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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1917-7-19, Page 6"C{OIN' 'OME," AN EPIC OF THE TRENCHES • By Patrick MaeGUI, I want to go 'ome, I want to go 'ome, I don't want to go to the trenches 110 more, Where the bullets and shrapnel do whistle and roar. I want to go over the sea, Where the Allemong can't get at me, I want to go . I want to go I want to go 'ome, Spudhole finished his song, adjust- ed his equipment braces, lit a cigar- ette and leaned his elbow on the only out 'ere for three months, and others-- " He walked away and disappeared round the traverse. "I'm sorry ter ole Tom," said Spud - hole when the man left, "And a kid too. It's 'ell, that's wot it la. " Ile lit a cigarette and puffed it viciously. Ills brows contracted until his eyes became mere pin pointe and he stared fixedly at me..At last he spoke. "Why shouludn't I?" he said. It doesn't matter. Wot's the time?" he asked. "Ten to one." "I must see the orficer now about goin' away," said Spudhole, and he left me. Fifteen minutes later he came back, swearing violently. "Wot d'ye fink o' it?" he yelled. sued, "The 'eads, blame 'em! 'ave cancelled For that was the strange thing — my bloomin' pass. Won't allow me ter the tide on the road flowed in two di -1 parapet and looked at me. go 'cos my sheet is so bad. One rectione. "Sixteen months," he said, empha- doesn't get no chance 'ere. I'm sick Some fled away from ruined homes sizing each word, "Sixteen ole bloom - of the blamed doin's, sick, bloomin' to escape the perils of war. Some j in' months, and this the first leave. I well sick!" fled back to ruined homes to escape never thought I wanted a trip to "Who is going instead of you, Spud- the desolation of exile. But all were' Blighty as much as I do now. Six -1 hole?" I asked. fugitives, anxious to be gone, striving teen months!" he repeated. "Sixteen "Ole Tom, 'cos 'is kid's so queer," along the road one way or the other,' 'ole months!" "You aren't nicknamed Spudhole for nothing," I remarked. "I haven't got a clean sheet, I'll say that," he answered, "It's as dirty as if it was on the bed of a chimney - sweep. S'pose I couldn't expect leave wiv a reputation like mine. It's not in keepin' wiv regulations, But all the same I do want to go 'ome. Just for I his side. A peasant with his two girls a visit." driving their lean, dejected cows back He sat down on the firestep, lean- ht to some unknown pasture. A. bony ed his back against a sandbag and at horse tugging at a waggon heaped) folded his arms. high with bedding and household "Seven days leave!" he muttered. ole gear, on top of which sat the wrink- "And off to -night. Blimey 'twon't 'arfhowever, j led grandmother with the tiniest baby be some doin's. Wot'll I do when I the in her arms, while the rest of the get to the old Snoke? Nuffink much, rd family stumbled alongside—and the I s'pose, for wot wiv one thing and Journey eat was curled up on the softest cov- annover I'll not be able to do nuifink, amount crier in the wagon. Two panting Then there's my bird as 'as a barren dogs, with red tongues hanging out off Walworth Road and then—, But and splayed feet clawing the road, wot's the good o' talkin'? Wote the tugging a heavy laden cart while the time?" master pushed behind and the woman "Twelve o'clock," I said, looking atInstances pulled at the shaft. Strange, antique my watch. vehicles crammed with passengers. "1 leave 'ere at 2," said Spudhole. ill Couples and groups and sometimes "Then to the rail 'ead and then larger companies of foot travellers. Blighty. 'Ere, isn't it funny that this as Now and then a solitary man or wo- 'ere leave is my first for sixteen man, old and shabby, bundle on back, months?" he asked. "Other blokes fan oyes on the road, plodding through the the mud and the mist, under the high "Oh, but your sheet!" I said. ial of archway of yellowing leaves. "But wot were my crimes?" said All these distinct pictures I saw, Spudhole. "Not much in any o' 'em, Russian yet it was all one vision—a vision of. I did pinch the apples in the farm at els humanity with its dumb companions Mazingarbe, but was I the only one?" ac inn flight—infinitely slow, painful, "The only one run," I remarked. him -1 flight, "And the 'en that came into our When I I saw no tears, I heard no cries of billet at Bethune," said Spudhole. "II his complaint, But beneath the dumb didn't catch it, though I killed it. And the I and patient haste on all those dazed faces I saw a question: that scrap on the parade ground when "What have we done? Why has I blacked stumpy'Iggles' two eyes for nal In THE