Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1917-6-28, Page 2TIE RED TRIANGLE IN THE WAR ZONE i1LtNS IIOT COFFEE AS WELL AS BIBLES, Y.M.C,A,'s Work of Looking After Material Comfort and Spiritual Welfare of Soldiers. Very likely you don't know what I mean by the Red ,Triangle. There is not a British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, South African, French or Belgian soldier who is not familiar with it. And all these forces see it constantly, says a London writer. It does not mean cant, hypocrisy, or ceremony; . it does mean helpfulness, cleanliness of mind at all times and of body when that may be, comfort for the soul at any rate, good fellowship, good sense. That doesn't sound mueh like the usual list of things connected with the work of missionaries. But it is a very partial and imperfect list of what the Red Triangle means in the trenches of this war, in the quieter lands behind the firing line, and in every city of the allied fighting nations where soldiers colonies has developed the effort to a THE FAR LOOK. high degree and great things are be- ing accomplished in the dependencies From 'India men have come to woi' not only among the native troops in England and France but have gon for similar work to Mesopotamia an East Africa, We have branches i the Holy Land and in Egypt. Four hundred and twenty-eigh to gave Eyestrain in Mind k and Soul as Well as in Body. The oculist leaned back in his obeli d and surveyed tifulview lt oanywhere y nI "Is there a bea I near your house?" he asked. ht For a moment Mrs. Parsons frank- Y.M.C.A. branches have been esttb fished in France and; Flanders for work with the troops, some of them being housed in cellars and ruinec houses, some of them even nearer to the firing line being operated in dug- out actually under shell fire, They never fail to follow an ad- vance without delay. The day after Bapaume was occupied a Y.M,C,A, man appeared among the troops there, accompanied by a mule laden with cakes and cigarettes. A Y,M,C.A, is in full operation in Bagdad, and others are doing fine work at Salonica, Mal- ta and elsewhere. The Purely Religious Work. We have given away tens of thou- sands of Testaments, for which men ask eagerly; many hundreds of thou- sands of carefully prepared leaflets, which have started many men to care- ful'and constructive thinking, and an unrecorded but immense number of sermons have been preached to the soldiers at the front and elsewhere by of the British Empire congregate. The our workers. Among these are some Red Triangle is the sign which .says: of the most celebrated evangelists' "Here is to be found a representative the country. Thousands of clergymen of the Young Men's Christian Asso- go into our huts to perform the rou- ciation." tine work of helpers, serving coffee, The organization has been one of for example, sweeping floors, preach - the really great influences of the war ing the faith by service as well as by zone. It has done more to keep the word of mouth. soldiers clean and healthy than have .Arrange Meetings of Friends. the sanitary regulations; it has done Not the least important work done more to keep them happy than any by the Y.M.C.A. is that which it other thing. has undertaken of escorting and car - Beneficently it even has reached ing for the friends of desperately across the Channel, out of the fight wounded men who go to the front hos- ing area into the homeland, to help wives and sweethearts, mothers, fa- Pitals to see their dear ones, some- thers and other anticus relatives of times to find them dying or even dead. loved and perilled ones, for it has been When an official notice is sent to a the influence which has kept the men family that one or more of its mem- full of the thoueht of home not only bers are to be permitted to visit the furnishing them with pens and pencils, front for such a melancholy purpose paper pads and envelopes, which they fieri Y.M.C,A. is simultaneously noti- scarcely can carry with them in this intense warfare, but inducing them to When the relatives arrive in France write home to the "folks in Blighty." the organization at once takes care of In this war it has been a sweetening them and usually sees to it that they and wholesome influence of the sort are comfortable on the trip across the that no war ever knew before. It has Channel It may be that rve may been truly wonderful, have to motor them for as much as a The Red Triangle Huts. hundred miles from the coast port to the place where their dear one is ly- Go to the front where the land has ing, and