Oh those rumours, or "ain't that the truth!"

CONCERNING RUMOURS

A rhyme from 1916/1917  -  re the rumours in London during "The Great War".


Absolute evidence have I none,
But my aunt's charwoman's sister's son
Heard a policemen on his beat
Say to a housemaid in Downing Street
That he had a uncle who had a friend
Who knew for a fact when the war would end.
 
 
I happened upon this rhyme in the book  * "The Panther's Feast" by Robert B. Asprey  ( Published by Johnathan Cape, 1959).
 
Asprey attributes it to Sir George Aston.
 
Other sources say that the rhymer was Reginald Arkell.


* "The Panther's Feast" is a historical novel about Alfred Redl, the notorious head of Military Intelligence in the Austrian Army, who was also a spy for the Russians -  between 1901 and 1913

http://www.nytimes.com/1985/10/13/movies/colonel-redl-the-man-behind-the-screen-myth.html

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