WAR NOTES

Taihape Daily Times, 15 October 1917, Page 2

WAR NOTES

ARMY WAITRESSES. The Women's Army Auxiliary Corps is a thing in being, but more women are wanted. At the present time in 200 camps over 6000 cooks and waitresses are now busy in officers' sergeants' and cadets' messes, and some 7700 women are employed at four ureas in the war zone # All women joining are required to sign a form of enrolment for a year or the duration of the war, and the minimum age for service at home is 18 years and for service overseas 20 years. Very" appropriately the rose and the fleur-de-lys have been chosen as the emblem of the corps. A ROVING INCIDENT. The correspondent of the Matin on the B'ritish front relates a touching incident which he witnessed when a British general was inspecting his men just out of the trenches. The troops, scaked with rain ? plastered with mud, many of them half dead with fatigue and hunger, presented a sad spectacle. "You have fought like the gods. England thanks you through me," said the general. The men replied to the brief speech with long hurrahs, and one strident voice was heard to shout out: "We are quite ready to go back to the line at once, sir, if necessary." The general wa s intensely moved, and as he turned his head, says the correspondent, a tear trembled on his cheek. WOMEN BAT-CATCHERS.' Women at a training centre in Norfolk are now experts in catching vermin, such as rabbit:-:, rats, and moles, and according to a West Suffolk farmer : there will be a great demand for tkejir services on the farms. THE ABSENT-MINDED FOREMAN. At a Midland police court Herbert Hodson, head foreman over 500 employees at a T.N.T. factory, was fined £2O. He walked through an explosive room with a lighted cigarette in his mouth. He pleaded that ho was ab-sent-hinded.. BARE-FOOTED PATRIOTISM A despatch from Constance to the Neue Zureher Zcitung states that the whole population of that town has been requested to go barefooted, "as it is the patriotic duty of every German to do so. HORSE-THIEVING RAMPANT. Horse-stealing is increasing at an farming rate in Vienna owing to the high prices the thieves realise for the sale of animals, generally for slaughtering. At a recent market carriage, horses fetched £IOO to £175, heavy cart horses £l4O to £225, and horses for slaughter £lO to £45 a-pieco "BETTER TO BE DEAD." A Russian naval surgeon named Alexine Paris, who has' just been released from captivity in Turkey, declares that the Turkish treatment of prisoners is horrible. He frequently saw prisoners tortured with the bastinado until the victims fainted. "It is better to be dead." he declared, "than to be taken prisoner by the Turks''