———
Denon ian
Belletonte, Pa., September 29, 1917.
THE SLACKER.
(Written by a member of the Shamokin
motor truck unit.—By request.)
We give you our service, you shut off our
beer,
But the slacker can drink till it’s up to his
ear.
We quit a good job to keep you from
harm,
And the slacker goes by with a girl on
each arm
And laughs at the soldier, poor unlucky
cuss:
You go with a slacker, why criticise us?
The slacker rides around in a Ford of his
own,
And charges a quarter to haul us to town;
Yet we leave the streets at eleven at night,
While he sticks around as long as he cares.
Discipline, we know, is a thing that must
be,
But honest to goodness we fail to see,
When a soldier drinks nothing but water
and pop,
Why the drink on the slacker can’t also
be stopped.
If the slacker can dance, it seems rather
hard,
That all decent dances the uniform’s bar-
red.
We have taken our rifles and taken our
place,
And will go to our death with a smile on
our face;
But this is our honest appeal to you,
Until we cross, please give us our due.
—Sunbury Daily.
Will Trench Foot Lame Our Boys?
London.—Before the war nobody
had ever heard of “trench foot.” And
now that soldiers duly are warned of
it before going to the front, it is not
likely to to be heard much of again.
So that from being an actual, gan-
grenous horror along the first line
trenches, it is today a wholly averta-
ble possibility. And the only excuse
for taking up white space with writ-
ing about it, lies in the dire responsi-
bilities of that little word “avertable.”
It is not likely that news of it has
reached the million or more: American
recruits who, we understand, already
have begun coming over to go into
trenches just like those in which
trench foot was once epidemic among
the British and French soldiers. For
the disease is so completely new that
technical knowledge of it is limited at
present to one or two theories. One
London physician has devoted himself
for two years to research work into
the subject of trench foot, but his find-
ings and even his name are held mili-
tary secrets. For the Germans also
have had trench foot to contend with.
It is a supposedly gangrenous condi-
tion of the foot (which, in extreme
cases reaches the ankle;) in which the
toes frequently drop off and amputa-
tion of the foot has been found neces-
sary in some cases.
Cured once, it recurs under condi-
tions of wet and cold, and severe cases
have such continually recurring ef-
fects that they may be, called chronic.
The method of treatment has not
been made publicly known, although I
think the British army surgeons would:
agree that present methods are liable
to change without notice, so small is
the profession’s knowledge of it. The
French have a “parafine method” for
treating it, but army men are not
anxious to go into further details.
Several preventives have been de-
vised for use before soldiers go into
the trenches, known to be prolific
sources of trench foot.
Some soldiers rub their feet with
chalk. Some use whale oil. The lat-
ter remedy is advocated and furnish-
ed free by Alfred Yarrow, the great
ship-builder.
But the best preventive is to keep
watch on the feet, and at the first
symptoms of trench foot, to report.
Otherwise, the toes or even the entire
foot may be procrastination’s price.
Trench foot reached the height of
its charted curve when England’s
“contemptible little army” was hold-
ing up the Germans on their six-
weeks-to Paris rush. When the ar-
mies first dug in, reinforcements were
terribly slow in coming, soldiers had
to spend two and three weeks in
trenches, while now they spend two or
three days in them.
Sitting on the little platform that
runs along most trenches about five
feet under the parapet, their feet were
plunged for hours into thick mud and
water.
Their knees were bent sharply and
they sat hunched over, rifles in hands,
in practically the same positions for
hours.
This physical ordeal gave severe
cases of trench foot to thousands of
the clerks of London who had been
hurried across the Channel to block
the German army.
Their blood-circulation, not over-
likely at best, this long held, cramped
position stopped the blood from circu-
lation in their feet, and the frostbite
that ensued from continual soaking in
cold mud, made their feet turn a vivid
blue with cold, and at night, when
they slept in the trenches, their feet
were still encased in cold, sodden
shoes.
In the course of two or three days
of this, the feet began literally to die,
although the balance of the body
might remain apparently healthy.
The tissues became atrophied. The
feet turned the dark blue of venous
blood which has circulated into the
feet, but cannot circulate out of them.
This condition was often wilfully
made worse. Soldiers saw in trench
foot an easy and, they thought, harm-
less way back to “Blighty” and to_a
nice, comfortable bed in an R. A. M.
