ECHOES OF THE WAR

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 107, 6 May 1916, Page 5

ECHOES OF THE WAR

NEWS AND NOTES

SEIZING GERMAN SECURITIES.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, 24th March,

The British Government is detaining securities sent from Germany via neutral ports for sale on German 'account in neutral countries, a course of action which has created disturbance in neutral markets. But the British Government 'has a good case, and the official explanation should do much to put neutrals at their ease. The chief ground is that the German Government is adopting a carefully-considered policy of securing credits in neutral countries by selling the holdings of her citizens in foreign securities. Gold and money are contraband, not on the ground of their intrinsic value, but on the ground of the credits they create. Other instruments of creating credits are fair objects of detention for the judgment of the Prize Court. Such detention, while it strikes directly at the enemy's financial strength, does very little injury—if any-^-to neutrals. Securities held bona fide by neutrals are in no danger of seizure or detention, and the fact of ownership in such cases can easily be shown. Only when there is direct presumption of enemy origin are the securities detained. NEW CURRENCY NOTES. New issues of £1 and 10s notes are shortly to be made, in several colours and in mflre ornamental design. Both denominations will be very different from those at present in circulation. The object is to produce something "less dingy" than ,the present notes, which, after a little handling, present anything but an attractive appearance. Instead, therefore, of the black and red wliicb represent the sole colour of the present issues we may shortly expect notes printed in four or five colours, and of more ornamental design. Incidentally, the more decorative nature of the new notes will to a greater extent safeguard them against the art of the counterfeiter. PROUD OF HIS OLD COAT Judge Cluer delivered a little homily on economy in clothes, with his own coat as illustration, in the Shoreditch County Court. James Mace, a relative of Jem j Mace, the famous boxer, applied for the payment of £10 standing to his credit for compensation, " to buy clothes." The Judge asked : " How ever are you going to spend £10 on clothes ? Are you aware that one of the principal dont's is, ' Don't' buy clothes, weax your old ones.' " Holding up the edge of the sleeve of his own coat, the Judge added, " Look at that : wear your old clothes, and don't be ashamed to in war time. When they begin to look shabby send them to the cleaner. I am quite sure you couldn't tell me how old my coat is." BANKS AND MILITARY SERVICE. At a meeting of the City Tribunal this week, Major Rothschild, M.P., the military representative, stated that an arrangement had been made with a committee formed under the chairmanship of Mr. Martin Holland, Chairman of the Bankers' Clearing House, under .which it was proposed to take from these hanks for- military service, by the beginning of July, about 75 per cent, of the men who werp eligible, single and married. Single men had only been postponed in special cases, and then mostly in later groups. He asked the Tribunal to say the arrangement was a satisfactory one. Mr. James (clerk to the Tribunal) stated that he had examined the proposed arrangement in respect of eight clearing-house banks, and found that, on the whole, the percentage exceeded 75 per cent., being in some cases nearer 80 per cent. The banks concerned are the London Joint Stock, - London and Provincial, National Provincial, Union of London -and Smith's, London City and Midland, Capital and Counties, Lloyds, and Williams Deacon's. The Chairman, Mr. A. Cole (ex-Governor of the Bank of England) stated that figures had been fully considered, and that the Tribunal assented to the postponements mentioned. A LONDON SCOT'S WILL. Second Lieut. Norman M'Gregor Lowe, D.CM., London Scottish, younger son of Mr. Charles Lowe, formerly Berlin correspondent of The Times, who was killed in France, made his will on a half-sheet of notepaper; he left £149. The will-ran :—

" In the event of my death, which I hope will be an honourable one on the field of battle, I appoint my brother, Charles Edward Lowe, to be executor. He is to have the undisputed control of my affairs and at his complete discretion. Bury me by the bracken bush Beneath the blooming briar, And let never living mortal ken That a kindly Scot lies there. > Norman M'Gregor Lowe. Long Live the King!" THE BRITISH HELMET. Military critics describe the British helmet as the most scientifically modelled headpiece that has yet been invented, and as much more serviceable than that adopted by the. French., Already it has proved its life-saving value in the trenches. It is a cap of the hardest steel, with a narrow lip back and front, and designed with a much lower pitch than the French helmet. It is quite smooth, having no flu tings or projections for bullets or fragments of shrapnel shell to strike against, and its low pitch presents the smallest possible target for a direct hit from any direction. One of the drawbacks of the French helmet, owing to its higher dome, is that the collection of air in the top of tho helmet produced an uncomfortable coolness, and at the same time the helmet is such a tight fit that the metal presses unduly on the head. A series of ingenious devices has been employed in the British helmet, in order to secure both a good fit and a comfortable one, a.nd to avoid any sense of distress to the wearer. Inside the dome of the helmet are. fixed a number pf t'ubbf? M.uda, bo placed m io tnka . tiw -4issk..-oL «■.. Jte. .umk.3_m.-Mi---'

direction. They come between the helmet and its double lining of felt and wadding. The wadding comes next the head of the wearer, and covers it closely, so that if a bullet should penetrate the steel cap and inflict a scalp wound, the wadding would act as a blood ab-. sorbent, and, to some extent, as.an antiseptic. The helmet is secured op the head by means of a stout chin-strap. Upwards of 100,000 have already been made and sent to the front; thousands more are being turned out in increasing numbers with all possible speed in British munition factories. THE PAYMASTER'S GREAT LOSS. "Gallipoli now seems a country of ghosts," writes a naval officer on board | a warship off the Dardanelles. "One misses the übiquitous shrapnel over Fusilier Bluff, and the monotonous boom-boom of the guns. Ono misses, too, the life and movement that always went on at the beaches, interrupted periodically as it used to be by the burst of an Asiatic shell. One misses, also, the tents and the smoko of the camp fires in the gulleys and on the southern slopes of the cliffs. Everything is all so hopelessly still and stagnant now. It is a depressing place, haunted by the spectres of a great army. Fortunately, we get a little fun now and again! There was an amusing scene on board the other day. We had been doing a small 'strafe,' and were just moving out, when we were hit by a 4in, which had been making excellent practice at us. I went down to see what damage had been done, and on the way was told that the shell had burst in the paymaster's cabin. When I arrived I found the fire brigade trying to get in to see what had happened, but there was a most awful smell, and the hairy stokers of the fire brigade were all coughing and crying, 'Don't go in, sir!' Someone said, 'It's one of these 'ere lackeymosery shells. You wants a respirator.' The fire brigade were all struggling into their respirators. Mine, of course, was in my cabin, along with my life-saving waistcoat and the other luxuries of that sort we make war with nowadays. - However, I borrowed one, and got into the cabin to open the scuttle and deadlight, when down came the paymaster to view the wreckage. He sniffed the air, and was just going to follow into thq cabin when he was stopped by the shell expert. 'Don't you go in, sir, without a respirator. These 'ere lackeymosery shells give yer fits.' 'Lackeymosery be damned,' shouted the pay. 'It's my new -bottle of Scrubbs' Ammonia.' And it was even so."