GENERAL WAR NEWS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1734, 25 September 1917, Page 1

GENERAL WAR NEWS.

DEAD MAN FOUR TIMES CALLED UP. The widow of Private R. B. Neve, Londonr Regiment, an Enfield jobbing gardener, has received from Tottenham recruiting office the fourth calling-up notice sent for her husband since his death from wounds received in action last October, CLUBS CAUTIONED, The names of several of the most exclusive West End clubs appear in a list submitted by the Public Health Committee of Westminster City Council of places which they have ordered to be cautioned for using slightly too much meat or sugar, or both in excess. INSURING SOLDIERS. Tentative plans have been discussed at a conference of Government officials and insurance experts at Washington to provide for insurance in amounts of 1,000 to 10,000 dollars (£2OO to £2,000) on the lives of American soldiers and sailors at ordinary rates, the Government to pay the excess charges due to the risk of war . service. Indemnities for total or partial disability wore also discussed, CANADIAN*BLANKETS FOR U.S. One of the largest of recent war orders placed in Canada came from the Government of the United States. This order calls for thousands of blankets for army purposes. The contracts were distributed amongst various firms in the Dominion in order to ensure the earliest delivery possible. The total value of the contract aggregates one million dollars, A POTATO GLUT. The obvious has already occurred as the result of the early planting of potatoes in England on thousands of allotments without any official advice as to dates of planting and varieties to plant. The markets are now glutted with potatoes, which arc not finding too ready a sale at £0 and £5 10s a ton. Other vegetables are also superabundant, and the allotment holders are feeling rather sorry and “had.” COAL IN PARIS. Paris is still very short of coal. No coal merchant will take an order nor lias taken one for months.. Prices have been fantastic —£10 a ton is cheap, and people have paid up to £20,. Wood has been sold at £8 and £lO, and £0 is considered moderate, The houses which are heated by the landlord may be left without heat altogether unless the matter is soon settled, and landlords are already trying to avoid the responsibility, although the method of central heating in a block of flats is much more economical than the other. WINTER COAL, The Coal Controller’s scheme for supplying winter house coal fixes the following scale of rations between October Ist and March 31st next: — Size of House. Coal per Week, 3 —5 rooms . Up to 2cwt. (! —7 rooms Up to 4ewt. B—9 rooms Up to scwt. Over 12 rooms Up to Bewt, From April Ist to September 30th the allowance will be half the winter ration. Local authorities and coal merchants are each to elect representatives to be known as “coal overseers,” who shall have power to allow a consumer within their district an additional 2cwt, a week for any of the following causes: — Illness, aged or infirm people, young children, lodger’s fire, home businesses, no other heating gneans, inferior coal. Occupants of flats find tenements may apply to be assessed individually. A DANGER TO AEROPLANES, Any excessive movement of the air during a thunderstorm tends to attract the electric fluid, and at the speed aircraft travel at the chances are that, with a stornfin progress, they would not be the safest place to be in. One of the British air raids on Constantinople, however, was successfully carried out in a rather severe thunderstorm. SIXTEEN DAYS IN SUBMARINE! The British and Foreign Sailors’ Society has received inofmation that the chief engineer and two naval gunners of a merchant ship, torpedoed by the enemy, were kept imprisoned in the German submarine for sixteen days before a chance offered the German commander to put them ashore.