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The Brussels Post, 1916-11-9, Page 6THE ANGELS ON THE STAIRS 1 "Where is daddy now ?" "When s daddy coming back ?" had been lett e Elsie's constant questions aince her father's regiment had been called across We Channel to take part in the awful battles in Flanders Elsie was too young to realize the full moaning of war. Mrs. Westgarth had told her that daddy had gone to tight the Germane, and would some back with honor and glory. She had shown her the more obeerful of the pictures in the illustrated papers, but she ]lad kept from the child her own terrible fears, "Captain Westgarth--missing;" had been the official report. What did it mean ? Taken prisoner, injured for life—dead ? The suspense of 'a fort- night was far worse than any shock of news -even the worst. One November evening there tante an imperative ring of the telephone. It was an otticie] at the War Office sp eaking. "Mrs. Westgarth ?" he asked, "Yes, yes !" "Your husband is safe." "Thank God !" "He is due to arrive at Victoria sta- tion at four o'clock to -morrow morn- ing." "Then he is wounded ?" "We don't know. The information is that he straggled back to our lines, and was sent to hospital at base. It probably means that he is only slight- ly wounded, and is being sent home to recuperate. If it were anything dan- gerous aogerous he couldn't be moved across the Channel. Don't worry, Mrs. West- garth. To -morrow morning at four you will have him with you. Good luck 1" There was no need to make prepara- tions in the house for Captain West- garth's arrival. Ever since he had left for the war his room had been ready for Instant hospital service. Every- thing needful was there. Mrs. West- garth, a soldier's daughter, had fitted herself for surgical nursing, but she had also a call on a trained niu•se to share the vigils. She now 'phoned and arranged that the nurse should meet her at Victoria Station, while the doctor should call at the house early in the morning. It only remained to tell Elsie that Daddy would be with them to -morrow. But the child was fast asleep. It seemed a pity to disturb her rest. Better to give her the happy surprise when daddy was actually in the house. * r * * * * Victoria Station in the black hours of the morning was closed to the gen- T E NATION'S FUTURE Depends Upon Healthy Babies Properly reared children grow up to be strong, healthy citizens Many diseases to which child- ren are susceptible, first indicate their presence in the bowels. The careful mother should watch her child's bowel move- ments and use Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup It is a corrective for diarrhoea, colic and other ailments to which children are subject especially during the teething period. It is absolutely hon -narcotic and contains neither opium, morphine nor any of their de- rivatives. Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup Makes Cheerful, Chubby Children Soothes the fretting child during the trying period of its develop- ment: and thus gives rest and reliefto both child and mother, Buy a bottle today and keep it handy Sudl !,y all druggist bt 'Clarada and throbs/,old The noor/,f !Oral Dubuc, Outside, In rho fog - 11 swathed Buoldagham Palace Road, were gathered a dim line of Iced Cross moters, private care, and taxis. In- side, where the eizzling arc -lights thrust through the fog drifting slow- ly in from riverwards, were St. John's ambulance men in their trim uniform of dark blue tunic and puttees; stretchers and wheeled ambulance carriages ; and a few of the railway police in the uniform which is usually mistaken for the regular ecllce. Two khakied sentries with fixed bayonets stood impassive at the station en- trastce. There were also the relatives and friends of the men returning from the front, The common sorrow drew to- gether into conversation women of all ranks of life. Fear clutched at their hearts. It is not the superficially wounded, they felt, who arrive In London at the dead hours or the night. Cases too terrible for public sight would be brought at that hour. In spite of the hopeful words of the official at the War Office, Mrs. West- garth welted with dread for the arrival of her husband. A sudden stir and bustle announced that the train was signalled. Tho police waved into position the first of the line of Red Cross cars and private vehicles. The ambulance men pre- pared themselves. The long train crept in very slowly and carefully. There was no percept- ible jerk when it stopped. The rela- tives of the men ran eagerly from car- riage to carriage in search of their loved ones. It was a heartrending scene—and yet, in places, a Joyful scene. Some there were who found their worst fears lifted. With others — Captain Westgarth sat stiffly up- right in his compartment. He was not bandaged. An unlighted pipe was set firmly between his teeth. He remain- ed seated, and did not even Zook out of the window. "Oh, Frank ! It's you at last -and hot wounded 1" cried Mrs. West- garth Joyfully. Captain Westgarth turned his head stiffly towards her. "Who are you ?" he asked. "Your wife—Madge." "I've never seen you before" he said. Au R.A,M.C, man, who had travelled with the train, came up hastily to Mrs. Westgarth and drew her aside. "Your husband has been mentally injured by a bursting shell," he ex- plained. "It's not the first case we've had, You must be very patient with him." "Oh, my God! You mean that his mind has gone ?" "No, not that," soothed the Red Cross man. "He will recover in time. It's only a temporary effect." "But he has been reported missing for aver o fortnight. lie has been in that condition all this time ?" "There have been other cases like this. No outward sign of injury at all. We take them right away from the scene of war. In his own home, with you to look after him-.