C. hospital.
Cases of trench foot mounted so
rapidly in number that at length fail-
ure to report at once a case of trench
foot became cause for action by a
courtmartial.
Today, however, trench foot has
been reduced to a minimum.
There are more soldiers and the
Royal Engineers know how to build
better trenches. And more soldiers
means that each soldier is not made to
serve two soldiers’ time in the trench-
es. And better trenches—what they
mean, only a Tommy can tell you,
preferably one of those Tommies of
the First Expeditionary Force, who
knew what it was to spend days in !
mud sometimes up to his hips.
. Doctors, however, are still of vary-
ing opinions about the physiological
nature of trench foot.
Most of them hold it to be a form of
neuritis. Some of them hold it to be |
a kidney affliction. :
But all agree that it is the very best .
of the strictly trench-afflictions to |
keep an eagle eye out for. And every |
American soldier, by the time he gets
into the firing line, will have heard
enough stories about trench foot to
make him watch carefully when his |
feet have been a long time cold and!
wet. It sounds harmless, but a few |
one-footed ex-soldiers scattered over |
England are evidence that it is in the |
highest degree dangerous.
It might be well to add a word about !
the feet in general.
Recruits on this side usually have!
been found to have the notion that!
toughening the feet for marching is a |
matter that takes care of itself.
| reers.
| non-commissioned
Army Uniforms Cost More.
The cost of army officers’ uniforms
and equipment, which has been rising
steadily for years, has taken such a
decided jump within the last six
months, says the New York Times,
that it will cost most of the officers
being graduated from training camps
at least two months of their salary to
purchase the necessaries of army life
when they enter upon their new ca-
While uniforms and equipment
are furnished free to privates and
{ officers, commis-
sioned officers make their own purch-
ases in the retail market at prices
necessarily far above those which
might be obtained if the equipment
were manufactured by contract with
the War Department. No change has
been nade in the pay of officers to
meet the increased cost of equipment
and the rising cost of living generally.
officer’s uniform of olive drab serge,
that sold for $37.50 six months ago,
now sells for $43.
Why Do We Eat Bread?
There is hardly any food so univer-
sally used as bread, except possibly
milk. Ever since the world’s history
began, bread has been used in some
form or another as.one of the staples
of diet among all but the most savage
people, and it would be most interest-
ing to trace the relationship between
the bread-making process of various
peoples and their growth in civiliza-
tion down to the present moment.
Following this interesting research
we find the Kaffir simply grinds his
grain between two stones, makes a
paste or cake of the meal and water,
and bakes it in the ashes of his fire in
the woods; Israelites and Egyptians
ate leavened bread; the ancient
| Pie salaries of ofcers ave: Greeks cultivated the yeast plant, and
It takes care of itself very nicely | general, $8,000 a year; brigadier gen-
when the marching is approached lit- | €ral, $6,000; colonel, $4,000; lieuten-
Major
| oven
in the ruins of Pompeii was found an
containing 81 loaves of bread
similar to those of the present day.
tle by little. But recruits who, in ci-
vilian life have been of sedentary hab-
its are likely to find interesting what
a Lancashire soldier told me this
morning:
“I had been a solicitor,” he said,
“and entirely unused to strenuous
physical exercise. I thought my feet
would be badly blistered by heavy
marching, but I had neither time nor,
Iam sorry to say, disposition, to
toughen them before I joined up.
“I went through three days’ march-
ing after I had joined, and then I was
marched off to the doctors. ‘My feet
were literally covered with big blis-
ters, and felt continually as if some-
body were running sharp knives into
them.”—By Gahagan O’Grogan.
Teaching the Deaf to Hear With Their
Eyes.
Among the twelve hundred pupils
of the Parker School, one of Chica-
go’s largest public schools, there are
more than a hundred children, rang-
ing in age from five to fifteen years,
who have never heard the sound of a
human voice. Yet to distinguish these
children from their more fortunate
fellows because of any imperfection
in their speech or their inability to un-
derstand the speech of others, would
be a difficult task. Although born
deaf, they have been taught to speak
almost as well as hearing children,
while their skill in reading the lips of
a speaker is little short of miraculous.
