THE WOODEN HORSE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 6307, 3 November 1915, Page 4

THE WOODEN HORSE.

HUNS LEARN FROM TROY: [- . ' '■ |

The ethics of the ambush has never been very thoroughly thrashed out, and _'just how far one adversary in a struggle may go, to win l by deceit over the /other, is a question that invariably : 'arouses ill-feeling on both sides. A b.:xor may feint, but he may not wear a horseshoe ,in his glove. A general am- send spies out lu the uniform of h.s opponents, but' he may not advance underlie white Wag and attack the toe. Tlie present war has brought out wen more that the usual number of tucks and stritogems, concerning some of which dispute still rages. But their footsteps of the. ancients, who crept within the walls of Troy inside the Trojan Horse. The Trojan as a matter of fact, has a direct descendant in the war. The mantle of sup.r.or wiliness work by the Greeks of the "Iliad"' f -alls gracefully upon German shoulders. The story is told bv the 'Pittsburg Dispatch': Hoping to reduce the number of French infantrymen that barred their advance, the Germans built a dummy lior.se and in it concealed si. sniper. Armed with a powerful rifle, this son of the Fatherland picked off quite a few of the enemy before the latter came to that there was something mysterious about the animal. A machine gun was tmined on the lior.se. which, although hit many times, neither moved nor fell. When no more shots cauie from the direction of the nirimn.l an investigation was begun. Then Frenchmen were not surprised to find it made of wood. The dead body of the German sniper was discovered when a door ill the side of the horse was opened by the French I'ed Cross.

The F.nglish employed lii<e tactics in netting tb'"'r first troops ashore for the 'and o|*raiioiis against the Dardanelles. On the day preceding the landing the attention of Turkish patrols was ea led

to a big collier drifting in apparent helplessness towards the shoiils which I'ued lln- shores near the plains of Troy. While they watched the boat struck bottom, and in the gathering twilight rlii' crew was seen to take to the boats isr,i:l row hastily towards the sua. Feeling sure that the stranded vessel would be safe lor th e night, the Turkish patrols made no attempt to board her. hut when they approached again in the morning they were .'net by 11 sharp fire from 2.100 British troops, strongly ehtrenclicd and supported by a bauei v of field artillery, The.-e troops had 'anded during the 11'ght from the apparent derelict. We are familiar will] the ''invisible' uniform-, of the .German private. s'll'-e adopted by other.nation's. We know, 'oo, how guns are concealed in greenery. and how in the forest fighting .sbai p->ho6ters in the trees have clothed 1 heinsclv lis in outer garments of foiingo. Here W" learn yet other ways in which this trick is played : However conspicuous a xebrn- may be nt a circus, one can scarcely distinguish it from the tall grasses and trees in its natural habitat, and this has not hern lost sight of bv military experts. Along the German' East African border the ponies of the soldiers have been dyed with permanganate of potash in order to make them less noticeable in the field.

The British surprised the world along ibis line when it became known recently that they had provided for a boata to base and had painted the vessel in such a peculiar manner as to make its outlines invisible to the enemy. Many other tricks and devices aire be:ng used by the contending armies, among the™ that of placing dummy cannon where they will be seen by the enemy. The object of this is to draw the fire of the enemy so that his exact position- may be determined.

RE-MAKINC A FACE. PARIS SURGEON'S DEVICES. ff a man has neither nose to smell with, nor. lips to drink with, nor cheek to chew in, is be or can be become a man:-' \ot without a miracle, perhaps But there are surgeons and among tbeiii Drs -Morestin and 'Puffier, of the Koth-clnld Ho-pital, in Paris, whoperlorm the miracle, the miracle of re constructing a man from his own ruins. M. Oistini. a correspondent of the 'Journal des Debats' of Paris, was admitted recently to the Rothschild Hospital to see for himself the miracle in question. An attendant asked him to ■ ook at the photograph i,f a man .wounded in the French trenches who had been admitted to the hospital. It was a terrible picture. "The face lacked the lower portion of the left cheek, it lacked the chin, and the lips and the nose. Could that bo a man I could not help thinking of Victor Hugo's description, 'His marrow was no more in his bones nor his voice in his gullet. Had he ever possessed an eve, and if so. where was it:-'" •

AVhi'e the correspondent was looking at this appalling picture the hospital assistant, made a sign to one of the patients of the hospital who was .just going out to >pend an afternoon at a kineniatograph performance.

"Hero's our man," said the assistant The i-orre.-pondent stared uncomprehending, hut the assistant added with a -.mile, "Yes. I assure you this i.» the patient whose photograph you have in your baud: the man who was brought 'mo hospital without cheek, without jaw, without chin, without lips, without nn.se.''

The correspondent at first thought the assistant was "pulling his leg." For the patient who was .just going out hoiy lew or no signs of the terrib'e wound" indicated in the photograph. Hi- lefl cheek was the twin brother of the right j cheek; lie had all excellent chin, lips that .just opened in a genial smile," and a nose with an irreproachable contour. H : s face only Inire the rapidly vanishing tra-es of some cuts and a few whit marks of surgical sewing. The patient himself proceeded to affirm the assistant's assertions, talking in tlie slang of the French infantry: "Yes, it's myself; 'twasn't any use the Bodies spoiling my photograph; the doctor tricked them after all. You see lie has manufactured for me a vevv decent face. For myself, I think he's improved it, and I believe they'll find me more of a knot when I get hack into the country." Then lie lit a cigarette and went off to his kincmatograph while the assistant continued the story of the miracle.

! "The great point," he said, "was ; that the vital organs were still intact. . After a few days of continued washing and antiseptic Treatment, the terrible wounds had practically cicatrised. Then Dr. Morestin began his miracle. He took a portion of the patient's back and used it to replace the cheek. With the skin of the back he fashioned the lips. Then he took a portion of the man's sjiprt ribs to make the nose and the of the chin. From the forehead he took the skin for the nose and from the stomach the skin for the chin. Finally, when the man was practically refashioned and could bo permitted to look at his new face, Dr Morestin asked him if there was anything he regretted. The soldier, replied, "Yes, my moustache." "Oh, don't vou worry about that," said the -doctor, and without even applying an anaesthetic he took from' the hairy nape of the neck a small strip of skin and grafted it on the upper lip. "I can't promise you," said the surgeon, "that you w ill have as victorious a moustache as that which you left in the trenches, but in any case yon won't-be hairless." The assistant added that though, the man would certainly'grow a moustache, at present he goes "English," that is, clean-shaven. Subsequently the correspondent was informed that the Rothschild Hospital alone contains over 30 convalescents wlio proudly display noses of flesh and blood sculptured for them by Dr. Morestin. And at the St. Louis' Hospital there have , been countless wounded men for whom the miraculous surgeon has reconstructed a part of the face. -• ' . '