10 FEBRUARY 1917, Page 3

The military authorities at Aldershot are very simple people. They

asked the Farnham Magistrates the other day to close fifty per cent. of the public-houses (seventy-five in all) in the military area around .Aldershot. They asked for this, not on the ground that the soldiers were miscondueting themselves, but because they did not want them to be exposed to unnecessary temptation. The military authorities, however, forgot that Beer is king in this country. The Magistrates, for all we know with good legal cause, refused, on the ground that such action would be ultra sires. That is an excellent war-time joke. One can understand the threatened Alder- shot publican slapping his thigh and saying: "What did I tell you ? They haven't the right to touch us. Besides, they wouldn't dare 4ven if they had."