EVERY SOLDIER HIS OWN "HUZIF."

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2831, 24 July 1916, Page 3

EVERY SOLDIER HIS OWN "HUZIF."

$ LESSON OF THE WAR. If tho oflect of the war and the call for myriads of helpers has taught the women many lessons, and shown them tho way to do work that hitherto has been considered man's especial province, it has also shown huiulreiio of tuousands of Englishmen and colonials not In deem themselves so helpless as they have been considered in little things aliectiug their personal comfort and convenience. There have been men who have grown to manhood's state and passed from that to the sere and yellow leaf without ever having patched a hole or sown on a button. Tho war has changed that, in this great adventure men have been forced to help themselves, and those who are fortunate enough to return with wholo skins are going to rely less on their wives and sisters than in tho past to do those little mending jobs which they have felt to be beyond their skill or beneath their dignity to do in (he past. One has only to visit tho Town Hall on "Housewife" (pronounced "nuzif") Day to realise this. The writer paid a casual.visit to the Council Chamber on Saturday morning, and there'-in tho seats of the mighty wore a horseshoo formation of boys and girls, working away like busy bees. A closer look showed that they were loading "huzifs" for the fighting men—with ammunition that they cannot very well do without. Each little pair of hands had its particular duty. There was cno to thread trouser buttons tin to a safety-pin, another to thread shirt and'other buttons on to another safety-pin (all the safety-pins are blackened). Other boys and girls stowed away a stout pair of raw-hide laces, strong enough to moor a ship (which cost threepence a pair, and are supplied by Palmerston. North), a roll of tape, threaded needles of various-sizes on to leaves of flannel, pins the same way, a skein of strong thread, and a dozen two-inch nails. An inquiry was made what the nails were for. "Oh," said Mrs. Crawford, "there is nothing ' they want more than the nails!" What for? "Why, to use as buttons. You see every brass button has a little metal ring underneath, and it is easy to slip a nail through the cloth on either side of the ring, and that, holds the button on in an emergency. Some' of the men havo written to us, telling the great use they found for the 'huzifs,' and actually asking us to include more nails, even if there had to be less needles." ■ Nails aio not thp only means of fixing buttons to "tunics. Some ingenious soul has discovered that a feather boot-lace is an admirable substitute for needle and thread. The lace is passed through the ring of the button, knotted, and continued on to the next button without a break. ; On Saturday tho chi73ren that were employed were from theMaranui School, and right well they did their work. There were something like. 1300 or 1400 "huzifs" packed away in cases, ready for transfer to the Defence Department's store to-day, where one is served out with every new soldier's equipment. If they happen to lose the one that is given them, there is a slightly better quality leather "huzif," with the same contents as the free one (which are also made up by the ladies in the Town Hall), sold- by the Defence authorities at eighteanpanco oach.