we regard them as our been ploughed up by shellfire and guests, supplying them even with just back of the danger zone, often lodgings at our hostels during the indeed within reach of the enemy whole of their stay in France. shells, you'll find the Red Triangle I think it safe to say that there huts. More than a dozen have been never is a time when less than 250 so near that they have been destroyed friends of wounded men are staying by enemy artillery. Go to the ports at our hostels in France. of embarkation and of debarkation and you'll find Red Triangle huts. They do marvel work there. Go to BEST -FED ARMY IN THE WORLD. the cities where the lonely soldiers _• fly stared, The various tests through !which the specialist had just put her eyes had not prepared her for any such commonplace question as that. i Then, with a smile, she recovered herself.. Even doctors might like to chat a little. "Why, yes," she an- swered, "there's a very pretty view !across to the distant hills from one of my upstairs windows, Some of our suburbs are lovely, aren't they?" "How often do you look at it?" ask- ed the the doctor. I "Why, every day or two, I suppose. MERCHANTS BANK NOW A HUNDRED MILLION DOLLAR INSTITUTION. Assets Increased by nearly $25,000,000 in the Past Year, while Current Loans, and Discounts In- creased by $13,902,393. The 84th Annual Statement of the Merchants Bank of Canada, just pre- sented to the Shareholders, shows most gratifying progress during the year ending April 30th last. Not only have Deposits and Assets grown very substantially, but current Loans IYou see it best from the guest room, and Discounts, the measure of the so perhaps—" Bank's participation in the commercial "And for how long a time, should development of the Dominion, have you say?" creased over 28%, reaching a tots of Something in his tone told her there j was a real purpose in his questions. $62,737,958. This indicates something of tree revival of business which'has, Mrs. Parsons paused a moment to think before she answered. been so marked throughout Canada. "Why, perhaps a minute," she said, The increase in assets for the year t and then she added with a little em- barrassment, "sometimes more, but amounted to $24,766,195, or over 25% not often," bringing the total assets up to $121,- "And 121;"And yet it's a beautiful view?" .130 668 and enrolling the Merchants Bank among Canada's Hundred Mil - The doctor's tone was quizzical. "Yes, it is," she said, "but I'm a busy woman, doctor, and I have to iso most of my looking at little dresses and stockings—when it's not family letters or some kind of necessary read- ing. A house -mother has to use her eyes mostly on things that are close at hand." "And that its just what tires them," said the doctor, rising. "It is the far look that rests the eyes, Mrs. Parsons. If you wish to cure those eyes of yours make it an ironclad rule to gaze at your beautiful view for at least twenty minutes a day—preferably thirty. If you keep that rule, you won't need to come to me again in a long time—if ever." Mrs. Parsons herself told the story months later to one of her friends, and in answer to a question she said delightedly, "Yes, I followed his ad- vice, and he was right; all that my tired eyes needed was the rest of that 'farlook,' But I wonder," she added thought- fully, "if that wise doctor knew for how much more than my eyes he was prescribing. My soul needed rest quite as much as my body, and the re- creation that I gained was miraculous, The twenty minutes soon grew into half an hour, and more. It became the most important part of the day to me. "Instinctively as I gazed out over that beautiful prospect my me-'tal eyes began to take the 'far look,' too. The little things close at hand didn't seem so overwhelmingly important as they had before I could see further into the future and higher in the scale of values; my mental eyesight grew lion Dollar Institutions. This is all the more creditable since it has been accomplished without amalgamation with or absorption of any ether bank. Notable among the assets are over Ten Million Dollars in Dominion and Imperial war obligations, indicating that the Bank is doing its share to- ward carrying the financial burdens of Preventing Radiator Rust. Motorists pay too little attention to their cooling systems nowadays, with the result that the motor becomes short lived, The Water cooling sys- tem of a ear was designed and insal- led to give the maximum power of which it is capable and to use the minimum amount of gasoline and oil at a certain temperature, The