Sidelights On The War

Auckland Star, Volume XLIX, Issue 148, 22 June 1918, Page 15

Sidelights On The War

»Jold just after the declaration of war for £13,000, and in 1915 for £15,250, the steamship Sydney Reid, :JS32 tons, has changed owners lor £42,000, and two others of . 3000 tons, sold last year at £140,000, have been resold for £220,000. AIT EXCUSE FOR BIGAMY. As excuse for her conduct in a charge of bigamy, Edith Helen Badham, thirty, a Woolwich shop assistant, stated at the Old Bailey that she was told by a sailor that her husband went down on board a ship in the Heligoland fight in 1014. She made no further inquiries until some time after her second marriage. Sentence was deferred. HUNS' LATEST OUTRAGE. A woman living in the hamlet of La Sicotiere. in Western Prance, was recently seized with an illness 'Which lasted for several days after opening a .letter from a Prench prisoner in Germany (says the Exchange). On the same day another woman received , a letter from her husband, -who is a captive in Bavaria. This missive also contained asphyxiating gas, and other | cases are reported in the district. MILITARY VEGETABLE GARDENS. Vegetable growing on the grand scale is now in full swing in Mesopotamia, where the English cabbage has taken kindly to the thirsty soil. The rndian gardeners' corps consists of 150 rank and file, with a hundred reserve men to replace casualties — a precaution that tells now near the Big Cabbage Patch must be to the red harvest field of battle. FOOD MINISTER AS HOARDER. One lighter touch in the midst of the all-absorbing battle news is the arrest at Stsrgard, Pomerania. of the man-servant of Herr yon Waldow. the Food Minister. He was caught trying to smuggle two trnnkfuls of food into Berlin for his master. The trunks were crammed with country produce of all kinds. Investigation Is proceeding, and the German Press hopes that '•Herr yon "Waldow will lose no time in explaining matters." U-BOAT LEAGUE. "The German U-Boat League' , is one ot Germany's newest national organisations. Its object is to popularise the submarine, just as the Navy League for so many years before the war popularised the idea of a huge German fleet. At present the U-boat League seems to be devoting itself to raising relief funds for the crews of submarines and for their dependents. It claims to have distributed £50,000 during the past year. . COST MILLIONS. ■Several million dollars annually will be added to the cost of the United States Army by the order requiring clean-shaven soldiers. Official announcement was made recently that one razor, one steel mirror, and one shaving brush will be issued gratuitously hereafter to every enlisted man ordered to Europe. United States Army regulations require that soldiers keep themselves closely shaven, but the wearing of moustaches is not prohibited. ZEPPELIN'S "BOILING OIL." '". "Thermite the explosive -used by (Zeppelins, is the modem substitute for the ancient boiling oil," said Mr. J. Young, of the Woolwich Royal Military Academy, in a recent lectuTe. "It causes molten, blazing iron to fall through the air of a temperature of 5,000 degrees. The famous fiery furnace, heated eeven times, was a cooling place compared •with it. It is used in incendiary bombs and shrapnel, and it sets even wet grass on fire." ■Germany, he added, ■was doubtless now getting cotton from wood. BABIES IN A TRENCH. When our troops retook Neuve Kglise for the first time they found two babies in the trenches who, it was afterwards found, had been rescued from the village by oar men under heavy shell-fire and taken there for security. Apparently the Germans had not heeded the babies during their brief occupation of these trenches, and they are now in a British hospital and quite flourishing- After a recent bombing raid two of our signallers were found killed side by side, and lying between them unhurt was a child whom they had clearly placed there for protection during the attack. GUNPOWDER. I think that most people are of the opinion that ordinary gunpowder is an oldfashioned, explosive for which there is little use in these highly scientific days— discoveries of the modern chemist have rendered gunpowder as obsolete as the bow and arrow, says a correspondent of the "Pall Mall Gazette." Nothing could be more contrary to facts. There is a very great deal of gunpowder being used in the precent war, particularly in shells in which a high explosive is not necessary, but only sufficient force to -burst the shell and scatter its contents, as in the case of shrapnel, gas and tear shells. A MUTUAL SURPRISE. "1 met a woman who had. charge of one of the best hospital units -. the front," says Preston Gibson in his book, "Battering U.e Boche." "She told mc a rather amusing incident of a very pretty young French girl -who came out to see her -boy and .was met by my friend in the doorway. My friend asked the girl <wbat she wanted. She replied that she had come to see Lieutenant So-and-So, who was wounded. M.y friend replied, 'Well, you know we don't admit people here generally. You must have some reason to see him.' The girl smiled quite cordially and replied: 'I have a very good reason —I am his sister. Whereupon my friend, also smiling, replied: •Really! I am so glad to meet you, because I am his mother!' The girl became frightfully embarrassed, bnt my friend simply said, 'Oh, that's all right; you can go in and see him.'" AN EXTRAORDINARY GUN. The powderless, centrifugal gun has long ■been the langhing stock of ordnance experts, according to the "Scientific Amerl can," in speaking of the latest weapon of thaO type, the invention of a Boston man. "This weapon, which is driven l>y an electric motor, is said to shoot 33.UUU round steel missiles a £ini:te. or 553 a second. At present the inventor is not l" a. position to give details concerning his gun, except to state that it operates on tne principle of a sling. "Each bullet is twirled on a. disc at a great rate of speed and then released. The ammunition is fed through a funnel-like arrangement leading into two 'veins' which centre upon an opening throragli which the missiles are hnrJed wlcu great velocity. In a Teceut test, the inventor claims, the sun was turned on to sheets of Jin steel several hundred feet away. The bullets whipped through the •teel as if it were paper. The missiles are •mall steel balls similar to toa.U bearings."