— Now, please, please don't worry 1 A little patience, and he will be quite his old self again." Captain Westgarth was being helped out of the compartment by a St. John's man. Suddenly he cowered back. "Over there !" he cried, pointing to an arc -light where the carbons splut- tered. "Another shell ! Duck, all of you! Shells all round! They've got our range ! Hang you! Let me got" * * a * * * Mrs. Westgarth had prepared her- ; self for everything but this. Her hus- band recognized neither her nor the home. After the incident of the sta- ' tion he became dull and listless, and suffered himself to be taken to the Neuse and put to bed with entire In- difference. What was to be done with Elsie ? 11 would be cruel too let her see her father in his present state. Better to keep her away. Perhaps in a week's time ---- "Daddy is too 111 for you to see him Just now," the child was told. Ten days of anxiety almost unen- durable ensued, Doctors could do nothing for Captain Westgarth. He would sit in an armchair all day, stiff- ly upright, an unlighted pipe between his teeth, gazing at nothing, saying nothing. Ile accepted his wife's pre- sence as that of a paid attendant. I3e gave no sign of recognition to rela- fives and friends who were brought to his room. The doctor, groping for a remedy, had tentatively shown him some war pictures in a daily paper. The only result was to send his temperature leaping and bring on a slight delirium. Another week, and the situation seemed even more hopeless. Captain Westgarth was sinking into a state of mindless animalism. Elsie was crying to be taker to her father's room. Mrs. Westgarth, al- most distracted, 'phoned to her sister- in-law, and arranged for her to carry away the child the very next day, But that night Elsie decided an action of her own. She would go to daddy and kiss him web again. From the nursery she would creep down- stairs in her nightdress and bare feet, ft was quite dark on the stairs, El- se was not afraid of the dark, She started to descend cautiously, se that no one should hear her. But a etalrboerd creaked loudiy, and Mrs. Wesigartlt, from her own room, heard, Site came out to the landing, and called up : "Is that. you, Elsie ? Go back to your room." "Ott, mammy, look -look 1" Mrs. Westgarth could see nothing u ensue]. "Look al. what. ?" ehe asked. "The angels, mummy! They are going ep and down the stairs ; 00 many of them 1" Mrs. Westgarth caught her breath sharply, "You are frightened, dear, Como and sleep with me tonight," site an- swered, "I'm net frelghtened at all, mummy, The angels look so kind. Can't you see them ?" The child came down fearlessly, joy. fully, making way on the stairs for transcendental figures which only she could see. It brought a chill of fear to Mrs. Westgaa'th's heart. Could these be the messengers of death ? Elsie reached the landing by her father's room. She held out her hands In prayer to an unseen figure. "Please make daddy well 1" she pleaded, It was as though the figure offered a hand and Elsie grasped it. Mrs. Westgarth, stupefied, remained stock - edit as the child went to the door of Captain Westgarth's room and enter- ed. The figure entered, too. "Daddy is in here," said the child, and closed the door. The mother scarcely knew what she ought to do. Should she interfere ? Angels—nonsense, of course 1 And yet Elsie could see them. Mrs. Westgarth listened at the closed door. She could faintly hear Elsie in childish prayer by the father's bedside. Then silence. She waited, heedless of the cold, a full half-hoour. Then she turned the .handle and en- tered on tiptoe. The child lay in bed with her father, snuggling close to him. Both were fast asleep. a: * 5 * * * Early In the morning Mrs. West- garth entered her husband's room and pulled up the blind. He stirred drowsily and opened his eyes. "Hallo, Madge 1" said he. "Had such a queer dream last night. Thought there was an angel stroking my forehead, Must have been you, I suppose, What's the news of Kaiser Bill ? Got him on the run—What ? London Answers. COLORS YOU CAN'T SEE. Many Shades Painted on a Gun Has Strange Effect. Four years ago there was at Alder- shot alp ordinary field -gun which look- ed as though an insane artist had used it for a palette. Every color from a paint -box had been lavished upon it., Blue, brown, yellow, red, and green had been laid on in the most haphaz- ard blobs and daubs, says London An- swers. It was not until you began to walk away from the gun that you realized there was