ANTWERP ROAD. October, 1914, Henry Van Dyke Witnessed the Scene Ile Flere Describes, Along the straight, glistening' road, through a clim arcade of drooping trees, a tunnel of faded green' and gold, dripping with the misty rain of a late October afternoon, a human tide was flowing, not swiftly but slowly, with the patient, pathetic slowness of weary feet and numb brains and heavy hearts. Yet they were in haste, all of these old men end women, fathers and mo- thers and little children; they were flying as fast ,as they could; . either away from something that they fear- ed or toward something that they de - I looked at Spudhole, and a queer and making no more speed than a lump rose in my throat. I gripped him creeping snail's pace of unutterable by the hand and felt almost on the fatigue. j point of tears. I I saw many separate things in the "Brazen it out as you will, Spud- tide, and remembered them without hole, I know what you've done," I noting. A boy straining to push a wheel- barrow with his pale mother in it, and his two little sisters trudging at said, choking a little. "But my sheet is not clean, any - 'ow," he muttered in a lame voice. "But your heart's good, matey;' said, Tom Green went home that nig and' the platoon commander saw that Spudhole went a fortnight later, What the C. 0, thinks of Spud} I do not know. One thing, I do know, and that le this: When officers raised a collection tows Spudhole expenses on the home the C. 0, topped the collected with a twenty franc note EAGLES THAT CHANGE National F!ago WI!I In Some Undergo Alteration After War. The standard flags of nations w undergo some slight alteration when hostilities cease. One alteration already come about; the Russ double eagle, national emblem of Romanoffs, is no more. The eagle, course, is the symbol of impar power. The artist who designed the double -headed eagle killed hie mod himself, Two fine chickens were s ricked for the purpose, and he hi self posed them for the design, Wh the sketch was finished, he and friends are said to have dined o8 unfortunate birds, There now remain five natio 'im, and us 'suing a month's rest back , eagles—the two -headed birds of Aus- at Cassel. I spent a good part of that tria and Serbia, and the single eagles rest in jankers. And then in camp in of the United States, Mexico, and Ger- Blighty 'fore we came out 'ere when I . many. Both the Mexican and the 'ops off ter Lunnon, what did I get? i U.S.A. birds are excellent life repro - Seven days, Spudhole. And then—" ductions, the United States being per - "Please don't enumerate them all,' feet in detail owing 'to an amusing I said. criticism passed on it some years ago. "0' right, matey," Spudhole an- The bird then in vogue had a super - "But tell me, wot is the time abundance of plumage about its legs, now?" and newspaper agitation for the abo •• 1 en past 12," I said. lition of its trousers caused It to be "Time's long a passin' this morn- shorn of its glory. It is consequently in'," said Spudhole. "Yer watch is as now depicted as an extremely sober - slow movin'. as a tank. But 2 o'clock looking creature. and Blighty! Hip! hip! hooray!" ?-- He rose to his feet, danced a step "OLD WOMEN" THEN. or two in the muddy trench, then got up on the firestep, gripped his rifle, Age of Twenty -Nine Regarded as De - slipped it over the parapet and fired crepit in the 18th Century. at the enemy trench. One, two, three; In the eighteenth century women half a dozen rounds sped over No soon grew old, says' an English Man's Land in quick succession. "I'm biddin' good -by to the Bache," writer. At the age of twenty-nine he said. "R almost love 'im to -day. Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis "Hey, Tom, you're lookin' glum. XVI,, gravely discussed the question with her modiste, Rose Bertin. She would soon be thirty. Her idea was to change her manner of dress, which inclined too much to that of our platoon, was indeed looking glum. extreme youth. In consequence she "Well, wot's wrong wiv yer, Tom ?" should wear no more flowers or fea- Spudhole inquired. "Bad noos?" thers. The glorious Georgians, the Toni pulled his helmet down over Duchess of Devonshire, complained his eyes, and his eyes looked fixedly to the French ambassador that she at Spudhole's bayonet. was already seven and twenty years "The news is not at all good," he old. "Consider," said the glorious said. "I had a letter wiv last post, one, "what an age that is!" to which and little Betty, my only kid, is not the ungallant ambassador replied well. And she's such a pretty kid, you that "tn France at seven and twenty should see her! And she's been