HOW SHELL SHOCK IS CAUSED.

Shell shock .was defined by Major Sir Robert Armstrong Jones, the eminent mental specialist, speaking at the London Society of Arts, a 9 the result of the emotion of fear, the purpose of which, was to cause flight to ensure safety. It was when this instinctive feeling collided wltn the higher developed duty of the soldier to stand his ground that a conflict occurred. An intense effort was made to suppress the fear, and when the suppression failed shell shock resulted. TOLL OF THE GERMAN PIRATE. Mr Havelock Wilson, the president of the Seamen's and Firemen's Union, in conversation with the Labour correspondent of the Kxehange Telegraph Company, made the statement that since the beginning or the war no less than 15,000 men and boys of our mercantile marine had lost their lives through attacks by German U-boats. "I shall be well within the mark.' he said, "if I state that nearly 15.000 British seamen have been murdered by German pirates since August 1014." SCHOOL CHILDREN CALLED UP. The Berlin municipal authorities have decided to call up the school children lor a useful form of National Service. Teachers j have been ordered to mobilise their pupils, according to their physical capacity ana I residential localities, into troops of helpers ] whose special duty It shall he to fetcii • coal, wood, and other household necessities \ for old people or invalids who are unable j to do for themselves, or who. owing to the j lack of labour, cannot hire others to fetcli and carry for them. lARD LABOUR FOR A TRAITOR j Wilhelm Glauss, a former Wilhelmshavcn I )oliceman, has been given ten years' hard | abour on a charge of selling a naval iignal-book to France before the war. Slauss has been in gaol in Germany ever iince 1912, when he was extradited from England for theft. The Supreme Court ot Leipzig, in passing sentence on Glauss, | iaid that the prisoner could he legally. Tied for treason though extradited for heft because the Anglo-German cxtradl:ion treaty had been annulled by the war. HO MORE "LUXURY HORSES." After May 1 it will be a misdemeanour n Germany to keep a norse for private >leasure driving or "luxury" purposes. The military authorities state that they ire compelled to put "luxury horses'' on ;he verboten list because the public has not •esponded to the suggestion that horses ihould be used only on war work. All lorses must be withdrawn from private use iy the end of April. Horses are considered "luxuries" which are not on service for j :ommerce, trade, industry, agriculture, or I :he military authorities, or are withheld 'rota the market. HUN BOMBS HELP HEATHEN. If air raids do a lot of harm, they occasionally do good. The vicar of a parish in 'a certain district," the official reports say, has reason to be grateful to the Hun iirmen. In his parish magazine he announces a profit of £350 as the result or i missionary sale, and adds: —"We feel deeply thankful that the two incendiary bombs which fell in the garden behind the church and church room, in the early mornIng of the day on -which the sale began, buried themselves harmlessly in the ground; one was dug up and viewed at :'n i time by those who came to buy! By this means an extra 25/6 was gathered in lor missionary work." GERMAN MACHINE GUNNER. A British officer in the Machine-sun Corps who has seen nh:ch fighting in some of the biggest shows on the Western front —including the present thrust towards Amienssays that lie considered the German Machine-gun Corps the linest arm of the Kaiser's army. The Germans alone of the 'belligerents possessed a full appreciation of the value and possibilities of machine-guns before hostilities began, and the German army possessed far more or these weapons than any of the Allied Armies. The latter are catching them up, but the Germans are past masters of machine-gun tactics, and their gunners expert in, handling these deadly weapons. PLUCKIEST DEED IN THE AIR. In these days of stirring deeds in the air it may surprise many people to learn tnat recently, in a discussion which arose in a R.F.C. mess in France on the pluckiest flying deed on record, first place was given to Bleriot'6 memorable cross-Channel flight. Only those who have flown know the capital value to the airman of confidence in his machine. The dud , engine is the dark spectre of his dreams, and yet Bleriot crossed the Channel on a machine which had never remained in the air for the time ho calculated it would take him to make his Channel flight, and one of his gravest donbts was the machine's ability to reach England with, sufficient height to clear the cliffs. SHOVELLING POISONOUS GAS OUT OF TRENCHES. "Weighing considerably more than tne atmosphere, the poisonous gases employed in modern warfare always seek lower levels. Thus the gas clouds penetrate trenches and deep dugouts, and in most cases it is a matter of many hours before they become sufficiently diluted with the atmosphere to permit of safe breathing, oo the matter resolves itself into a problem of driving the poisonous fumes out of tne trenches and underground shelters, or at least thinning them out until the air Iβ again made safe. 'For this reason, says the "Sclentlnc American," American soldiers now m France literally "shovel" poisonous fumes out of their trenches. Attached to a shovel is a sort of canvas scoop or "flapper" which permits the men to heave tfhe heavy gases over the parapets and to beat the fumes and dissipate them in the surrounding air. HUN'S USE OF WAR PRISONERS "Our growing Labour Army" is the description applied by the Huns to their prisoners of war. According to a communique in the latest Berlin papers, Germany and her vassals between them now hold 3,570.000 prisoners. For the first time the German military authorities lay stress on the supreme value of their prisoners as Man-Power for industry and agriculture. They are so numerous, it is asserted, that they go far toward compensating Germany for the men she has had to withdraw from peaceful pursuits for active military service. "The longer the war lasts," the communique adds, "the more adaptable these prisoners became to the work assigned them, and the more useful to us." Huns have a majestic awe of big figures. Thus it Is explained for their edification that the "Labour Army" in prisoner camps Is numerically greater than the whole male working-class population of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden combined, and is equivalent to one-fifth the total number of working men in Germany before the war."