method in he painter's mad- ness. At two hundred yards the vio- lent colors had all run together, at three hundred the gun seemed to be fading out of sight, at five hundred it was practically invisible. The armored train, manned by Brit- ish soldiers and British guns is paint- ed in precisely similar fashion. To give our War Office its due, it was the first to realize that the thin red bne of Crimean days was quite out of date with rifles that would i carry a mile, and just before the; South African War khaki became the universal wear. At first our Tommies hated khaki, and in August, 1903, it was announced • that it was to be abandoned, and "Atholl grey" substituted. But it was pointed out that grey would stain' terribly, and that it would not be as invisible as khaki, and in the end practical use won the day. The Germans followed our example, but their khaki has a greenish tint which is extremely and unnecessarily ugly. The Russians fight in grey, a color well adapted to their vast plains, cov- ered in summer with withered grass and in winter with snow. IF FOOD DISAGREES DRINK HOT WATER When feed lies like lead In the stom- ach and you have that uncomfortable, distended feeling, it is because of in- sufficient blood supply to the, stomach, combined with arid and food fermenta- tion. In such cases try the plan now followed In many hospitals and advised by many eminent physicians of taking a teaspoonful of pare bisurated magnesia, in half a glass of water, as hot as you can comfortably drink it. The hot wa- ter draws the blood to the atnniaeh and the b!sureted magnesia, as any physician can tell you, instantly neutralizes the acid and stops the food fermentation, Try this simple plan and you will be as- tonished et the immediate feeling of re- lief and comfort that always fellows the restoration of the normal process of di- gestion. People who and it inconvenient at times to secure hot water and travel. ors who are frequently obliged t0 take hasty meals poorly prepared, should al- ways take two or three five -grain tab- lets of lsisurated Magnesia after meals to prevent fermentation and neutralize the acid in the stomach. __.. She Met A Good (inc. The inspector was hearing a class of small girls read, when they came to the word "pilgrim." "Now who don tell me the meaning of the word 'pil- grim ?'" A little hand went up, and a voice said—"Please, sir, a pilgrim is a man that travels about a good deal," "Web, I travel about a good deal, and I'm not a pilgrim." "But, please, sir, I mean a good urian!" In Cochin China tho inhabitants pre- fer rotten eggs to fresh onee, To a good woman a lover's jealousy is a homage, but to a good wife a husband's jealousy is an insult, MAKING BREAD FOR BRITISH ARMIES MILITARY BAKESHOP "SOME- WHERE IN FRANCE," Wonderful Organization That Feeds the Armies in the Field,• "Bakers, attention!" The words of cm -emend ring out in the great hall. From their positions, bent double over the long troughs, 200, men straighten bolt upright, head erect, eyes steady, hands rigid at their sides, "Carry on!" Immediately 400 hands plunge into the billowy dough and the work of kneading begins again. A man clad in a sleeveless shirt, wearing a cook's cap, passes by men, bearing a heavy load of fresh dough, which he flings down a "shoot" to the floor below, writes W. Kay Wallace from the Brit-. ish headquarters in France. We are inspecting briefly the pro- cess of providing bread Inc an army., Here, in ,the former factory, the bread of the British armies in the field is being made. One hundred and twenty thousand two -pound loaves of bread, are each day baked in the ovens of this bakery. I was given a slice of the bread. It was crisp, appetizing ' and excellent. Day and night work. is carried on by enlisted men of the ; army—men who wear their khaki as proudly as any of the troops in the front-line trenches. The division of labor is admirable. Every device which tends to increase the efficiency' of the men has been installed. Yet it is "hand -made," one might• almost say "home-made," bread that is delivered to the men at the front. 'Flour Brought From Canada. Here, in the long sheds, the flour that has just come in from Canada is stacked, and, passing through the hands of skilled workmen, is turned into bread as if by magic. A steady stream of kneaded dough, freshly leavened, is being carried to the "shoots"; below it is gathered up and slung on flour -sprinkled tables, cut into round lumps about eight inches in diameter, each lump forming a 1 loaf; each is carefully weighed to make all the loaves of identical size.1 Then the loaves are shoveled into the! ovens, baked to a turn, drawn out, carried into the adjoining storeroom, where they are left to cool. When; cooled the fresh bread is packed into! sacks, loaded into goods vans, which wait right at the door of the building, and twelve hours front the time that it has left this bakery the bread is in the hands of the quartermasters ready for distribution to the men. Industrialism in its highest state of perfection never produced a more effi- cient organization. The men work at high speed. Military discipline pre- vails. There is no talking or chaffing. Here there is none of that atmosphere of personal irresponsibility so preva- lent in industrial enterprises. I watch- ed for a long time these men at their work, straining every nerve and mus- cle to do their best as efficiently as possible, and as we passed from hall to hall the command, "Bakers, atten- tion!" brought the men instantly to the rigid position demanded by the drill regulations. Looking over the long rows of faces I was not a little astonished to find such a variety of ages. Gray-haired men work side by side with what seemed to be mere boys. On inquir- ing, I learned that fathers and sons often enlisted together for this special service; skilled men of the trade who before the war had carried on their work for the most part in individual shops. Army the Finest Union. Those of us who have been taught to believe that the Englishman is a confirmed individualist, that he is in- capable of organization in the Ger- man sense, must revise our notions. Those who have been led to believe that the British workman is opposed to compulsory military service and that trade union men are submitting recaleitrantly to army regulations must change their point of view. As a soldier here, a trade union man, said to, me, "The finest union in the world is the army," This great bakery is only a model of many other such establishments which I visited., Nearby are ware- houses filled with stores for the troops in the field. The amount of goods handled in one conaignment is stupendous; 50,000 tins of jam, 20,- 000 boxes of meat, cases of onions by the thousands, bags of sugar by the 10,000, boxes of tea by the ton, and the like. Brought in from all parts of the world direct by transport, the goods are stored in the warehouses, stacked in piles so arranged that though hundreds of thousands of cases and sacks are here stored, yet almost at a glance the exact amount of the goode on hand can be counted, The supplies are so vast that no matter how great the requisition may be it can be instantly filled, I walk- ed through long rows of goods stack- ed up in blocks as high as city houses. The different types of wares are ar- ranged in squares resembling a city street. here is a square all of sugar; close by, one of jam; beyond, another of marmalade, and so on. All the goods bear British trade marks with Inn n - the exception of tinned meat„ We walked for hall a mile through this Strange and silent city of foodstuffs, "Le ,pays de Coeagne" (the land of plenty), as 4 Russian companion re- marked to me, staring up at a high edifice made of bags of sugar. It is a fact admitted by every one that no army in the field is bettor car- ed for or fed than the British troops in France, but at the same time it is a current belief that no army is as extravagant, This latter opinion, which is widely held not merely in neutral countries but even in Eng- land, would not seem to be borne out by facts. On the contrary, as far as could be observed during a brief so- journ, I found everywhere signs of rigid economy. A regimental cook at a base told me that he had saved 8,000 rations during the last month. This does not mean that the men are stint- ed in any way, but the allowance of fresh meat, bread, butter, cheese, jam and tea is greater than needed to sat- isfy the appetite. "Muddle" Gone by Board. Efficiency and economy are the two dominant factors of success in mod- ern warfare, as in modern industry. The old spirit of "muddle" to which many clung so tenaciously during the first and even the second year of the war has been swept by the board. The third and, as many hope and confid- dently believe, the last year of the war is opening auspiciously. The signs of success are not to be read exclusively in the bulletins from the fighting front, nor estimated by the number of prisoners taken or miles of trenches captured; but rather by watching how smoothly, silently, ir- resistibly the great machine of the army, now perfected in every part, is gearing up the speed of efficiency. SOUNDING FOR SHELLS. Ingenious Instrument+ Now Being Used in France. Where the tide of battle has ebb- ed and flowed, the soil of France is so full of projectiles that a French in- ventor has devised an electrical ap- paratus to find them. As soon as the tluifty French recover any portion of land from the invader, they return it at once to agricultural use, but before the soil is ploughed it is necessazy to find any sources of potential danger —in the form of unexploded shells — that may lie beneath. According to the Edison Monthly, the instrument that they use is an adaptation of the Hughes induction balance. As des- cribed in the proceedings of the French Academy of Sciences, the ap- paratus is so sensitive that the oper- ator can detect by sound, through the telephone, the presence of a fragment of shell, or even of a tin can. It is also possible from the nature of the sound to distinguish between consider- able masses of metal and small frag- ments. The instrument has two coils of large diameter, the windings of which are on wooden frames. As is usual in the induction balance, no metal of any kind is used in that part of the instrument. The