allus a woman was considered elderly." Wot's wrong wiv ye?" He was speaking to old Tom Green, who had just entered the bay. Tom, a man of thirty-five, who belonged to delicate, too. Her cheeks are so thin, It'll maybe be decline, for it's in the mother's people. It's so 'ard not bein' able to see her. "Why not apply for leave?" I said. "It's no good," said Tom. "I've been this thing come upon us and our children?" _ Somewhere I heard a trumpet blown. The spikes on the helmets of a little troop of soldiers flashed for an instant, far down' the sloppy road. Through the humid dusk carne the dull, distant booming of the unseen guns of conquest in Flanders. That was the only answer. TOMMY'S POST -BAG. Report of the British Postmaster- . General Gives Interesting Figures. • Some wonderful figures of the work of the British post -office are given in the report of the Postmaster -General for Great Britain for 1915-16. Of 70,- 000 employes who have joined the col- ors, 3,000 have fallen. The Victoria Cross has been won by two postmen; eight officers have received the D.S. 0. and twenty-five the Military Cross; 126 men have gained the Distinguish- ed Conduct Medal, and 62 the Military Medal; while 201 have been mentioned in despatches. The post -office collected nearly 11,- 000,000 letters and 875,000 parcels weekly for the troops abroad and handed them over to the army. It distributed £2,200,000 weekly in sep- aration allowances to 2,700,000 per- sons. Parcels sent to prisoners of war abroad, mostly in Germany, averaged 82,000 a week, while 15,000, mostly from Germany, were received for prisoners in England. Money or - More horses, heavier horses, horses dere numbering 91,570, and represent - better prepared for work and fed for ing £56,900, went to British prisoners work will go far toward increasing and in Germany, and 96,900, representing cheapening production per acre or per £97,300, came to enemy prisoners ton of crop. here. AN IDEAL ISLE QF EXILE. Better Even Than St, Helena as a Safe Place of tExile for the Kaiser. The idea of banishing elle Kaiser to St. Helena in the event of an Allied victory is often a favorite source of imaginative exercise in England, The conception is grounded in historical precedent, and the remoteness of this little island 10 still an, important asset, as it was in Napoleon's day, St, Fele, na is familiarly regarded as the most isolated Inhabited land on earth. .As a matter of fact, however, St, He- lena's seclusion is far surpassed by its nearest, yet far' distant neighbor. Tristan da Cunha, in the South Atlan- tic, Excepting the polar regions,thls little-known "colony" of England is the most inaccessible spot in any oeeau. Curiously enough, a great war was partly responsible for Its present isolation, Tristan, which is one of a group of three small islands, lies in the Soyth Atlantie.on latitude 37 south and longi- tude 12 west. It is 2,000 miles from the Cape of Good Hope, 1,500 from St. Helena and 4,000 miles from Cape Horn, The first permanent settle. ment. on the island was made by Thomas Currie, an Englishman, in 1810. Some of the latter settlers came from Cape Colony, a few from Italy and Asia and from shipwrecked vessels. It was Americans, however, who gave a fleeting glimpse of pros- perity to Tristan when they used it for a port of call and repair station in the _ great whaling days before the Civil War. In that struggle, however, the Con- federate sea raiders destroyed Ameri- can pre-erninen.;, in whaling forever. No regular liners, and even few tramps and sailing vessels, call at Tristan to -day; the population, who keep a few sheep and cattle and grow some wheat, potatoes, peaches and ap- ples, now numbers but ninety-five souls. They navigate . between the three islands and are daring sailors. Sheep wool furnishes the islanders with clothing material. Occasionally they are visited by a British ship bringing needed supplies. The islands were discovered in 1506 by tlite Portuguese admiral Tristan, or,. more properly, Tristao da Cunha, on a voyage to India. They rise from a submarine elevation, which runs down the center of the Atlantic, and on which are, likewise, situated Ascen- sion, St. Paul's Rock and the Azores. The average depjh on this ridge is about 1,700 fathoms. The depth be- tween the islands is in some places 1,000 fathoms. Tristan, fie largest island, has au area of sixteen square miles, is nearly circular in form and has a great volcanic cone, 7,000 feet high, usually capped with snow 1n the center. On all sides of the island, but one, rise precipitous cliffs from -1,000 to 2,0.00 feet high. On the whole, Tristan da