After dropping bombs on Thanet the raiders proceeded to London, moving parallel with the north bank of the Thames and approaching London from the north-
east. They then changed their course and proceeded north and west. They crossed London from the north-west to the south-east, and bombs were dropped at various places in the metropolitan area. The number of raiders is uncertain, but it was probably about 20. Our artillery and a large number of aeroplanes attacked the raiders, but reports on the results of the engagement, the damage, and the casualties have not yet been received.
Admiralty naval aeroplanes engaged the returning raiding squadron 40 miles off the east coast. Two enemy machines were observed to crash into the sea, and
a third fell in flames at the mouth of the Scheldt. All ours returned.
Fun time on £10
General Birdwood (says the London correspondent of the Sydney Sun) has a rule that no man can take leave from France unless he has £10 credit in his pay-book. He may spend that much — and no more. So many of the lads cable to their homes for money, and go to all the theatres and see restaurant life. It is not harmful, but it is not wise; the happiest times in London can be had for little expenditure. So the authorities frown on these presents from home, and today they are refusing to deliver registered letters sent on from the Commonwealth Bank, ostensibly on the ground that a recent robbery of £800 worth of bank notes from a registered letter room at the Horseferry road headquarters proves that delivery cannot be guaranteed; but in reality because they think that if money is wanted it should be cabled through the military paymasters. A man can do all he wants on £10. He canhave a theatre a night, and good dinners. He can, if he wishes, take taxi-cabs instead of walking, and sleep in a hotel instead of at one of the many institutions, like the War Chest Club, which provide clean beds and good company for less than nothing. Most men like buying tailor-made tunics when they get here. Many of them need a refit. Money can always be wisely spent by the soldier, and he has a better right to it than any civilian. But his best friends do not dispute his general’s policy of restricting expenditure to a reasonable limit.
The King’s mailbag
If anyone were privileged to see the King’s daily postbag he would be amazed at the amount of nonsense written to his Majesty. People who have unique information as to the exact date of the end of the world, weird creatures who have telepathic communications revealing what goes on in the next existence, fanatics desiring to convert the Sovereign to some new religion or to warn him against imaginary achievements by Jesuits, individuals who can wipe out the national debt by some preternaturally fallacious calculations, others who have grievances they cannot bring to light, beggars for money galore — all pour in effusions which, fortunately, only reach the King’s eye if they are sufficiently diverting to amuse him.
Private secretaries are invaluable to public men, but none are so deft and able as those attached to his Majesty.
Sprightly ladies
There are in one ward in the Reefton Hospital at the present time seven ladies, whose ages aggregate 534 years.
They are all in possession of their full faculties, as well as being cheerful and optimistic. Their ages are, respectively, 85, 80, 80, 79, 75, 74, and 61, and they have been many years on the West Coast and are examples of the type of colonist that came to those parts in the early days. — ODT, 8.7.1917.
• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ
