TIT-BITS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 6, 22 January 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

TIT-BITS.

A modern torpedo costs about £2OOO. * * * About 200 men, marching in fours, would pass a given spot in a minute. * * * Germany is credited with having no fewer than aOOOOO motor vehicles in military use. * * * The only real direct defence of hig (ships against torpedo attack is held to be the big gun. * * * Every house in Coxford. a little village in Norfolk, has sent a man to serve with the'army. * * * Roumania lias a powerful army, well equipped and trained. The approximate strength is 650,000. * * * By " 15-inch " and so on is meant tihe diameter of the gun's bore. Twelvepounders are of 3-inch bore * * * The only animals left alive in the Antwerp Zoo are the elephants, which ar t -i now being used for military traction nurposes. * * * Heligoland was ceded by England to Germany in 1890. in exchange for Zanzibar, in East Africa. Britain took it firom Denmark in ISO 7. * * * A super-Dreadnought is armed with 13.5 guns; that h why it is given the prefix " super." The original Dreadnought carries ten 12-inch guns. * * *

Tlie periscope, by which a submerged submarine is steered, is a kind of tube with mirrors in it whereby what is happening on the surface is 'reflected below.

A British naval man is "allowed' four religions Church of England. Roman Catholic. Presbyterian, and Wesleyan. To one or the other of these he must conform.

Tlie Kaiser's Iron Crosses are nearly as cheap in London now a s they are on the battlefield. The- guttcr-mCr-chants are selling them at a penny apiece. * * *

The bigger the naval gun. the slower its fire. For example, while a 12pounder can fire 25 shots a minute, a 15-inch gun's firing works out at 1.2 shots ?vciy 60 ceconds.

Evcrv dav the bell of the Eton College Chapel is tolled for a quarter of an hour for Etonians killed in the war, a list of whom ha s been affixed to the chapel doors. * * *

A new series of war stamps just issued in Petrograd shows 'the' flags of the four Allies with their staves bound together by wreathe and illuminated by a risin" isun. ~ * * *

Every battleship now built which carries more than four big gun s \s christened a. Dreadnought, because that is the name of the first all-big-gun ship built for the British Navy.

So complete in every detail is the British commissariat system that our men in the fighting-line are being supplied with fresh water, which is carried daily across the Channel from Dover. * * *

When one of the enemy is captured lie is disarmed by taking the bolt from his rifle. His bayonet is confiscated. but ho is still made to carry bis ammunition and rifle, for both are useless.

The war dutks of a. battle cruiser are essentially of a destructive nature. Should the enemy's fleet be sighted, the battle cruisers. a s a fast wing, have to go in. pursuit and bring it into action.

Our soldiers at tho front are n ot without nws of the military operations. A nice, bright little paper is issued at frequent intervals and circulated throughout tho Briti-h forces. The paper is printed by the Royal Engineers. # -:< #

Even- Japane.e barracks has a gymnasium, and the Japanese soldiers rank among the best gymnasts in the world. In half a minute they can scale a 14 feet wall by simply bounding on each other's shoulders, one man supporting two or three others.

With the assistance of a special class of teachers and the aid of tho universities, the British Boaid of Education proposes to establish evening classes, on tho "continuation school" plan, for such of the troops-now under training as desire to keep up their studies during the winter. * * *

French soldiers march with bent knees, and they take shorter steps than do British troops. It is rather ungainly perhaps, but the bent knee method "gets the men along, and is not so tiring as the " legs well braced up" marching of the British soldier*. French infantry can do 30 miles a day pretty oasdy. " * * *

The names of the German and Austrian EuiptUors have now been removed from the list of British Field-Mar-shals in thv Army List, also from the lists of officers of the Royal Dragoons and King's Dragoon Guards, of which regiments they were respectively Ool-onels-in-Chief.

Many instances are related of the marching powers of the Russians. One soldier states that during the strenuous advance at Ossoviec th e troops marched over seventy miles in two flays, with hard fighting at the end of the march, after which they marched fifty-five miles to Lyck ill thirty-eix hours.