Cunha would be a reasonably safe place of exile for a certain present-day dweller in Potsdam. HOW SOLDIERS MARCH ASLEEP. So Used to Marching Their Secondary Memory Keeps Them in Line. The phenomena frequently seen in. the current.war of weary soldiers marching steadily and in step with their comrades, although they are sound asleep, can only be explained by examining their brain chambers of secondary automatic actions. Each human being of normal intelligence performs a host of these secondary actions, depending totally upon his unconscious memory to guide him. The hand carries food on a fork to the mouth while the mind is occupied with the morning paper. The body keeps itself erect and maintains its equilibrium while the mind is bent upon business problems. The soldier trained in walking far more thoroughly than the civilian fin- ally becomes, so habituated to the. movement" that he can permit his sec- ondary memory, totally independent of his primary memory, to guide him in the marching column while he dozes off and gains necessary rest. Cavalrymen who have become vet- erans in the saddle can to a less de- gree permit themselves to sleep, for their habit of sitting firmly on the horse has not except in rare instances, been formed so young as the infant- ryman's action off walking. Conse- quently the horseman has to make more effort to maintain his equili- brium. How to Protect Car from Thieves. A car properly locked up or left with, c. responsible garage keeper is rea- sonably safe, The danger comeEl from leaving the car unattended in the street. Many a man has left his ma- chine with hardly a thought as to its safety and never has seen it again. The motoring public, however, is gradually awakening to this danger, and so a few suggestions will be of in- terest. First the owner must be im- pressed with the necessity for taking some such precaution, as he will not make the effort unless he realize" the need of it. Many ignition systems have locks on themand the owner carefully locks the switch and removes the key, ignor- ant of the Pact that a good blow from a hammer, will break the lock. De- vices provided with a good errange Ment of tumblers are not open to this objeetion. But it is easy enough to raise the hood of the engine and re- move the wires leading to the lock. This is not so difficult a trick as one might imagine. A man leaves his automobile at the curb near a restaur, ant while he and his friends go inside. It is evident they intend to stay inside from fifteen minutes to an hour or more. A thief walks out of the same restaurant, goes up to the car in a businesslike manner, raises the hood, fixes a couple of .wires with a pair of pliers, starts his motor and drives off. Even .a policeman watching him would suspect nothing, ' Yet the thief has made a clean getaway wit!. an ex- pensive car and left no clew. The beat safeguard is to remove some important part of the ignition system or to disconnect the wires in some place that is not easily acces- sible. For instance, removing the distributor brush is one- of the best. If car is equipped witha magneto the collector -ring brush and the rod con- necting it to the distributor should be removed. Any of these will make a gap in the circuit, which is not easily bridged, as the thieves have not yet acquired the habit of carrying these extra parts with them. Another way is to use a special switch controlling the starter current. Have it concealed under the cowl dash, where no one would expect such a thing to be placed. Use one capable of carrying 100 amperes and run your starter wires to it. With the safety switch open and the starting handle locked in the tool box, the thier will not experiment very long. Another safeguard that employs none of the above methods is to lock the gasoline -valve in the closed posi- tion. osi-tion. Jape Carry Pocket Stove. Many a benumbed soldier of Nip- pon saved his life during the Rifsso- Japanese war by the use of a kwairo (pocket stove). To -day Russia, pro- fiting by the experience of her for- mer enemy is importing these stoves from her ally in great numbers. for her troops. Delicate schoolchildren in Nippon keep a stove in their clothing during the winter months while in the class -rooms. The fuel used is put up in the form of a sausage. It is lighted and forced into a small tin container, which has the outward appearance of a metal cigar case. Fuel sufficient for one loading of the stove costs about -one- sixth' of a cent, and will last approxi- mately three hours, giving consider- able warmth to that part of the body near which it is applied. There is considerable rivalry in