LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 7, 9 January 1915, Page 6

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

On the arrival of the troopships at Colombo tlie members of the >cw Zealand Expeditionary Force\ P°- st - cd 45,000 letters to their friends.,

A farmer in the Kapuni district who grows turnips, on ia large scale and uses certain chemical compounds only “made in Germany,” appears (state’s the Manaia (Witness) to havO put on his considering cap Immediately ■ after vihe outbreak of the war, and foreseeing the fact that prompt action was necessary in order to forestall the. jump in ,prices that must follow the closing df Gentian ports. He accordingly ordered at once a, two year’s supply of the stuff and thus avoided paying an increase of £7 a ton which it has now risen.

The London correspondent of the Sydney Daily Telegraph tells a good story of scouting—a story .he heard from the lips of a returned Lancerone of the .9th Lancers—who-swore it was true. Ho was out scouting hefore .the British advance in the Champagne country] and- got lost,; He had not the slightest idea of his \way back to camp, and decided to • bide in a, neighbouring wood till something hop* pened. He had not been long in the wood when-he ran across a trooper of the Scots Greys, similarly 10. They elected to hide together, for the Germans \wero all around them. Soon a party of German infantry was seen to be approaching their wood; they decided that - the (Lancer should go forward and try to .bluff them into surrender, Avhile the Scots Greys man covered him' with the riflo fire. The Germans—thirty there wer;e—surrendered at once, saying they were dying of hunger. The Lancer collected their rifles, threw them all down a -neighbouring well, ottd then the two cavalrymen marched the prisoners oft. After a short while a German sergeant among them, who spoke English, said to the Lancer: “Look here, do you know where'you are?” “Yes,” was the short answer. “Oh, all right,” returned the German. “You’re steering straight for our lines. If you let me load this party, I will take you to the Scots Greys’ camp.” In t he quandary the two caval ymen conseuted, aiid the German was as good as his word. The two Englishmen were loudly cheered by their comrades on their arrival with such a batch, of prisoners—all captured by two men. During that night one of the Germans escaped from custody, and there was great anxiety next morning; hut it all came right that evening—the Gorman relumed, ibringing nine more hungry Prussians with him!