NEXT Saturday, September 1st is to be a “Red Letter Day” for Frankston, and thousands of people will be given an opportunity of demonstrating their pent-up, patriotic, and loyal spirit.
We know we have had a win, but we feel we are to and our hearts will not fail in the meantime.
Our determination and burning patriotism will be by the boys in the trenches and will hearten and stimulate them.
But no one can assist to show there is not going to be any downheartedness and every nerve will be strained for victory.
The children will be specially well catered for. Mr McMuir who was deputed to collect on their behalf has had no difficulty in obtaining money and sweets.
Given a fine day, the Pageant of Loyalty will be a monster success.
In the evening a Grand Concert will be given by the Langwarrin Military Company and this is sufficient for a really first class entertainment.
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Mornington Junction. The local Progress Association held their Arbor Day on Saturday last August 18th, when the idea of planting trees for the soldiers was first mooted.
The committee met with the usual cry of the Pessimist, “Who’s going to pay for the trees?” and’”You’ll never get the money for the guards?
But we kept on working silently and surely with the result that the number of trees was oversubscribed for, each one guaranteeing to supply a guard of sawn timber.
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AT a committee meeting of the Wattle Club, held in the Mechanics’ Hall, on Thursday evening last, it was decided to donate the following amounts: – £10 10s to the Frankston Red Cross; £10 to obtain Xmas boxes for boys in the firing line and £25 to procure a Combination BedChair for uses at the Base Hospital.
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THE Shire Elections passed over very quietly in this Shire on Thursday last.
Crs Oates and Murray being returned unopposed for the North and Centre Ridings respectively, and Cr W. P. Mason was returned unopposed for the Seat in the North Riding, rendered vacant by Cr Plowman.
In the East Riding Cr Alden was opposed by Mr J. D. Hodgins and the letter was elected by a majority of 25 votes, the numbers being :—Hodgins 149; Alden 124.
In the Mornington Shire there were five candidates for the three seats.
Two of the retiring candidates (Crs Blacker and Nunn) were returned, but Cr Korner had to retire.
The following were the votes polled :—J. G. Barrett, 471; R. Nunn, 434; J. Blacker, 426; F. M. Linley. 381; W. A. Korner, 205.
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Australian Battleplanes.
WAR OFFICE APPRECIATION OF GIFTS.
The following letter from Lord Derby, Secretary of State for War, under date of 19th June, 1917, to me, as Honorary Organiser of the “Australian Air Squadrons’ Fund” speaks for itself, as to the value each additional Battleplane is in helping to secure command of the air, upon which everything now depends
“Dear Sir, – Lord Darby desires me to thank you for the copies of your second appeal for the Australian Air Squadrons’ Fund, and to say that the question of air supremacy is one of such vital importance at this time that the fine work of your fund and The patriotism of your subscribers cannot he over-estimated, and is fully appreciated by the War Office.
(Sgt) W. H. T. OTTLEY.
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Cupid On Crutches.
WHY THE GIRL OF TODAY DOES NOT HESITATE TO PROPOSE TO HER DISABLED LOVER.
THE love of a man for a maid and the love of a woman for a man are two totally different emotions.
War has proved this to us.
Every time a maimed warrior leads his bride to the alter he is demonstrating the strength of woman’s love.
Cupid can use a crutch to help storm the citadel of a woman’s heart and the fact that hundreds of women are marrying the men they love, although these men are “broken in the wars,” goes to prove that woman’s love does not hinge on mere physical attraction.
“WHEN I COME BACK.”
When a woman loves a man she is willing to marry him whether he has left parts of himself on the battle field or whether he is physically perfect.
That is where men and women differ.
Man looks for perfection when he goes a-wooing, and there is hardly a man living who would go to a cripples home in search of a wife.
The deformed woman usually reconciles herself to spinsterdom, and cupid ignores her when he fares forth with a quiver full of golden-tipped arrows.
Yet he will work in the cause of the maimed man, and especially of the heroes of the moment.
“When I come back !” whispers the man, and the girl understands.
If he comes back a wreck of his former self she does not hang back.
She is ready to compensate, by her love, for the suffering he has undergone. The empty sleeve does not frighten her.
“It wasn’t his limbs only that I loved” she’ll tell you.
And, could you look down into the depths of her heart, you would find that the demands of war had increased her love.
Some people tell you that women marry cripples out of pity, but pity is often the key that unlocks a woman’s heart; and what do keys matter when doors are open ? Let us have a little more pity, for it is a beautiful thing.
CRUEL CONVENTION.
War has acted as a Juggernaut to many of our old laws and conventions.
Ten years ago we would have condemned the maid who proposed, yet we have her today, and the world says “God bless her!”
Take the case of the maimed warrior who is sensitive. He imagines that honor forbids him to ask any woman to tie herself to a cripple.
The woman knows, because her intuition is sharper than man’s, where the book of love is in question.
And if she loves the bashful, sensitive hero, she proves herself when she ignores false modesty and old conventional laws that demanded that women should be the quarry rather than the hunter.
Under ordinary conditions we still prefer that man should propose, but war has created extraordinary conditions, which permit women to exercise their common sense when it seems necessary.
A woman’s love is so mixed up with the maternal instinct. The very best women want to mother their men. The crippled man arouses this mother love, which makes for lasting happiness.
THE TWO WOMEN.
Most women who love suffer through man’s independence. They know themselves to be of his life but “a thing apart,” and are always getting hurt because they count for so very little.
When a woman marries a cripple she knows she is going to count in his life, and that knowledge means a lot.
War is giving us many cripples; that is the greatest tragedy of the times. But a deformity from accident bears no comparison with an inherited one There is no taint of heredity to worry about.
It is wonderful to some people that women can marry our blinded heroes but it is not wonderful to women.
If love is blind, why should not love come through blindness? The women whose soul is more lovely than her face can find the kingdom of love more easily with a blinded mate than with one who can see.
There are two women who count in the life of every man—the mother who bears him and the woman who helps him to find his better self.
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From the pages of the Mornington Standard, 25 August 1917
As published in the Mornington News – 22 August 2017