the empire to see who can invent the best fuel for the stoves. It must emit neither• smoke nor odor. An efficient fuel is made of hemp stalks, a bundle of them being placed in a hole in the ground, then lighted and smothered so as to smolder without air, until turned into the desired size and shape. Finally the fuel is inclosed in a special kind of paper without which the fuel would not burn suc- cessfully, Illiteracy in Spain. In many villages and small towns in the interior of Spain no one knows how to read or write. There are in Spain thirty thousand rural villages without schools of any kind, and many thousands which can be reach= ed only by a bridle path, there being no highroads or railway communica- tion of any kind. Attendance at School is voluntary not obligatory. Seventy-six per cent, of the children in Spain are illiterate. There is a great complaint about the shortage of -help in manly lines of ef- fort, but no one has discovered as yet any lack of bosses. Barriers extending along the ground from one or both sides of a recently patented roadway gate enable an auto- mobilist to open or close the gate merely by running his car over them, No single item contributes more to- ward economy in the preparation of food than the spatula for scraping bowls. If possible two sizes of this flexible two-sided knife are desirable. A new attachment for telephone re- ceivers permits the hearer to write while receiving the message, as -he is able to hear with both -ears at once and yet not obliged to hold the receiv- er in his hand. WATER ! In the Western Dry Lands of- Austra- Ira fAustra- 1ra a Foreigner Would Perish. No man who has net mastered the last subtleties of bushcraft should penetrate alone the western dry lands. of Australia says Mr. Norman Dun- can in his book, Australian Byways. A Canadian woodsman would find no- thing in his experience to enlighten him. A North American Indian would perish of ignorance. A Be- douin of the sandy Arabian deserts would die helpless. Australian bush - craft is peculiar to itself. It concerns itself less with killing thecrawling desert life for food than with -divining the whereabouts of water in a land that is as dry as a brick in the sun. In the midcontinental deserts when sun and dry winds suck the moisture from deep in the ground and all the world runs dry, the aboriginals draw water from the roots of small desert trees by cutting them into short lengths and letting them drain drop Iby drop into a wooden bowl. But there may be no water trees or the roots may shrivel and dry up. What then? "Ah, well," said the bushman, "they do with what they have," "What have they?" I asked him. "They lick the dew from the leaves and grass!" It is related by a celebrated Austro- .lian traveller, Baldwin Spencer, that, having come in a dry season to a dry clay pan, bordered with witherel I shrubs, his company was amazed by an exhibition of aboriginal craft. There was no water, no moisture , within miles, and the clay was baked so hard that to be penetrated at all lit must be broken with a hatchet. A keen native guide presently discern- ; ed little tracks on the ground—faint- est indications of life, apparently— and, having hacked into the clay to the depth of about a foot, unearthed a spherical little chamber, about three inches in diameter, in which lay a dirty yellow frog. It was a water - holding frog and it was distended with a supply sufficient, perhaps, to enable it to survive a drought of a year and a half. And the water was pure and fresh. Being heartily squeezed, these frogs may yield a sav- ing draft to lost and perishing travel- lers. "Find a bluck`fellow," said our bush- man, "and you'll get Whter." "What if the aboriginal is obdur- ate?" "Ah, well, if he won't tell," the bushman explained, "you rope him by the neck to your saddle, When he gets thirsty he'll go -to water right enough!" When a man knows his own imper- fections he is just about as perfect as it is possible for a manto be. COLLEGE MEN AND SOLDIERING WHAT DOES IT COST THE NATION WHEN THE. EDUCATED -ENLIST 7 Some Estimates of the Coat of Re- cru!tIng Men From Halle of Learning. It is !not really a money question, though money is a convenient medium through which to express value con- trasts.._Of the million or more British and French (lead:, what young scien- tists might there not have been who would have solved the U-boat destroy- er problem, conquered cancer or de- vieed a legal and tiseal" system that would have made all past seers and' financiers look like schoolboys ! It was a patriotic service for Bessemer to develop his process of making steel: It is as patriotic