INTERESTING NEWS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 348, 19 November 1915, Page 3

INTERESTING NEWS.

“SIGH NO MORE, LADIES.”

Hero worship by pretty girls, and girls of more mature growth who can uo longer claim to be pretty has had the effect, writes a London correspondent, of closing a favourite riverside walk against the public. The Embankment from Westminster Bridge, ai'ong the river front of Sr. Thomas’ Hospital, has been baricaded at each end, the object being to prevent women and girls thronging the walk to talk to wounded soldiers.

The hero worship has been going on for a long time and it lias become one of the sights of London to witness a throng of women talking with the soldiers on the terrace of the hospital.

Not content with talking to their heroes these admiring, and no doubt well-intentioned women, have been in the habit of giving the soldiers comforts, some of which have been of a nature not calculated to hasten the soldiers ’ convalescence.

In fact what at first was kindly consideration for the war-worn soldiers has been so much overdone that in the interests of the soldiers themselves it has been deemed prodnt to stop it. This action is regarded by the women as a “crying shame,” and is stigmaI tised as heartless, but it is clearly for the soldiers’ good. WORE FOI- THE WOUNDED. Much attention is being directed in London to beguiling the time which • hangs heavily on the hands of war convalescents, and it is interesting to note that the employment given them usually takes the form of a union of flic useful with the ornamental. Embroidery lias been started in a number of hospitals for soldiers who can use both their hands, and we are told that surprising results have been obtained, many men possessing deft fingers and a fine sense of colour. Nurses instruct them in the mytcries of the various stitches. Other categories of convclcscents are doing Frobel work —modelling simple forms in clay, cutting figures in cardboard, designing ornaments, making artificial flowers, plaiting straw, rushes, etc.- Special attention is being given to the training of the blind soldiers, who arc being taught the Braile system of reading. Significant are the classes formed for instructing owunded officers who are unlikely to return to their regiments, in the mysteries of bookkeeping and other commercial branches. Fbc miluaij authorities arc apparently making winprovision for the employment of the thousands of maimed and crippled officers whose military careers have ceased, and who will be unable to Tvo with comfort on their war pensions. HOW AN ENGLISHMAN DIED. The calm heroism with which Englishmen face death at the front is described by Corporal W. Buckland. of the Meerut Division, Indian Expeditionary Force, in a letter to a friend. He tells how his comrade, by falling over a German trip wire near one of the enemy’s listening posts in Flanders,

| brought a fusillade upon both of then, i the comrade being mortally wounded. “I’m banding in my checks, old man,” said the wounded man, as they regained the British lines, “aud all the doctors in the world can’t save me” After I had made him as comfortable as I could, on an old overcoat, and lit a cigarette for him,” says Corporal Backhand's letter, “he started to talk over the times we had had together in different parts of the world. He did not last long, though. “Just a s the grey dawn was breaking he asked me to lay his rifle by him, and, after I had done so, he pulled me down by his side, and I just managed to hear him say: ‘Bill, I’m on the road now. I can hear someone sounding ‘be challenge. Halt, who comes there?’ With a tremndous effort he staggered up, and, in a terrible voice, shouted, with almost superhuman strength, ‘An Englishman, who did bis duty.” Shall I ever forget that scene! The grey dawn breaking in the east, and ovm a‘l an ineffable peace seemed to re-gu The only sound to be heard was an aeroplane that was just over our lines at -d the drone of its propeller.” GERMAN WAR DOGS. The following information has boon,' taken from an article appearing in the Bulletin of the St. Hubert Club do France, and written by Dr. Humbert, a member of the club, now in charge of the hospital at Bussang:—Ever "since the Germans attached a team of dogs to each Jagor (rifle) battalion, the cmpkn mont of dogs in the German army has steadily increased, thanks to the close co-operation of the military authority with practical dog men. Foremost in this respect is the Herein fur Deutsche Scbaferhund (German Sheepdog Club), founded in ISS9, and now having more than 4,000 members. This society, whose studbooks contain up to now about 45,000 entries, also keeps a special register “in view of mobilisation. ’ W hilc already in the studbooks, the entry of each dog is accompanied by an abbreviated indication whether the she n ’-'dog in question has been trained for police duty, ambulance work, patrol work, or domestic duties, this special war register gives a detaled information on the same points. About 4,000 dogs arc said to be on the register, which is carefully kept up to date. Side by side with the German Sheepdog Club exists the Germmi Club for AmbuVance Dogs, specialising, as its name indicates, in the breeding and training of dogs suitable for retrieving wounded soldiers. The dogs kept by members of the two societies form the reserve of.the canine units of the German army, before mobilisation to hold them in readiness for requisition by the army. While the Jagor battalions specialise in the employment of dogs for patrol and sentry duty, they are employed by other regiments as well, up to tea dogs being attached to each battalion. The ambulance detachments. which form part of each. German regiment, have generally four ambulance dogs that are taken out a* the same time as the stretcher bearers. The breeds chiefly employed arc the 1 si-calihed German sheepdog —they actually com from Alsace and Switzerland

—the Doberman Pinscher, the Airedale terrier, and more rarely the Rottweiler, a kind of cattle dog. and the boxer, Tchich has a long strain of bulldog in him.