A BOLO Sia,--May I add a tiny piece of journalistic
history to support Mr. Cyril Ray's suggestion that the word 'bolo' derives from Bolsheviks?
One use of it was certainly connected with the Russian word. The death before a firing squad of the French traitor, Paul Bob, in 1918, made a deep im- pression in this country. He had been employed by the Germans to influence the French press in favour of a separate peace in order to leave the Kaiser's forces free to attack Britain. My old chief, Thomas Marlowe, editor of the Daily Mail, ordered the word 'Ebb' to be used instead of Bolshevik. There was so much bitterness at the time against the Bol- sheviks that this seemed a catchy way of heightening the suggestion that they were traitors. But the usage did not spread, and presently Lord Northcliffe stopped it.— Yours faithfully,
UNION ON ANDREWS
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