<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Source of News</h1><p class="byline"><span class="smallcaps">From The Needle</span></p><div class="stanza"><p class="line">ABSOLUTE knowledge I have none, </p><p class="line">But by aunt's washerwoman's son </p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Heard a policeman on his beat </p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Say to a laborer in the street </p><p class="line">That he had a letter just last week, </p><p class="line">Written in the finest Greek, </p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">From a Chine coolie in Timbuctoo</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Who said the niggers in Cuba knew</p><p class="line">Of a colored man in a Texas town</p><p class="line">Who got it straight from a circus clown, </p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">That a man in Klondike heard the news </p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">From a gang of South American Jews, </p><p class="line">About somebody in Bamboo W</p><p class="line">Who heard a man who claimed he knew </p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Of a swell society female rake </p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Whose mother-in-law will undertake </p><p class="line">To prove that her husband's sister's niece </p><p class="line">Has stated in a printed piece </p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">That she has a son who has a friend</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Who knows when the war is going to end. </p></div></body></html> · Great War