NEWS AND NOTES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1569, 27 June 1916, Page 4

NEWS AND NOTES.

“Wo wore given n tri:il trip through the poison gas the other day,” says Private C. Evans, of the Australian Forces, writing from France to his mother. The letter is published in the Sydney Morning Herald. “A trench was filled with gas from a. cylinder in the bottom, and we marched through with our gas helmets on. The helmets are pretty horrible-looking affairs and you feel as though you are being smothered in them, but the feeling soon wears off, and you can wear them all day without; being troubled. We were also run through that gas that makes your eyes water and temporarily blinds you, but it had no effect on me. We have to be inspected by General doff re to-morrow, so it will be a ease of boots polished and (arts shaved. France is absolutely wonderful. When you see women and little children working from daylight (ill dark in tin* holds, you wonder whether England and Australia. are doing anything like their share in this war. Travelling practically the whole breadth of France, I did not see one able-bodied man of military age who was not in uniform. Even the soldiers on guard at the bridges and railway lines are men who would be too old for the firing line.”