to add to a nation's glory and usefullness as it is to die gor it. But, taking It in the terms of money value, we do not often realize what it has cost some parents (and will cost the nation) to make it possible for the newspapers to announce that "John Jones, of the graduating class of Blank University, has enlisted." From $1,500 to -$2,000 for primary edit - cation, another, 2;000 for college must be spent to bring the young man to his graduation day, and when he adds the SUMS the boy might have made had he gone to work at fifteen, the father sees more than $5,000 of invest- ed capital go up the spout the day his son puts on khaki, If he returns alive and well from the front, still moat of the capital may be lost, as after a couple of year of soldiering a young man is not apt to settle down in a hurry nor be in the mood for brushing up his learning and at once applying.- it pplyingit to the ends for which it was Intend- ed, The Value of Scholarships. • Add ten years of invaluable exper- ience to the graduate's career and the possible loss involved by his enlist- ment is greatly expanded. Kipling has somewhere sung of $50,000 worth of, man material accounted for by one bullet. But that is a .small valuation yfor some educations. A college man of thirty or thirty-five, worth, $10,000 or $15,000 a year'to his community as sanitary engineer, teacher or manu- facturer, represents (if that income be taken as 5 per cent, of`his education investment) a capital of $200,000 or more, for 'which the sacrifice, the taxes or the savings of generations in the life of a college or a town or a firm have been given to accumulate,, Yet, as a type, the college men of the country have been the first to res- pond to the call tor men. Because men in college learn not only how to lead in serving the world, but also get a glimpse between the pages of their books at that ideal which teaches men to die gs well as live for the world, it is upon them that the weight of the responsibility falls in time of war. Oxford and Cambridge were empty HEY, WAITER! I cAN'T 1=AT THIS 5oUP! 1 "191:31.431 0113.gM Of tb.43 ' 334'L1 . I'M vlRy SORRY 51R— I'LLCHA06E IT FoR IOU NE`I, WAITER, COME- SAW OMESACK 4ERE-- I CANT SAT Tots soup Efrf3ER! WNAes THE TRoUBLE: SIR, NOV CAN'T EAT ANy o oURsoUPS? I NAOE. NO spool!! 4 of their students call for Hien before the saloon -bars bad yielded up their habitues. Nurses of Patriotism. 1 It is a fine thing that our universi- ties have been the uursos of patriot- ] ism from the earliest times. The dis- Itinguished men they turn out to hold I the highest offices in the land keep in . touch with their colleges and keep two loyalties alive, acting as connect- s ing links between Government and al - I ma mater. The pictures of celebrated scientists, Jurists, of eminent doctors 1—graduates of the college—hang on 1 the academic walls and constantly re- mind the students of national service j and personal sacri5os for country. j It is hard, perhaps, for the intim: lam of patriotism that sweeps an In- stitution to submit to self-discipline, but it would be an excellent thing if ,the student bodies would debate among themselves as to which men among then; were best fitted to go.and which to stay at home, With the ad- vice of professors, they might decide that it would be a crime to permit, without protest, some ypng chemist who had sltOwn excel)tidnai shility, in his work to abandon itforthe trench - s. The most talented members of each class are easily picked out after two or three years of college life. It would not be hard to discriminate, and it should not be hard to convince an earnest student, Whose rospeet for his, work had made film succeed in it, that it was his duty to stay at home,-, At all events, the college ranks must be kept filled, as foreign belligerents have found. After the depletion of their {agitations, they are now send- ing young mentotheir studios, and once having seat them they are not likely. 10 cath -them away again to the battl.efi'eld. Those who enlist now must bereplaced for the salve of tate )ration's. future. Those who would re- place the beat students are not likely to be as good. • The best stuclente should 'stay Where they aro, ' A spring harness has been patent- ed, which, attached to the shoulders and hips, aids in stipporting the spines of -men who ere. obliged to stool; in .- their work. On most Ontario farms there are too many fences. On all too many there are found fences out of repair, and in such a condition its to bo aim - ply temptations for live stock to got over into the adjoining fields to de. str.oy'crops and make tloul)is, ,t