General War News

Levin Daily Chronicle, 29 January 1918, Page 3

General War News

The army demand for boots before ( the Avar amounted to about £350,000 per annum. In \he iirst niiiQ months i.i the war ;i rose to £19,000,000 for tireat Kiitain alone, and in addition large orders were placed for allied Governments which in time became so enormous as seriously to complicate the question of supplies. ARMY BOOT SUPPLY. SKIPPER CRISP, V.C. We hear many line tales of the sea iu these days (says a writer in the Globe), but that of Skipper Crisp—appropriately of the Nelson —wiil hold its own in navy records. The man who lived to dictate the message of his death has surely attained a unique immortality. The great tradition goes 011, as the official message indicates. His place at the tiller was taken by his son, and like a Viking of old the hero went down with his vessel. ACTRESS TAKES THE VEIL. In other limes all Paris would be ringing with the name of Eve Lavalli-, erre. Even now the boulevards will give her a passing pathetic thought, for she has left Paris to go into a nunnery. The once brilliant little actress is obviously honest and sincere; slie had vowed not to appear on the stage during the war, but broke her vow once to help her humbler sisters in Belgium. MODERN" WOMEN. A story of a scene at a certain tube stiiiion is publish rd in the Daily Sketch. A mazonir.n yoni:g factory girls plunged into the place just about alien-swarming time, seized upon a number of fit but sallow young men, pulldd th"m out like terriers after ruts, and sent them home through the streets —minus a somewhat important 'portion of their attire. SUBSTITUTES FOR TEA AND COFFEE. As there is practically no tea, coffee, or cocoa left in Germany, the President of the Committee on War Foodstuffs has called attention to substitutes for these substances. These, says the Chemist and Druggist, include dried leaves of the strawberry, blackberry, red currant, raspberry, and cherry trees, as well as the leaves of birches, elm trees, willows, blackthorn, and walnut trees. Tho peels of apples and pears are also mentioned. The prices at which these are to be sold are suggested, but are not obligatory. LEVELLING CLASS DISTINCTIONS.

' Mr John Hodge, the Pensions Minister, thinks class distinction will be levelled after the war. "Once peace comes we shall And all the old hatreds smoothed away and replaced by sentiments of kinship and'inter-reliance. The workman's son, his employer's son, and the aristocrat have been lighting side by side, shoulder to shoulder, enduring the same hardships, facing the same dangers, endeavouring with fine unselfishness to save one another's lives in smoke of battle and trench-mud." MAGIC WORK AT 6 A.M. Twenty years ago Mr John Burns declared "the man who invented going to work before breakfast ought to be shot,." Dr E. L. Collis, director of the Welfare and Health Section of the Ministy of Munitions, suggests that it would be well to recommend employers to start work after breakfast. He cannot soc any magic about six o'clock in the morning—dark, cold, wot, horrid winter mornings. .The result was that output war, poor in quality and quantity. RECORD BROKEN BY DEATH. Flanders has seen the end of a striking record of the war. Driver F. Butcher, of Booking, Essex, went to France with the original 8.E.F., and for three years from the retreat from Mons his gun-team was driven by him through numerous battles without a scratch to himself or his horses. For this feat ho was presented with a silver cup by the general commanding at a divisional parade before Ypres. Now news has been received of the death of Butcher and one of his horses, a shell having exploded near them. THE GUNNER'S HARD "BIT."

The gunner at the front is having rather a bad time in the slime and the water. "Of rest in its true sense, of changing of clothes, or any comfo*t, there is none. There sleep is taken," says the Times correspondent at headquarters, "must be snatched on a wat erproof sheet spread upon the slime. Meals are bolted as they may be amid the all-pervading horror of the mud. STANDARDISED HOUSES. The Home Government has decided that of the 300,000 new workers' dwellings that -were stated a little while ago to be the minimum necessity, from 150,000 to 200,000 will be erected to meet after-war conditions. Returns received from the City, Borough, and District Councils show that about 100,000 are urgently required. The Local Government Board will ask for a subsidy of several million for this purpose. The typo of house will vary according to the district, but all the pairfs will be standardised, from the bricks to the window fittings. A SLIGHT INTERRUPTION.

Mr Pett Ridge tolls the following:— A soldier in a certain regiment out in Franco was making determined but unsuccessful efforts to light his pipe, and at about the ninth attempt an enemy shell came across, flinging him flat on the ground, and ploughing up the earth close bv. After he had recovered somewhat he made one more try, remarking aggrievedly, "What with these "French matches and this 'ere bloomin' Belgian tobacco, my life very soon won't ho worth living.'' SECRET PATENTS IN THE ARMY.

A good many very important inventions have been made by engineers, chemists) and other technical experts in the service of the army. Many of these inventions will be of the greatest value after the war, for both military and industrial purposes. At present the inventors, beiifg in the service of the State are required to take out secret patents and assign them to the Governs lent. It is an interesting and rather an important question whether they are to have any adequate reward for their diligence and ingenuity. Sir Henry Norman is to ask what the financial position of these inventors, who arc most technical temporary officers, will be in regard to their inventions, and on what basis and by whom their remuneration is to be calculated.