two coils, at- tached to a handle, form an instru- ment with which the surface of the soil is explored and tested. As long as there is no metal present the mu- tual induction of the primary and the secondary circuits is in a neutral state, with the result that the tele- phone remains silent. When frag- ments of shell are encountered, even if they lie at considerable depth, their presence speaks, as it were, through the telephone. It takes two persons about an hour to test thor- oughly an acre of ground, but when the work has been completed the farmer can be sure that there is noth- ing left there to endanger his life or blunt his ploughshare. BATTLES AND RAINFALL. Meterologists Say Gun -fire Will Not Produce Rain. Many persons in Europe and many in this country have noticed tie? un- usual rainfalls that have occurred in various localities since the beginning of the great war, and have wondered whether those and other anomalies in the weather could be caused by the tremendous gunfire in Europe. Me- teorologists scout the idea, They say that, to cause rain, gun -fire would have to be on a vastly greater scale than it has yet attained, and that all attempts to produce rain by bombard- ing the clouds have failed. In dis- cussing the extremely heavy rainfall in England during the winter of 1914- 15, Dr. H. R. Mill, director of the Brit- ish Rainfall Organization, made the following statement: "The vastness of the work done by the quiet proceeses of nature requires only to be realized in order to show the incalculable im- probability that gun -fire in France can produce a wet winter in England. Take the case of three and a half inches of rain that fell in excess of the average in December over 58,000 square miles of England and Wales, That quantity is 203,000 square -mile inches or more than 18,000,000,000 tons. AL winter temperatures, satur- ated water vapor would form about one per cent of the masa of the at- mosphere that contained it; hence the minimum quantity of air that must haye carried over England and Wales in December, 1914, must have exceed- ed 1,800,000,000,000 tons. The amount of force required even to deviate the direction of moving masses of that magnitude is surely far beyond that which can be exerted even by nations at war." From Erin's Green Isle NEWS BY MAIL FROM IRE- . LAND'S SHORES. Happenings in the Emerald Isle of interest to Irish- men. Mr. Duke, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, has been making a tour of the southern counties. At a meeting of the Portadown Town Council it was decided to re- ppen the flax markets. The Admiralty has raised male clerks' pay in the dockyards of Ire• land from $0.24 to $7.20. A British dirigible recently arrived over Dublin Bay. Large crowds gathered to watch it manoeuvring.' Mr. John Murray, who for a great number of years has held the position of postmaster in Carlew, has just re- tired. A German prisoner named Back- meyer, who attempted to escape from Oldcastle Detention Camp, Co. Meath, was shot by a sent:y•and died. The Listowel Urban Council are taking the necessary steps towards putting the School Attendance Act into operation in the urban district. The death has occurred in his 71st year of Mr, Joseph Atkinson, J.P., D.L., of Crowbill, Co. Armagh. He served for some years in the Hamp- shire Regiment. The Local Government Board have notified the Sligo Co. Council of their approval of the scheme formulated for the maintenance of the roads by a system of direct labor. It is understood that there is a proposal under consideration for the closing of several Iriah provincial prisons, Waterford and Londonderry being amongst the number. Emigration from Ballyhannis dis- trict during a recent week was very heavy, and the number of departures in a single day was the highest ever remembered in the district. A 300 -pound catch of mixed fish, in which were three 25 -pound ling, has been made at Ballycottin by Mr. R. Blair, British Sea Anglers' Society, as the result of a day's angling. The members of the V.A.D., Kil- keal have, through their president, the Countess of Kilmorey, remitted the sum of $250 to the Ulster Volun- teer Force Hospital fund in Bclfafst. The garden plot movement, which commenced in Belfast several years ago, has during the past year devel- oped at a rapid rate, and there are now twenty separate gardens in the city. A bed has been endowed in the Throne Room of the Dublin Castle Red Cross hospital from funds sub- scribed by members of the St. John Ambulance Brigade, Dublin Castle D At a meeting of the South West- meath Teachers' Association it was stated if immediate action is not tak- en to meet the extra cost of living some of the teachers were confronted with starvation. The death has occurred of Mr. John Henry Edge, K.C,, at his residence, Dublin, in his 75th year. He was one of the best known citizens of Dublin, and played a large part in Irish ad- ministrative life. A motorcycle collided with a cart at Ballylongford, Co. Kerry, with the result that Mr. Wallace, a well- known Limerick man, was killed and the occupant of the cycle car, Mr, Stokes, was killed. A largely attended meeting of the National