rust and corrosion which ac- cumulates on the walls of the water jackets and iri the radiator forms an insulation which keeps the heat in the engine. It prevents also the cooled surface of the radiator from coming in contact with the water, thereby causing the engine to overheat. This condition means that mote oil is used, mileage is reduced and bearings be- gin to show wear. This wear in the form of fine dust is taken up by the oil, and instead of lubricating to its full extent it tends to hasten the wear. The final result is that the motor has a breakdown, and despite an entire overhauling if the rust and cor- rosion is not cleaned out the evil still exists and the same process of trouble will be repeated. A number of chemists have sought a remedy for the prevention of rust forming in radiators and they have finally succeeded in their efforts and have brought out Non-Coroso after exhaustive tests. The preparation is I in the form of small soluble tablets to be dropped into the radiator after the nation. The assets do not in -1 Idraining and refilling with clean wa- ter, Theaction of the compound is the same winter and it n terand summer sumo is not affected by anti -freezing solu- tions. It is a rust preventive, not rust remover, and it will not injure. metal or rubber fabrics. Helpful Hints, Too much grease in the transmis sion gearshs likely to make the gears i almost as noisy as too little. It s poor practice to fill transmission cases to the brim hi an attempt to silence the noisy growl from the gears. The better way is to fill the case about half way up the gears—unless the manufacturer recommends some other limit. In electric motors or generators in which graphite brushes are employed particular care should be taken to keep the accumulation of brush -dust away, for, as graphite is a good conductor of electrictiy, it is possible for a ground or a short-circuit to form with the; aid of the dust and perhaps a little moist oil. Removing insulation from electrical conductors made up of fine strands of wire is very easily done if the insula- tion is set on fire and' allowed to burn off to the desired point. The wires will not be injured, and if there is any tendency toward brittleness the heat- ing will remove it and leave the metal soft and pliable. elude any mortgages, while real estate INVENTIVE ART other than Bank premises, and over- due debts, amount to only $443,236, or less than 2-5 of one per cent. of the total assets. Th fid e con ence of the public in the Merchants Bank of Canada was strik- ingly shown by the 27% increase in deposits, which have now reached a total of 192,102,071. Such :.-.increase is also an evidence of a healthy state of business, and of a general practice of thrift. This marked increase in the funds and the gradual clearing of the fin- ancial horizon, put the Bank in posi- tion to extend its loaning and discount- ing business by many millions, auto- matically placing the earning power of the Bank upon a much improved plane. The profits for the year car- ried forward consequently showed an increase from $250,984 to $421,292, after providing for the usual divi- dends, the Government War Tax on note circulation, donations to Patriotic and Red Cross Funds, contributions to Officers' Pension Fund, and writing off 'go on leave and the Red Triangle will British Soldiers Receive Well -Balanced stronger and clearer along with my $100,000 from Bank Premises account. meet your eye at intervals along the Ration: Duringthe year the General busystreets; and at every railway Physical. It's possible, I am sure, to guides will be found ready to While food prices for civilians con - soul eyestrain in the mind and in the Manager, Mr. E. F. Hebden, was ad- stationeee to it that the wandering soldier time to soar, Britain still has the soul as well as in the boily. And the vanced to the position of Managing practice is far too valuable ever to let Director, learns the way to friends. Very likely best -fed army in the world. Here is c' le the Montreal Manager, they'll be new friends, but they will be the standard daily ration for each go. Even in the city, where I have no Mr, D. C. YIacarow, was appointed friends. man at the front; it is based on the hills and mountains, I can look up into General Manager. In speaking of the The Y.M.C.A. has been the guide, most careful scientific research, and•the sky and imagine more miles than annual statement, the latter referred the counsellor and friend of men on has recently been declared by the ex -I can count. If there is anything bet- with