The POSTMASTER-GENERAL has issued a recommendation that all eggs sent in parcels to troops should be hard-boiled. Some difficulty has been experienced, it is pointed out, in securing prompt delivery of portions of uncooked eggs that may have escaped from the parcels in which they were confined.
"Two privates in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers," says a news item, "cannot speak a word of English, and their platoon-commander knows no Welsh." Probably the platoon-sergeant knows some words that sound sufficiently like Welsh.
The question of transport is officially stated to be one of the main difficulties in connection with the beer supply. This however is questioned by many patriotic consumers, who affirm that they are very rarely able to get as much as they can carry.
The appointment of a Riot Controller for Cork and District is said to be under consideration. Following the Indian Government's precedent as exposed in the Mesopotamia Report, he will conduct his official business from the Isle of Wight.
RUINED RAPTURE.
Through many a busy year of peace
I hoped some day, by way of beano,
To give myself a jaunt in Greece,
Famed land of HOMER (also TINO).
Full oft I dreamed how, blest by Fate,
I'd loll within some leafy hollow
With Aphrodite téte-a-téte
Or barter back-chat with Apollo.
Around Olympus' foot I'd roam
(Not being really fond of climbing),
Absorb romance and carry home
Increased facility at rhyming;
Those hallowed haunts of many a god
That nowadays we only read of
Would give my Pegasus the prod
He not unseldom stood in need of.
That was in Peace. And then the War
Sent me to learn within a hutment
What martial duties held in store
And what a sergeant-major's "Tut" meant;
Thence to the trenches, thence a rest,
A route-march to a wayside station,
With (every single soldier guessed)
Greece as our "unknown destination."
I saw Olympus wrapped in snow,
The clouds at rest upon its summit,
But did I thrill or long to throw
My hands athwart the lyre and strum it?
Gazing, I felt no soulful throb,
I only felt the body's inner
Cravings and said, "I'll bet a bob
It's bully once again for dinner."