School Teachers of Belfast, and district was held recently to con- sider the most effective means of ob- taining an immediate permanent in- crease of salaries, ` At a meeting of the West Water- ford executive of the U.I.L. at Dun- garvan resolutions worn accepted call- ing upon the Government to im- mediately release the prisoners of the recent rebellion. A Necessary Weakness. He—The trouble with you women is that you have too much imagina- Lion, She -1 don't know. If we didn't imagine you men were a let bettor than you are, none of us would ever marry you, FI ITING FIFE A LOYAL EXAMPLE WHAT SCOTLAND IS DOING IN THE GREAT WAR. Young Men Are at the Front, Women and Older Men Work Hard. Harold Ashton, writing from Cupar (Fife), Scotland, to the London Daily Mail, says: I have been, through Fifeshire to- day—a clean, green country of in- comparable tidiness. Fife has been combed out for the ?•var•, but with its young men away the old men, the women, and the maids are keeping the homeland sweet and the home fires burning. The hay harvest -the finest for years—is over and the tall "stooks" of the gathered crop atand yellow in thousands amid the soft green of the "second crop" of sprout- ing clover. In the field and farm, meadowland and plough, one sees the new, neat touch of the careful house- wife, spruce and busy in her new do- main. The villages are just as neat as the farms. Out in the morning early I met two girl postmen, breasting the hill on their bicycles like record -breakers, with bulging mail bags at their shoul- ders and a certain official sten fie° nese in their demeanor befitting Govern- ment officials. In this neighborhood there is only one male postman left. The other day he was all but drowned in a mighty flood which engulfed Fifeshire suddenly - a frightening way which floods have here. A few miles out on his official rounds he was waterlogged, stranded—hopeless. But the girl -postmen carried on un- daunted. • I am taking Cupar aa typical of the fairly large Scotch "burgh"—half, town, half village—in war. -time, It ranks among the oldest Scottish royal burghs, with a population of about 4,500 and industries of linen weaving, leather making, flour milling, and quarrying. The ready folk of the place squared themselves for war - work at the very beginning of things, and they have not been idle sines. Moss for Red Cross. It was 011 a Sunday that the Prince of Wales's rousing "fund" telegram arrived at Cupar. Provost Stark, a patriot of untiring energy, instantly sounded the war gong and summoned the inhabitants to a great business assembly. A business meeting on the Sabbath—A Scotch Sabbath—was an unheard-of thing. "Never mind," said the provost; "better the day, better the deed! We will now circulate the collection - plate, citizens!" He got a great haul, and up to date the local war chest can boast of a net of over 18,000. Mrs. Lumsden of Tarvit set the wo- men to work, and her voluntary work- ers' association now is seventeen hun- drett strong. Their work is interest- ingly varied. Notable among their labors is the collection of sphagnum moss, the newly discovered absorbent dressing for wounds. It is lighter and more absorbent than cotton wool, and it has been officially adopted by the. Government. Its natural home is the Scottish moorland, and the Cupar wo. men go out to the Lomond Bills and bring back sackloads of it. The moss is so extraordinarily absorbent that it will actually carry ten or twelve times its own weight in water, and for this reason it is dried before being sent to headquarters in Edinburgh; there it is antiseptically treated and pressed in a hydraulic press into small flat cakes. These are covered with gauze, and then the dressing is ready for use. Gathering dandelion roots and foxglove (digitalis) is another part of the women's .work here. 50 Per Cent. Fighting. Cupar's fighting men surged to the call. First. I quote the figures of the parish as a fairly level ex- ample of what most of the other small towns and large villages in the his- toric Black Watch area, in Forfar, Fife, and Perthshire, have done. On the basis of the last census there were 941 men of eligible age in Cupar parish when the war broke out, In the first four months of war 333 of these were actually fighting. By November, 1915, when the Derby scheme came into operation, the to- tal had risen to 500—over 50 per cent. When the tribunals came they es- tablished themselves on 0 sound, busi- ness -like, and loyal footing. With the exception of one solitary case the Cts• par tribunal absolutely refused to grant conditional exemptions, The exception was the deputy county clerk, and he had to go before the board three times. Of the county tribunal a different tale has, of ne- cessity, to be told. A mile outside the town you are among the ploughmen and the "skilled" workers of the. land. Up to last week 255 cases came up before Cupar anti St. Andrews district tribunal, and 228 of them re- ceived conditional exemption in Iwo days' sittings. Sorry ile Spoke. Husband --I wonder wily all the misers we read about are old baelte- lors? Wife—Oh, married misers are an common they arc not vlorth mention- ing.