The Widow's Mite.

Manawatu Herald, 8 February 1900, Page 3

The Widow's Mite.

Remembering Tommy Atkins's affectionate nickname for his Sovereign — vide Kipling passim— perhaps we may anticipate for him in the above description his reception of the Queen's Christmas gift. How appropriate the Queen's present of chocolate will be may be gathered from some wellinformed remarks by the military correspondent of the " Daily News." He says:— Her Majesty has in my judgment selected the absolutely most useful present she could have done for the troops. Whenever I have been going on a campaign, the first thing I have always ordered was as many pounds of chocolate as I could manage to carry with me. The first advice I always give to every ) r oung campaigner is to do the same. The fears of any criticism by any Continental soldiers who have seen was quite superfluous. I have ridden for days together independent only on what I could carry. Over and over again my lump of chocolate has saved me from absolute exhaustion, and saved me from any sense of hunger when long without meals. Only the crassly inexperienced in such matter, who want, like Dogberry, to get themselves written down asses, will dare to laugh. There is, however, apart from the sustaining quality of chocolate for an exhausted man, one very curious fact which came out pointedly on Nile campaign. It is a well-known chemical truth that the equivalents of sugar and of alcohol are nearly identical. Tommy discovered this when he is cut short of : his grog. During Lord Wolseley's boat expedition on the Nile, when it was practically impossible to carry up any spirits for the men, the sweet, tooths that they acquired were extraordinary. The sutlers made a ; fortune out of the sale of jams amM other sweet stuff they could get up, ! although the original ration had made j full allowance for this to such an extent that the boat expedition at the time was scornfully given the name of . the " Nile Picnic," because of the ! nature of the stores that were carried. ! Anyone at home may observe the i same phenomeon in a man who from any cause has at all suddenly to give up alcohol. Things that he would have turned up his nose at before became suddenly attractive to him. I have thought it worth while to go at some length into this matter because I am quite sure that if friends at home will follow the example set by Her Majesty, and will take a hint thereby they will'really, as soon as parcel post to the front works tolerably, freely, as with two lines of railway following the course of the troops, it undoubtedly will as soon as the first rush is over do a service to their friends at the front, of whatever rank, by sending some good stick eating chocolate to Tommy, by remembering that if he is cut off from his grog he will enjoy its chemical equivalent.— St James's Budget.