WAR NOTES.

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 2857, 31 January 1916, Page 4

WAR NOTES.

THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN WAR TIME.

Sixty million iron half-farthings have been coined in Germany to replace copper coins, which aro being" withdrawn from circulation. The Queen of tho Belgians has distributed among the Belgian troops 60 gramophones, each with a repertoire of 50 records. A battalion of hunters, trappers, miners, lumbermen, and other rugged men of New Ontario is being organised in Canada for service in France. An interned British soldier named Short received permission from the Dutch authorities to act as trainer for the Nimeguen Football Club. A despatch from Innsbruck states that at Gratzch, near Meran, where all the men have been mobilised, the fire brigado now consists entirely of women. Tommy is a cheerful soul. Writing to a friend in Manchester (says the Sunday Chronicle), a British Tommy in the trenches says: "I don't envy your poor devils having to put on cold shirts these mornings!" In Italy an iron finger ring lined with silver inscribed with the date of the war is being sold to collect a fund for Italian prisoners of w-ar. This neat little ring worn beside gold rings and precious stonos strikes an austere note which is not unpleasing. The latest list of Old, Etonians who joined tho colours contains the names of 4254 men. Of these 358 havo been killed in action, 84 died of wounds, 20 died from other causes, 18 are missing, 31 wounded and missing, 29 prisoners, and 598 others wounded. No fewer than 412 Old Etonians havo been mentioned in despatches. Large quantities of gravel, said by the Germans to be needed for rebuilding houses in Belgian villages, were sent from Holland to Ghent. Tho real destination of this gravel is tho German trenches in Flanders, where gravel is used to combat tho appalling mud.