EARLIER MESSAGES.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 13731, 20 March 1915, Page 5

EARLIER MESSAGES.

NEWS FROM GERMANY

TREATMENT OF WOUNDED

London, March 17

A "Times" correspondent, who lias returned from Germany, says that, despite her manifest preparations for most contingencies, Germany was not. prepared to deal with the vast number of her wounded soldiers.

Already seven hundred thousand men have been treated. Every available public building, including royal villas^ is utilised. He visited a royal residence where iron bedsteads were crowded against great mirrors in a ballroom resplendent with gold mountings and Venetian chandeliers.

Wolfhounds are extensively used for finding the German wounded. The Red Cross trains of fifty carriages, with sixteen beds in each, travel at a snail's pace.

..•■A doctor, discussing the psychology of the sick-room, declared that an Iron Crosa irian,never dies if he can possibly help it. The nurses are pretty girls, in" neat costumes, giving an air of coquetry, which is deemed helpful to the patients. The death-rate is less than 2 per cent., and 60 per cent of those who were wounded early in the war have rejoined the ranks. The Russian slim-nosed, speedy, bullets aceconsidered the most humane. Gangrene after them is almost Unknown, Shrapnel causes the greatest amount of laceration.

Wounded prisoners are treated in dreary hospitals. They know they are not wanted. The cheerful atmosphere of the other hospitals is painfully wanting. All have male nurses, and the patient feels the want of the woman curse's hand. . When a prisoner dies he is buried with military honours. Upon his coffin is a ribbon, inscribed "To a brave warrior." A w-ooden cross for identification, and a. wreath, are placed on his graze, etd a volley fired. There is exactly the same ceremony as for the burial of the Germans,

"A Lucid Study of the British Empire" has been published *by Macmillao and Co. In it Sir Charles Lucas (late head of the Dominions Department of the Colonial Office) insists that the war has caused England to cease to be an island; she is exchanging her position for that of a unique European Power with a population far below that of Russia or Germany. In order to hold her own with other first-class Powers, Britain must identify herself absolutely with her peopif. oversews.