GENERAL WAR NEWS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1875, 10 September 1918, Page 4

GENERAL WAR NEWS.

MORE HUMOUR, LESS DRILL, . A Frankfort pedagogue, Professor Dr. Julius Ziehen, discussing educational reform in Prussia in the light of the war’s lessons, stairs (hat whaf I lie Prussian school -ystem needs is “more humour and less drill.” SAFETY OF T.N.T. WORK. Poisoning among T.N.T. workers has been almost stamped out as the result of close medical supervision, and improved method of working. It has therefore been decided to permit continuous employment of persons upon this kind of work. The effect of this will he a halving of the number of workers coming into actual contact with this explosive. STATE .BABIES. At an inlluenlial meeting of Child Welfare authorities in Berlin, resolutions were adopted praying the Reichstag and the different national legislatures to pass laws making it the duly of the Slate to support all children of unmarried mothers. The meeting declared that preservation of child life was now far too vital an issue for Germany to entrust: it any longer to voluntary ami private effort. ESCAPED HUN PRISONERS. The War Office announces in the Reichstag that German olticers or men who have escaped from enemy captivity will not again he employed on front-line work, except 11 1 their special request, hut only at home or at bases. The statement is the result of a deputy's suggestion that if escaped prisoners were re-caught by the enemy their Jives would be forfeit. -JEWISH LIEUT.-COLONEL. Lieut.-Colonel Sir John Monnsh, the Jewish general who has been given the command of all the Aus. tralian troops in France, in succession to General Birdwood, is (he firs) Jew to attain the rank of Lieuten-ant-General in the British Army. General Birdwood, whom General Monash succeeds, was in command of the detached landing of the Australian and Xew Zealand Army Corps above Gaba Tope, when he was wounded. THOUSANDTH V.C. IN SIGHT. With the awards announced at the beginning of July, the total number of Victoria Crosses conferred since the decoration was instituted over GO years ago is within a score of a thousand. Nearly hall of these have Ijcen gained in the present campaign, and it is obvious that the total bestowed in all past wars will be exceeded in this one vast struggle. The line regiment with the linesl Victoria Cross record is (he Rifle Brigade, which added three to its list recently, bringing it up to 25. TO RENDER “NEDDY” MUTE. The army mule is well-intention-ed and patriotic, and lie has done bis bit in the war with a will. He has, however, a distinct drawback. His tendency to bray has given assistance to enemy reeonnaisanee parties on more than a few occasions, Veterinary surgeons, then, are putting their heads together to render “Neddy” mute. Three different surgical opera lions have been suggested. One would sever the membrane about the larynx: the second would remove the “false nostril by which the mule is enabled to inspirate and expirate simultaneously, thus making the “bray” impossible; the third, a severing of some tail muscles, would, through nerve sympathy, produce the same result. Each of these operations, it is said, could be harmlessly performed, but it seems that the vigour of the last sense is added by nature to another, resulting' in immensely increasing kicking power.