIC.
Remarkable Discovery.
Medical Science Superseded.
A correspondent in whose accuracy we place the highest trust informs us of very remarkable results which have been achieved by the adoption of a new means of alleviating pain and suffering invented by a lady in London. This lady being suddenly taken with lumbago was in great agony until she remembered our soldiers at the front, and thought how much worse was a wound, and instantly, our correspondent is informed, some of her own distress left her. The case has been investigated by several eminent inquirers and they are satisfied with her story.
Meanwhile evidence of a similar nature comes from other parts of the country, in every case recording a sense of personal well-being, though only comparative, and an increased disinclination to complain, upon the realisation of what it must be to be a soldier just now—whether up to his knees in a flooded trench, or sleeping on the wet ground, or lying in agony waiting to be picked up and taken to a hospital, or being taken to a hospital over jolting roads, or going without meals, or having to boil tea over a candle-flame, or awakening from the operation and finding himself maimed for life.