SYDNEY SUN MESSAGES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 2 October 1914, Page 5

SYDNEY SUN MESSAGES.

KITCHENER'S NEW ARMY

TAKING SHAPE WITH CELERITY

TOMMY ATKINS' QUALIFICATIONS

COURAGE, COMMONSENSE, CUN-

NING AND CHEERFULNESS

TALES OF A REGIMENTAL PET

LONDON, Oct. 1

Aldershot is the centre of a vast series of camps. Thero are over 120 thousand troops in the vicinity, and they are drilling for miles in open spaces and along the roads. A canvas town stretches .far out into the fields along the whole valley. The Government workshop is running out new regiments "while you wait." The willingness to learn and enthusiasm of all classes is magnificent. The townsfolk are bewildered at the business boom, and the thoroughness at nightfall suggest the Klondyke or Kalgoorlie gold rush.

The Times says Lord Kitchener's new army is taking shape with equal celerity in other parts of the United Kingdom.

One of the effects of the war is that the Lord Mayor's show has been abandoned.

Sir R..S. Baden-Powell, in a speech at a Lord Mayoral function, said the opposing armies were fighting with courage, commonsense1, and cunning. The British Tommies had a fourth qualification—cheerfulness. The Germans find it "a long way to Tipperary" and will probably make a desperate effort to invade Britain, for which we must be ready.

A wounded Frenchman lying on the Marne battlefields, was surprised to receive a wet caress on his face. It proved to be from the regimental pet dog which had been trained to carry the kepis (head dress) of the wounded back to headquarters. He told the dog to bring help and it returned guiding an ambulance. The dog goes into the firing line, and when the fighting is hot digs a hole and buries himself.

A German commandant's letter has been found, in which he says: "We ai*e marching gloriously and irresistibly on Paris. We would have preferred the resistance and entering Paris as conquerors instead of a mere parade, but French valor decreed otherwise. In a week's'time we shall be drinking beer on the boulevards." A French bullet brought the commandant's march to an abrupt ending.