A senator was talking about the war. “Each side,” he said, “is declaring hotly now that it will never receive the foe within its hospitable borders again, and that after the war there will be no trading with the enemy forevermore.
“When we hear talk like that, let us smile skeptically, remembering the vain campaign of Wilberforce.
“When Wilberforce was fighting against slavery in London a shopkeeper put up a sign: ‘No goods made with slave-grown cotton sold here.’ But the man’s rival then put up another sign: ‘All our goods are made from cheap, slave-grown cotton.’
“This latter sign got all the trade, of course. If the first one hadn’t been taken down at once it would have driven its author into bankruptcy.”
A correspondent sends to the “Manchester Guardian” this story, evidently from an ironical Swiss paper. A few soldiers belonging to the brass band of a regiment in garrison at Basle went to a certain café for refreshments. One of them sat down alone at a table. Later a civilian, a German, joined him, and the two began to talk war politics.
“Would you shoot the Germans if they invaded Switzerland?” asked the German.
“Waiter, a pint of beer and a beefsteak with potatoes for this brave man,” ordered the civilian. “And your pals sitting at the next table—would they also not shoot the Germans if they tried to invade this country?”
“Waiter, a glass of beer for each of the soldiers at the next table!” ordered the civilian. And, addressing again the soldier, he asked: “Is this generally the view held in the Swiss army in regard to a possible German invasion? Are all the Swiss soldiers so Germanophil?”
“But why would you not shoot the Germans?”
She—“Tell me, when you were in the army were you cool in the hour of danger?”
Pat Molloy came in for his evening’s beverage, and paper in hand, as usual. The crowd kept quiet to hear the latest war news. Pat said the war had reached a crisis, and that there was only one obstacle between the Allied Forces and Berlin. His listeners were dumfounded, and one of them, recovering quicker than the others, asked:
“Oh,” said Pat, emptying his glass; “it’s nothing but the Germany army.”
The Irish Tommy, prisoner, was feeling very wroth with the destroyers of Louvain, when a German officer dashed by on what Paddy termed “a rare bit of horseflesh.”