To the Editor of the The following versus were written by Mrs. Wheeler, formerly Mrs, Balbernir, eho was at one time well-known in Shanghai.
"Norra-Cama Dairy News."
Municipal Gazette of the correspondence between the Council and the Japanese Consul-General on the subject of the release of certain German bandsman who are at present prisoners of war in Japan, is a revelation to many of us, We have never thought it possible that the Council could exhibit What can we women do who needs must stay When War is calling all our men away?
Shall we sit calm and fold our hands, the while We hear sad tales—with sympathetic amile—OF those who, madly fighting, give up all, "That England, our dear country, should not fall.
What can we do—who are the soldiers' wiver—While our dear men are giving up their lives And thanking God, in intervals of fight, That all they love at home are safe and right. tis oe hard to only stand and wait For tidings, which to us seem scant and late. such deplorable sentimentality, considering its standing visd-vis of the British community, or that it could be guilty of a species of impudence so "child-like and bland." Is the life and soul of the Settlement in such awful jeopardy because of the absence of a few German members of the Public Band that the Council had deemed it expedient to apply for their urgent release?
is indeed fortunate that the Japanese Government has emphatically declined to entertain the Chairman's petition, otherwise the Council would have let itself infor indiscretion impossible to be overlooked.
Not so—we women all, sisters in woe, For ench hus proudly seen some loved one fo—Gan do the daily round with prender heart To think that we yet take ''a smaller part," Can of our little, may be, spare a bit To comfort those who are more hardly hit.
Can send strong thoughts across that strip of sea To where ourselves, if only men, would be Thoughts that must comfort those who fallen lie. And raise their hopes towards the triumph nigh Gon pray that soon our anxious time shall cease With viet'ry honour, well-deserved peace.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.