SIDELIGHTS ON THE WAR.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 22, 19 March 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

SIDELIGHTS ON THE WAR.

At the present moment 150 trained dogs are operating on the Franco-Brit-ish front. They are sheep-dogs from Brie, Beauce, Flanders, Picardy, Limousin, Cascony, Landes, and the Pyrenees. They wear a brown cover, with the Red Cross on either side, and they are -doing good work in finding tee wounded.

More than 1,250 of the 1,500 horses which are to be presented by the Saskatchewan Government to the British War Office have now been purchased by the agents of the Remount Commission. Of. the horses which have so far been purchased approxim u. sy seventyfive per cent, are for cavalry and twenty-five per cent, for artillery purposes.

Among the records of this war mu.vt be reckoned the voyage of the "Mauritania," carrying artillery for the British forces in South Africa, accompanied by detachments of the Naval Brigade. The White Star boats genera 1 . 1 v take hvonty-ono days to make tht oyage and the mail boats seventeen days. The "Mauretania," however, only took ten days eight hours.

Since the declaration of war the Maharajah Scindia has given £15,000 for motor transport, £'lo,ooo to the Prince o- Wales' Relief Fund, £6,000 for the Belgian Refugee Fund. £5,000 for officers' motor-cars, £1,500 for officers' binoculars and telescopes, £I,OOO for Queen Mary's Needlework Guild, and £IOO for Princess Mary's Christmas Gift Fund.

Councillor J. Arthur Dawes, M.P., Mayor of Southwark (for the third time) and chairman of the London Insurance Committee, sprang a consider«l»le surprise upon the members of the Southwark Borough Council at their January meeting by appearing in naval uniform and announcing that he had been granted a commission of sub-lieu-tenant in the Royal Naval Reserve.

* * * Manx people were agreeably surprised recently when the Governor announced to the Isle of Man Legislature that he did not propose to follow the example of the Imperial Legislature in imposing additional duties on tea and beer for the present, though increased taxation would become necessary later on. His Excellency said he would carefully consider what for.ni the new taxation should take. There is no incometax in the island, so that islanders are meantime escaping war taxation.

The Crystal Palace, which has been closed in order to provide quarters for 10,000 recruits, is not without other connections with the war. Had there been no Krupps, there might have been no war, and the Palace helped to make the great gun firm famous. The Krupp establishment at Essen was quite a small affair until a two-ton ingot of cast steel shown by the enterprising Alfred Krupp at the Great (Exhibition of 1851 attracted shoals of orders, and led on unbounded prosperity.

A farm-servant, named John Davies, aged twenty-nine, who enlisted at Wellington, Salop, in the Army Service Corps, makes the seventeenth brother in one family in the Army. Two are in Lord Kitchener's Army, two in the Welsh Fusiliers, and twelve in the King's Shropshire Light Infantry. Fourteen of them are on active service. Sergeant Davies, the father, died in India when serving in the Shropshire Regiment. The mother of the family lives near Church Siretton, Saiop.

A rough ami ready, but fairly aeeur ate, method of converting into inches the millimetres and centimetres with which war despatches are so plentifully peppered when artillery is being mentioned is found in multiplying by four and "pointing off." Thus, in the case of the French 77mm. gun, four times seventv-five are .M 00; point off the ciphers, P..01), and it is found that the Rim is of 3in. calibre. Similarly with the German 12cm. howitzer, four times forty-two are 16*. a gun of 10.Sin. Kilometres may, roughly, be converted into mile- by multiplying by six and poinfing off—3okm. multiplied by six, equals 300, or 150.0 miles.