A NEW INDUSTRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 January 1917, Page 2

A NEW INDUSTRY.

BELGIANS SCOUR. BATTLEFIELDS FOR LIVELIHOOD. Tf war ruins man;,' trades and industiics it also creates new ones. During the German occupation of Brussels the peonle have been able lo get no work. It is said tl\at threequarters of the whole population avc without employment, while at Antwerp things ere in an equally serious state. Thousands of working men, on til.' point of starvation, have been earning Seme sort of livelihood by visiting the battlefields, and skinning such dev.l hf.rses as they may find. Men walk miles on ti™ chance of finding a dead hcrse, and then, after skinning it and carrying the hide back, the nlost that it fetches is only two shillings.

Many more seareli the scenes of combat for spent bullets and unexploded shells. Our German enemies are, as wr know, wasting enormous quantities of ammunition, and foi some weeks pr.st they have been very short of copper.

The modern bullet is, of course, not made of lead alone. It is cased with copper and nickel, and spent bullets are actually worth about eighteen poinds a ton.

The German authorities in most B:J----gian towns are encouraging the natives to bring in as many bullets as possibie. though they are paying for I thorn at much below the market rate. The man who finds an unexploded s'liell has a prize indeed, for it is wortn, even at German rates, nearlv ten shillings. It may be mentioned that its cost, before firing, was three times that sum.

The ground near Antwerp is mostly soft clay, without stones, and an amazing number of shells buried themselves in the earth without evpioding. Anothei prize for' the battlefield searcher is a motor-car tyre. Rubber is already at such a premium in Germany that private are not allowed to buy new tyres for their cars Any tyre, however worn, is paid for by the" German military authorities, for old rubber can always be "rejuvenated" and used again. An American war correspondent relates that, be saw two Belgian urchins fishing in the stagnant floods near Wavre St. Catherine. They were using very heavy tackle, and be' had the curiosity.to ask ihem what they expected to catch.

"Germans,"' renlicd one briefly. Further questioning elicited the fact that the valuable part of a dead German was his brass lint, which would fetch five shillings as a curiosity. There are always human ghouls who hang about in the neighbourhood of campaigning armies, stealing out bv night and robbing the dead and wound(.j—often murdering 1 the latter. These dreadful creatures net short shrift from either side, and have been so sternlv discouraged that they ha\ o almost disappeared from Belgium and North France. The Germans, lioweve., employ a certain number of non-com-batants to thoroughly search battle areas, and bury the dead. These men fret no pay unless tliev bring in the identification tag which each soldier wears, and by means of which his name and regiment can be discovered. At present, too, a number of Belgians arc employed on the "dead" trains. The bodies of the slain around Dixmude have been too numerous to bury. They ave tied in fours, packed in cattle trucks and carried away to be cremated in the blast furnaces in the Walloon country. From an officer's letter it is learnt that some poor French women, whose homes have been destroyed during the fiahting, have, invented a curious way cf earning a livelihood. They carry round in baskets flowering plants and shrubs to be planted on the graves of those who have fallen in action. They are said to have done very well by this device, but the cold weather will, it i? to be feared, put an end to this means of mi) king a living. Along part., of our front timber is conspicuous by its absence. French peasants are doing well !;y carting firewood to this area. They sell not only logs but also bundles of sticks for kindling. One of the strangest, of war—not battlefield, trades is that of the "blood collector." lie works at the slaughterhouses. Blood of cattle is a valuable by-product used both for fertiliser and for vaccine. So much meat is being v.anted for the troops that the blood collector is working overtime.