GENERAL WAR NEWS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1793, 23 February 1918, Page 1

GENERAL WAR NEWS.

250,000 SHELLS A DAY. Sir L. Worthington Evans, M.P., Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Munitions, at Colchester, mentioned that in one week recently we sent into the German lines well over a quarter of a million shells, weighing 10,000 tons, a day. - SPY MONEY LOST. It is interesting to learn that, some £600,000 entrusted to a German Imperial Privy Councillor for payment of spies and other propagandists in America was lost by that gentleman in speculation in New York and Chicago. DECKS’ ARMED GUARDS. The protection of the docks and warehouses of New York’s water fronts has been entrusted to the United States Army, whose sentinels will henceforth stand guard, with orders lo shoot any unauthorised person, either alien or American, who seek lo enter teh barred zones. They wilt wear blue uniforms, and the public is warned to heed instantly their challenge. MUSIC IN THE TRENCHES. Concert parties and cinema, entertainments are in full swing in dozens of places behind the lines in France, Up in the trenches the grama phone, so much vilified ini he superior suburbs, provides the relaxation that our Tommies waul. There is hardly a company at the front that has not a handy portable machine. The most popular records at the moment are: —“Down Where the Swanee River Flows,” “Hello, My Dearie” (from “ZigZag”), and “Where the Black-eyed Susans Grow” (from “Cheep”). Tommy’s taste is not solely confined to revue and other light music. HUNS’ SMART PYJAMAS./ A manufacturing firm at Dewsbury lately received a postcard from a German at Lofthouse prison camp, asking for price-lists and patterns of “flannels, satins, silks, etc., suitable for smart pyjamas.” In reply, the firm sent him a copy of the following “solemn oath” which they have sworn:—“To mark our horror and disgust of the methods of Germany since July, 191-1, we swear that we will not: (a) Knowingly purchase anything made in Germany; (b) transact business with or through a German for five years after peace is declared. So help us, God.” SURPRISE FOR A MEDICAL BOARD. A Canadian Army Medical Board was in consultation on a soldier whose disease had baffled the regimental doctor’. Unusual symptoms rendered diagnosis difficult, and led to an earnest discussion. The patient, momentarily forgotten, was listening intently, and presently, forgetting all else in the intensity of his interest, surprised the doctors and himself by a spontaneous utterance expressing strong disagreement. The astonished doctors began to rebuke the soldier for his breach of discipline, but were presently amazed to learn from his rather reluctant answers to their questions that he was an eminent surgeon from the Western States, who, from love of adventure, had enlisted in the ranks. In civil life every doctor on the hoax’d would have thought it a privilege to be the pupil of this voluntary private soldier. JDECDY WIRELESS MESSAGES. The decoy radio message is one to beware of, a kind of trickei’y at which the Germans have displayed great cunning. Such an instance appeal’s in a x’eport of the naval officer commanding the gunners of one of the Atlantic liners; “About 5 p.m., after, we had sent our radio to report the time of arrival at the ordered rendezvous, received a call from some ship using our secret call and signing as a friendly man-o’-war. First he asked in plain language for our position, but, as we did not answer him, he repeated his" question, this time using the merchant code without the cypher. This message also remained unanswered. He then called us and said hd\had an important message for us. We gave him the wox’d to go ahead with it. This was answered by his asking us again for our position. To this we paid no attention.”