pardonable pride, to the fact that leave and men on leave need guidance pens of a neutral power to he the; ter than a starry night for cultivat- of 874 male members of the staff of and kind counsel more than most peo-' best balanced as well ` as the most ing a `far look'—in every sense of the military age at the beginning of the in word—I have yet to discover it. And pie realize. At many of the big ter- liberal ration issued to any army war, 520, or 59%, had enlisted and minals there are sleeping huts. In'the field: gone overseas. London there are a score in which men 1 lb. fresh meat and three-quarters can find beds. They can accommodate ' lb. (nominal) preserved meat; 1','s thousands of men in London every lb. bread or 1 lb. biscuit; 4 oz. bacon; night. The huts are never closed. A 3 oz. cheese; '/a lb. fresh vegetables There is no prison of the mind bath or a meal can be had at any hour or 2 oz, dried vegetables; S/s oz. tea; Death's sting isdrawn when we can of day or night. t 3 oz, jam; 'A oz, salt; 1-50 oz, mus - The initial difficulty in our work was , tard; 1-36 oz. pepper; 1 oz. pickles, , s` `V oh, how it 'trues' your sense of values!" A LIFTING HOPE. that from 90 to 95 per cent. of the ' three times a week; 1-12 tin condensed friers and dreams alone can bind young men on whom -we ordinarily milk; 1-320 gal. lime juice (on the re- To -morrow's hope with yesterday. would have relied for the supply . of commendation of the medical officer) workers were not only eligible but 2 oz. tobacco or cigarettes a week; 2 The violet lifting lovely head, eager for military service. We were boxes matches; 1-64 gal. rum (on the The red, red rose blushing fair, left with only the lame, the halt and recommendation of the medical of- Grow best in cities of the dead the blind, so to speak, and those be- ficer). yond the military age, In this regard In addition to above, men in the we were fortunate in having the trenches get certain extras, as, for active sympathy both of Queen Mary instance, pea soup, Oxo, butter, cho- and Queen Alexandra, as well as that: colate, cocoa, and milk. of several others of the royal blood. The president of the Women's Side And from the grave of man's de- spair. There is no prison of the mind, There's no death when the sting is drawn; Prisoner or prince, dream on and find Your dankest hour before the dawn. is Princess Victoria of Schleswig-; Nell—Jack, dear, did you call on Holstein. At the present minute not papa to -day? Jack—Sure, I did, but —Henry Leverage. less than 28,000 women are enrolled he didn't appear to enthuse very much To cleanse bottles that have held oh under her. Most of them are volun-i over my visit. Nell—What did. he place ashes in each bottle, cover with teers and their work is beyond all say? Jack --Why, when I asked him cold water and heat gradually, Let praise. for permission to press my suit, he the water boil for about one hour, Branches in Various Lands. simply answered, "Why don't you then allow it to to ! .r„ stand until cold, Wash Each of the self-governing British send it to a tailor . the bottle in soapy water, then rinse. A Useful Family Tree. Last summer a young London clerk, who held rather fanciful views as to his origin, spent his holidays at a Wiltshire farmhouse, the principal at- traction being the golf links near by. He greatly annoyed the other board- ers by his constant references to what he called his "pedigree" and "family tree." At last the farmer could stand it no longer. "Young man," he said, "I must say you've done a heap o' talking about yen family tree. Anybody would think you owned a whole timber yard, Come out into the lane a minute." The youth accompanied him. Pausing by a weeping willow, the farmer said: ' "I want you to take particular no- tice of this." "What for?" "That's our family tree. That's what has heightened our Ideals and stimulated our energies. That has furnished switches for five genera- tions of ns." OF WOMEN WOMEN MECHANICS NO LONGER AN ANOMALY. Many and V'arie'd are the Inventions Which Owe Their Origin to Feminine Ingenuity. A woman mechanic is no longer an anomaly. Furthermore, she is no less a woman because she is a mech- anic, and, conversely, she is no less a mechanic because she is a woman, says an American writer. This is being proved every day by the great number of women who have had to fill the places of men in the factories and shops and who have had to assume the duties of the men upon the farms. The farm requires more understanding of mechanics than it might at first appear—what with all the