WAR JOTTINGS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 179, 3 April 1915, Page 3

WAR JOTTINGS.

CROCODILE TEARS. German "teardrops" are falling’ fast on many of the East Coast towns of England. A few of them, weighing 601 b, fell at King’s Lynn. bat. happily, as the papers say, the Royal Family had just left the house when, the Ze-pp "teardrop" splashed its whirlwind of shrapnel in all directions. No one can complain of the lack or excitement these times. It seems likely that the roaring <. f Zeppelin engines over our towns is going to seriously interfere with the spring bargain sales. One does not care to think about hats while the air-Hun* ..re dropping sausageshaped shells from the security cf the clouds. CALMNESS IN DANGER. If we Britishers have a pose, it is that "we are calm in the face of those futile airship raids." A certain newspaper, whose office was almost wrecked by a bomb, went to press at once, just to show how calm it was. Its loading article declared, in the calmec possble language, that a fiendish explosion had occurred in the town, and had "blown oft' the roofs of a number of Lie principal bull-dogs and places of interest." There is no doubt whatever about the calmness of the editor and coraps who allow the roofs of thenprincipal bull-dogs to get blown off. It takese a very excited journal, nowadays, to beat this in the way of news.

WAR ABOUT TO BEGIN. „ Someone asked Kitchener recently how long the war would last. Said K. of K.: “I can't tell how long a war will last until it really begins. This war will, begin about April next.” One has to be on the spot to appreciate the above remark. Every town and hamlet in Great Britain is straining nerve and sinew to do a bit for Kitchener’s men. Naval depots, arsenals, and ammunition factories are working day and night to deliver the goods. Also we are providing the French armies with footwear, clothes and ammunition. At the outbreak of the war France found herself short of 800,000 pairs of boots, twice as many rifles, and about 4,000,000 'rounds of cartridges. The Times military correspondent estimates Cjer man " losses up to January IS at i 0,000,000 a year rate, seeing that for each month of the war 000.000 casualties have been recorded. If the past rale of losses is continued, it moan: the loss of seven men per minute, night and day! SHELL-FIRE FRIGHT The nerves of the soldiers in the trenches show signs of wear and tea.-. Each day the ambulance corps are called upon to deal with batches of insane Tommies. It is a terrible sight to watch these poor fellows being strapped inside the ambulance lorries, shouting, screaming, and lighting the doctors w : th their teeth and hands. French, German, and 'Belgian soldiers are equally suspectiblo to tin; ghastly effects of incessant shell fire. This shell fright develops quite suddenly during a bombardment. ' A d zen men are sometimes called upon to seize and prevent a fear-maddened Tommy from tearing across the tiring-lino into the enemy’s trenches. Ten years ago the Kaiser said that nerves vere going to win the next great war. Well, rite German medical staff are struggling to deal with the hordes of their own mad soldiers stampeding across the sky-line.

THE LITTLE GRASSHOPPER. According to our governess, John ' Burns told the Kaiser that the Grnir army was not what it used to be in the great days. It was at manoeuvres and the Kaiser pretended to think nothing of it. But it was a thing lie con'd nev- . or forgive—it was a stab at his pride. ■ He said, “Damn that little grasshopper!” In July last John Burns was a ! member of tiie Cabinet. II e resigned rather than be a party to a war wire j Germany. It may not comfort him to : know that the Kaiser regarded him as \ a green insect that hops in and out of cow food. Souvenir hunters have paid as much as £6 for pieces of the German shells which fell recently on the Yorkshire coast. /