WAR JOTTINGS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 156, 6 March 1915, Page 3

WAR JOTTINGS.

T1),3 clays when the Jews had their own Fatherland are recalled by the special recruiting poster issued in connection with the formation of the Special Jewish Battalion. It bears on it the shield of David.

The Germans have left a bitterness and actual hatred in Belgium which nothing can ever wipe out. You see that lately they have been asking even for the domestic implements in houses the hatchets and hammers, and screwdrivers, and even for the pokers. What they fear is a riot when they rereat.

Napoleon’s Old Guard considered twenty-five cartridges a reasonable equipment for a whole campaign. In 1870-71 th.e Gorman average consumption was sixty-five per man for the entire war. Many German soldiers fired 4,000 cartridges apiece in the first month of th,e war.

The Russian troops in East Pruusia have found many civilians provided with g.unsticks, outwardly resembling ordinary walking sticks. Hitherto it has been some-what of a mystery- how the Russians masching through 1 illages hays frequently been shot in the back without the culprits being discovered.

The German soldiers of the Landstunii (many of them grandfathers) have reason to b ( ? jealous of their French opponents. According to official news in the French papers, the classes of the French militia of 1887 and 1888 have been sent home, corporals and non-commissioned officers included.

The war and the new conditions arising out 'of it are not only robbing the typical Briton of his insularity; they eve even transforming the habits of the birds. Seagulls are flocking in enormous numbers hundreds of miles inland, attracted by the numerous training camps and the good living to bo picked up there.

There is no niggardness in France in the matter of recognising the bravedoings of men and regiments at the front. Every day the newspapers throughout the country are filled with stirring records, in which names and rank are mentioned in full, and tlic- effect has been to stir up an immense amount of popular enthusiasm.

Disciplinary measures are freely employed in the British Army. A supplement to the “London Gazette” recently contained the following announcement: “The Essex Regiment 11th Battalion Temporary Second Lieutenant Algernon H. Jackson is removed from the Army, the King having no further occasion for his services.”

Merit tells quickly in tlie New Army. Cecil Tremayne joined the 14th Royal Fusiliers at Dover as a private eight weeks ago. He is now company quarter-master-sergeant.

With the 543 men who joined during December, there arc now 9,358 Great Western railwayman serving with the colours, nearly half of them are from the locomotive departments.

Having missed the first Canadian contingent, Mr J. Peters, a bank clerk, of Prince Rupert, Canada, travelled over 7,000 miles to go to England at his own expense to enlist in the Canadian regiment.

It may be estimated safely that 400,000 trade unionists are in the trenches in France and Flanders or training with the new Army or the Territorials at home, and never a word has been said about "trade union rates of wages. ’ ’

In Berlin the average price of wheat per imperial quarter was 4S/2 in August, 51/3 in September, and 54/9 in October. The average price of British wheat in London was 36/(5 in August, 39/2 in September, and 38/10 in October.

A German subject has just been sentenced to imprisonment and loss of civil rights for a period of ten years on a charge of betraying his country. According to the "Vorwarts," ho assisted the Russians in the matter of provisioning. The sum of £11,000,000 voted for mobilisation expenses in the Second Chamber in Holland is nearly Spent, and will not be sufficient in any case if demobilisation is not ordered before April 1. Tlie burden is a heavy one for a nation of fewer than six million people.