farm machinery to be properly cared for and to be kept in repair. The reason women were so long barred from the field of mechanics is due to the nincompoopish idea -held for so many centuries that women. were totally devoid of a mechanical sense. When sifted down to its full meaning, the absence of a mechan- ical sense inferred that they had no predilection for tinkering, little desire to see wheels go round and no desi>ie to make them go. Yet Many Succeed. Yet women mechanics there are and many of them. They can take down machines and build them up again. They can construct airplanes and en- gines and submarines, Their work in the munition factories is becoming indispensable. The beginners at first are slow and rather awkward be- cause they do not know mechanics and because their hands are not ac- customed to manipulating tools, but after they have onee got hold of the hang of things they improve with surprising leaps and bounds and in an amazingly short time become very efficient and very resourceful If women- have the opportunities for advancing their mechanical ability, there will not be such a preponder- ance of malemechanics among us hu- man beings in the centuries to come. Even as it has been, the number of patents for mechanical inventions of primary importance which have been granted to women are many. CHAMPION ANIMAL "FIGHTERS" WHAT CREATURE 1S REALLY THE ICING OF BEASTS? AR Things Considered, the Rhinoceros' Probably Deserves the Title of Monarch. It is a big mistake to suppose that the meat -eating creatures are the champion scrappers, outside of man and his weapons. The lion has been called the king of beasts largely be- cause of his noble bearing, and also for the reason that most animals are afraid of him; but 1i, really has done nothing final as against other fighting quadrupeds to prove his place. In his own territory there are a number of creatures that, singly, can do up the biggest and most savage Fells leo that ever trod the African or western Asiatic deserts. - There is the tiger. A few of these big -striped eats wander into the deserts of Afghanistan and Persia, and now and then they have got into fights with lions, the tigers, probably taking the tawny coats of the king for some:kind of deer, stalking and spring- ing on it; or perhaps the kill of one has been coveted by the other. But in each case where the two have been known to come together, the remains of the mutilated and partly eaten tiger have been found. Not because the lion was the more powerful of the two, but simply for the reason that tigers hunt singly and lions nearly always in company; but you can bet — anything,from a cent with a hole in it Some Women Inventors. The cotton gin, one of the most epoch-making inventions in the United States, was made by Cather- ine. Littlefield Greene of Georgia. She conceived its complete idea, gave it to Eli Whitney to construct and in ten days a model resulted so perfect that all succeeding gins. have been based upon it. The mower and reaper owes its first perfection to Anne Harriet Manning. She perfected a system for the com- bination of teeth and cutters and had it patented by her husband. Later she invented a machine for cleaning clover. After her husband's death she made other inventions in farm machinery, but they were stolen and patented by men. Straw weav- ing industry owes its origin to Betsy Metcalf, when in 1798 she invented her wonderful weaving machine. Greatest of the Age. Among recent mechanical inven- tions of importance which are .-wo- men's work are a volcanic furnace for melting ore, an improved wood -saw- ing machine, a gimlet pointed screw, a wool feeder and weigher, which is one of the most delicate machines ever invented; an improvement in spark arresters to be applied to lo- comotives, a rapid change box, which is a marvel of simplicity and con- venience, used in restaurants and railway stations and invented by a girl 16 years old; a syllable type with adjustable cases and apparatus, signal rockets used in the navy, deep sea telescope, method of deadening sound of elevated railroads, smoke consumer, bag folding machine, a submarine and many more and in- numerable smaller inventions for the dress and household. The bag machine is by far the most original and unique invention. This machine, for its complicated Mechan- ism and extraordinary ingenuity, has brought special mention to the in- ventor, Maggie Knight, from the com- missioner of patents. Mrs, Mary Walton, who invented the noise deadener for elevated rail- roads, made good on something on which the master inventor, Edison, had been working for six months. Mrs. Walton's smoke consumer is, however, the thing about which she' can be most proud. This burns all smoke from coal fires, furnace and locomotives, consumes the dust caused by railroad trains and takes out the offensive odors from fac- tories and gasworks. British of- ficials have said that they consider this invention the greatest of the age. 