The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-12-22

, seeing an American society column or getting letters from the U. S. Al
 PURELY DETACHED DISCUSSION l You understand that discuss these questions purely in a detached man.
 ner. Like all bachelors (young or old) 1 am always ready to give advice on
 matters of the heart (amorous, not physcaD.
 But suppose for the sake of arGu- ment that many American soldiers were marrying French girls. What boots it?' as MT. Shakespeare was wont to remark. Anyone who has read history for the past four years and l more knows that the war will end with very great shortage of mar riageable men in France. The inevi- , table law of supply and demand de- crees that hundreds of thousands of French maidens who otherwise would have married must remain spinsters for the simple reason that there will not be enough husbands to go around. Surely great and generous America, which divides her bread, her munitions and her money with her, noble ally. France. would not be so selfish as to refuse to give up & few possible hus- bands There can be no big shortage in the United States after the war, for l the last reports that I saw showed the husband crop more bumper than the cereals.
 And it has always been that way I recall that in my younger days many years ago when I sometimes--as youths have habit of doing-gave thought to questions of matrimony, the market seemed to be overloaded with possi- 1 ble husbands. I always had several in particular in mind who I thought were entirely superflous.
 1 MAKE GOOD HUSBANDS
 'But aside from all these things, the American soldiers who have lived in France any considerable length of 1 time should make most satisfactory l husbands. They have acquired some habits which will be highly conducive 1 to matrimonial bliss. They never in l terrupt woman when she is talking they agree heartily with everything ! she says, and they have become accus- toned to handin over their entire bank rolr without complaint whenever it is demanded, and smiling gratefully l for any small change which the re- I cipient may see fit to return to them When the average American sol dier first meets a French girl about the only thing he can say to her is "Oui oui, mademoiselle. And for reasons which are obvious he smiles very pleasantly when he says it. The French l mademoise1le, being unlike the young 1 women of all other countries, likes tc talk. and she does lots of 1t. And all l though the American doesn't get what 1 she is saying, and couldn't keep uu with her even if he knew French, he continues to smile pleasantly and says 'Oui oui. mademoiselle.' This con- tinues for sometime until eventually it becomes second nature for him tC 1 agree to everything any woman says no matter what it is. And he never in terrupts mademoiselle for two req
 sons: one Is she probably talks so fast
 she probably couldn't stop and the
 I other, he couldn't say anything ever
 I if she did.
 The habit of giving up the bank
 lroll cheerfully is heing acquired in the
 Same way. When most of the men ar-
 rived over here they were not ia
 miliar with French money, money
 values or prices. So when they pur-
 chased anything they simply laid theil
 money out and waited patiently to see
 If they had anything coming back te
 them. And as they have found prices