GENERAL WAR NEWS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1861, 6 August 1918, Page 1

GENERAL WAR NEWS.

PEDIGREE STOCK

In response to representations made by the Agricultural Society of: England and the Breed Societies, the War Trade Department has intimated that it will abandon its proposal to “ration” the export of pedigree live stock. £OS A TON FOR RAGS. As much as £OS a ton is being paid at the mills for linen rags, and, hi view of the paper shortage, a house-to-house collection is suggested. Old linen collars and old cotton curtains can be serviceably applied in the manufacture of finer classes of paper.

NO NEWSPAPER “RETURNS.”

An order forbidding the distribution of newspapers or magazines on sale or “return” in England came into force at the end of June. “Ihe order,” says the Paper Controller, “may be described as an attempt to crystallise the demand and permit, of an adequate, but not wasteful, supply.” SOAP SHORTAGE EPIDEMIC. German medical circles confess their disquiet over the alarming increase of a hair and skin disease, due primarily to lack of soap for bathing and shaving, but also, as the Lokal-Anzeiger explains, to “the generally unfavourable hygienic conditions” throughout the country. The disease is rife both among the civilian population and in the army, and afflicts women and children as well as men. The papers stale thatit has now reached such dimensions that it must be described as an eddidemic. The doctors call the malady “trichophytia.” Special hospitals have been set up in the army to cope with it. AN AIRMAN'S CHORUS. Oul in France (says a writer in the Daily News) a living friend tells me I bey apply 1 be* following serve to the well-known song called “I’ve got a Motto”: —

I’ve got a motl-er, Keep ibis side of Ihe line. Look around and you will find Every cloud has a Hun behind. . The scouts may come, Though your chance will be but a slim one. .... I’ve often said when I’ve looked UP. It may be a Hun, or a “Sopwith Pup,” It’s a small cross, bill a “Black one.” CATERPILLAR PLAGUE. The fruit crop throughout England is expected ibis summer to be exceptionally poor. There was a good, show of blossom a I the right lime, but blights of one kind and another seem to have destroyed most of the young fruit. The caterpillar plague, which was local last year, seems likely to be more Avides|;read this year. The Times slates that some of the fields and stone wayys in Staffordshire' are black with them. Not only do they do very great harm to the pasture, but cattle refuse to teed on meadows over which they have passed.

CLERGYMAN’S WAR RECORD

lii Convocation of Canterbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury reported that the number of Church of England chaplains now serving or who had served was 2,552. Fiftyeight had died on service, as compared with forty of other denominations. Twenty were missing, and considerably over 100 had been seriously wounded, apart from any casualites in recent battles. THE CHANNEL TUNNEL. In the German Railway Administration Gazette an architect named Kemmann discusses the Channel Tunnel project, expressing the view that the war has brought it nearer to realisation that ever before. A writer in the Berliner Tageblatt, averring that Britain’s military operations would have been incalculably facilitated by a Channel Tunnel, says:—“It is rather difficult as yet to foresee the time when Germans, too, will travel through this tunnel, if ever built, but perhaps the English will thank us for having galvanised the old-time enterprise with new life by proving, by our methods of war, that England is no longer an island in a military sense.”