'Mim, ea calm am ®I' itail.q3 la "mitres. The filling of roast fowl will be rich- er if moistened with white stock, /• -4 GUESS I'i.l-TURoW THESE OLD SAFETY RAZOR BLADES IF 1 THROW ENI IN -Ma `BARD SOME KID M1614T 1 HADN'T -13E1 -MR THRoW PM 11,1 -1'lle WpsTe BASlkET NOPE- i GOess I HADN'T BETTER PDT THRM IN THERE,SOME gNIMAI i)= I THROW 'f 4 IN '!4e EAVt1TlioU�H THEY MIGHT SToP UP THE. PIPs �a J d BETTeIz PUT 'EI1 BAtS IG� s (hs , r - ,wAy GET THEM 30/IELy u -, Trill=hi5a LVES MIGHT6E1' �;I v ss lr't a,�s� ,3? ' PB r" , • � i+ � i �t @� �l 'i a a, r c � `� a ,fie mt l - I t., ,`4,1• .:�,' v ' , .111•111•1111•11=0.11, OW - l / Far r'h1�y ��� lir' ? %Li�� '' GARBi1G8lY 111, I a ��.vi k:S .mak r,P7:7- . • µ -• - J� ' y'1 to a million dollars that every member of the lion troop that tackled that tiger, or that the iger tackled, had some gashes on it more than skin deep. The Terrible Tiger. As we heard an old circus man once say, "If a streak of lightning tried to get busy with a tiger, it was a pretty sure thing that the electricity would get clawed up some." A Shah of Persia once tried this thing between a lion and a tiger, selecting the very best that he could get of each, and the tiger won every trine, the big cats, however, not killing each other, but fighting to a finish all the same, leo being glad to quit first. Unless the odds are very great, this sort of 'thing generally happens; few creatures will fight until one is dead, for punishment of -the kind that such fighters can give each other,r's not to be relished even by killers, they hav- ing feelings as well as the more gentle creatures. ' But, despite the savagery of the big cats, there are better fighters still. A Spanish bull has been known to go up ' against a lion, and, though getting badly gashed, disable and kill the so- called king of. beasts. A pasang billy goat also, matched with a tiger by the above mentioned Shah, butted the striped bloodletter not only to a standstill, but nearly killed him. Then when the bull and the goat were matched, the goat had it all his own way by completely oddging the bull and butting the other's ribs until the bull eagerly bellowed quits. The Pasang of Persia. Therefore, within their class,'the big Persian pasang is really the king of beasts. No doubt, however•, if this redoubtable creature were to go up agaihst a 'Wink beau, or a grizzly, there would be another story. Entirely out of the class of big cats, goats and even of bulls are two of the most massive of all existing animals, the 'elephant and the rhinoceros, The latter fears no creature that exists, and its lack of intelligence is such that it cannot comprehend man's superior- ity with deadly weapons. Elephants greatly fear man, readily recognizing even the ability of the natives to do them harm; but they commonly stand against all other beasts, having been seen to chase lions out of the forest. But when the nose -horned, hide -plated rhinoceros goes up against the tucker, the latter shows consternation, re- cognizing that the almost bulky and marc formidably armed rhino cannot be much harmed, but can do a lot of damage in a determined charge. Probably, all things, considered, the rhinoceros is, therefore, the true .Ming of beasts, if fighting alone is to be con- sidered, though a rattlesnake or cobra, or even a swarm of bees, si�ilght matte a rhino pretty sick and take all the fight out of him for a time. Often Read The Naim. An English school teacher one day took France as the subject of the geo- graphy lesson. - "In this terrible war," she said, "wino is our firinc!pal ally?" "France," mune the chorus Right" said the toucher. "And now can any one of you give me the name of a town in France?" "Somewhere," promptly.shouted one small boy, —4— Mother's Worries. "A mother has worries that a man knows nothing about." "How tow?" "I have just ]earned that my wife has, been watclthig our boy for years, to see that he carries his school hooka under rials right arm on Mondays, Wed- nesdays anti Fridays, anti Under his left arm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. 1f he did not clo this, ire might get our. vat re of the spino." • a