WAR MISCELLANY.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15487, 14 January 1916, Page 9

WAR MISCELLANY.

I3IPORTA.NT MEDICAL APPOINTMENT. \KEOK OVtt OWN' CORSSSrOMJEXT.) LONDON, December 7. Dr. F. M. Sand with, Gresham Professor of Physic and Senior Physician to tho London School of Tropical Medicine, has beon appointed Consulting Physician with his Majesty's troops in the Mediterranean, and is leaving shortly for Egypt. For many years Dr. Sandwith held the appointment of Professor of Modicine at tho Egyptian Government Medical School. INSURANCE COMPANIES WARNED. Tho Secretary of the Admiralty has just made the following announcement: —"Considerable misapprehension appears to exist in regard to the permissibility of British insuranco companies communicating particulars of risks on Government work to companies or persons other than British companies or British subjects with whom they. may have been in the habit of effecting reinsurances. In order to remove this misapprehension, it is hereby notified that any person or company so communicating any information that may be of value to the enemy, either by way of reinsurauco or otherwise, in connexion with insuranco upon such work, to any firm or person other than a registered British company or British subject, is liable to prosecution for enabling important information to reach the enemy in regard to works nnd materials in this country existing or in preparation for the conduct of the war. Such prosecution may also be instituted in the case of any such particulars being passed out of this country to countries other than tjjoso comprised within the British Empire, whether to branch establishments of registered British companies or otherwise. This notice is to be read as applying to all work or materials in preparation or in stock for any Government Department c/r Government contractor. It should be observed that it has already been found necessary to remove tho name of more than one insuranco company from the list of companies who may participate in. Government insurance on account of failure to take due precautions in regard to tho secrecy of particulars of Government work." EVERY PICTURE TELLS ITS r STORY. Tho War Office yesterday announced that pictorial post-cards of all kinds, addressed to neutral countries, will in future be stopped by the Censor. This order has naturally upset the picturepostcard trade, but as Sir Adolph Tuck says:—''We realise that on patriotic grounds we must cheerfully accept the edict, because tho country is engaged in a -bijx war, and we must do anything that tends to help our country. Tho probioition will affect our firm directly. We aro the largest publishers of pic-turo-postcards, but, of course, it will interfere with everybody. I would counsel others to accept this edict, and not attempt to make any move to upset it." "It would be unwise, lie considered, to go into the reasons which had actuated the authorities in arriving at this decision. He assumod that the prohibition would not interfere with tho wholesale exportation in bulk to neutral countries, which also formed part of their trade, though it would apply to Christmas greetings for postage abroad, which were in postcard foim, a big trade in which was being cvone iust now. A GERMAN IN THE HUSSARS. Mrs Joan Mowat Baker, of Godalming, is the heroine of the latest war romance. Born hi Argyllshire, eho married .Squadrou Sergeant-Major H. W. Baker, 11th Hussars, who served 19 years with, his regiment, and was killed in action at Mossines in. October, 1814. Eight months later sho discovered that her dead husband was born in Germany. Consequently she became an alien enemy, had to register and forfeit her pension. Last week the Home Office "granted a certificate of naturalisation to Mrs, Baker, and her nationality has been restored, together with arrears of pension. Mrs Baker learned her husband's nationality through reading in a newspaper that a Mrs Leibold had *a sou, a, Squadron Sergeant-Major in the British Army, who in the name of Baker had served in tho 11th Hussars, and had been killed in action. Mrs Baker afterwards found that her husbnnd was brought io England by his mother before ho was three years old. Ho always appeared to dislike anything German'; he even objected to his little girl having t<jj->s marked ''made iu Germany." He was killed while taking a mcssago from his squadron to headquarters. In recording his death the regimental magazine stated that he wag a fine type of soldier, a capable N.C.0., a crack shot with rifle and revolver, and . a splendid horseman r.nd swordsman. ' QUARTERLY INCOME TAX. An important change has been made in tho new Financo Bill with regard to the proposed quarterly assessments for income tax. This system, according to the original proposal, was to apply to all "employed, oersoris," but the clause was so altered, nt tho instance of the Chancellor of the Ex~ chequer, that tho quarterly assessments and payments will bo confined to "weekly wage earners enioloyed by way of manual labour in respect of tho wages arising from that employment," and will not apply to "persons employ-, ed as clerks, typists, draftsmen, or in ariv other similar capacity." A further definition was inserted to the effect that a weekly wrsro earner" means anyone who is paid wages at less intervals than a month. Tho proposal that employers should dedmt income tax from the wages of, employees was abandoned by tho Government as a result of conferences between Mr MeELeniia and representative " employers and workmen. PHANTOM BRITISH AT KRUPP'S. For tho past few years a sensational story has beer gcin;; the rounds about hundreds of British workmen who found fvnploymen t with Messrs Knipp's, at lessen, after dismissal from Woolwich Arsenal, when- Lord Haldane reduced the staff. Attention has now been called to the matter in the House of Commons, ■ Tho facts are that German agents appeared at Woolwich in 1907 and made efforts to engage skilled men discharged from the Arsenal. In all some 78 s men • were engaged and lauded at- Hamburg, whence 30 returned at once on learning that they were required as strike-breakers at Dresden. Twelve returned later, eight died, and at the end of the first twelve months after they left Woolwich 28 of tho men in question were shown on the books of their respective unions as being still employed in Germany, Since then all trace of these men has been lost. In 1910, when a party of British trade union leaders visited Ger- J many, an effort was mado to trace the mysterious British workmen employed at Krupp's; but nobody seemed to have heard of them, and it was ascertained that co"ditions of employment at the works did not permit of foreigners being engaged 'n this way. In the meantime, the 23 men presumed to be employed somewhere in" Germany have grown into hundreds, and have been located at Krupp's, where, according to the .story, they are employed under conditions > little differing from slavery.