If you should go to the Parker
School any fine morning you would
probably see on the broad lawn in
front of the school various groups of
children at play under the watchful
eyes of their teachers. But it is not
likely that your attention would be at- |
tracted to any particular group be- |
cause of anything unusual in the chil-
dren’s manner of addressing their
teacher or one another; all are romp-
ing, laughing and shouting merrily.
Yet the chances are that some of these |
children are among the hundred who
have never known the blessed privi-
lege of hearing.
Entering the school, you might go
from room to room, and not discover
for quite awhile anything peculiar in
the manner of instructing certain of
the classes. But in some of them you
will find the same little tots, who can-
not hear, that you passed on the lawn.
If their eyes happen to be turned
away from the visitor upon his en-
trance, their attention is not attracted,
since their organs of sight have to
perform the duty of the useless ears.
Should they see the newcomer, how-
ever, they will smile a welcome, then
direct their gaze once more to the lips
of their teacher. It is this concentra-
tion of gaze which first betrays their
physical handicap. All the knowledge
they receive must come through the
sense of sight. Just how these unfor-
tunate children are trained is interest-
ingly told by Mr. Robert H. Moulton
in the October number of Popular Me-
chanics Magazine.
Give Up Your Candies and Ice Cream
Sodas!
“More sober, less inspiring, but
every whit as educational is the pro-
gram of thrift and service to which
Minute Girls—who may be best de-
scribed as Camp-fire girls at home and
at school—have pledged their support.
These children are taught—what they
are quite old enough to understand—
that times of war call for sterner
qualities than times of peace and plen-
ty, and that they must be prepared to
meet new conditions with new courage
and new efforts. They are not, for ex-
ample, to dwadle over breakfast, and
then hop on a trolley car to get to
school. They are to start earlier, and
walk. They are not to spend Satur-
day afternoons at matinees and mov-
ing picture shows. They are to tramp
or bike if the weather be good, and to
learn economic cooking or elementary
nursing if the weather be stormy.
They are not to waste anything that
can be possibly turned to account.
They are rigidly to curtail the money
spent on candy and ice cream sodas—
which is a wise reform. The increas-
ed consumption of candy in the past
few years has been regrettable from
every point of view. There is a fever-
ish outery from tradesmen whenever
any economy is projected, a feverish
protest against the cramping of in-
dustrial conditions; but no one can de-
ny that too much candy is eaten in the
United States.—Woman’s Home Com-
panion.
——1Tt should not be forgotten that
the American soldiers in France will
need books, and plenty of them, to
read at their leisure. It has been
found essential, in trench warfare,
that the soldier should be able to
while away the tedium of unoccupied
hours by getting carried away in the
pages of a book. Books on popular
astronomy are recommended by a
French writer. The serenity of the
stars will communicate itself to the
soldier, and he may as well know
something about the night sky, since
his duty calls him to spend his nights
a la belle etoile, as the picturesque
French expression is.—The Monitor.
——1If you get ink on a white silk
blouse, dip the spot at once into boil-
ing hot starch and the spot will dis-
appear.
——For high class job work come
;ant colonel, $3,500; major, $3,000; | The Swiss and French have their
| captain, $2,400; first lieutenant, $2,- | bread baked in public ovens, known
to the “Watchman” office.
000; second lieutenant, $1,700.
cers below the rank of brigadier gen-
eral receive an increase of 10 per cent.
in their pay for each five years spent
in one rank Army officers are pro-
vided with heat, light and quarters, or
in some cases granted an allowance to
provide for them. Mounted officers
receive $100 a year for feed of one
horse, or $150 a year for twe horses.
Officers of the aviation corps receive
50 per cent. more than tle usual pay
for their rank.
The prices asked for officers’ uni-
forms consisting of coat and breeches
vary from about $30 to $150. Few
makers of officers’ overcoats ask less
than $45 at retail, and prices go up to
$75 and $100. Leather goods of all
kinds have at least doubled in price in
the last year. Ordinary army shoes
have jumped from $3.50 to $7.50, and
leather puttees in some cases have
tripled in price.
At the army co-operative stores it
was said that the high-grade army
overcoat, which sold six months ago
at $55, is now priced at $60, while the
Offi- |
the world over as French bread, and in
' our own Uhited States it is baked in
our private homes, or we have mam-
moth bakeries turning out thousands
of loaves which are delivered fresh at
our doors every day. With this short
resume of the use of the grains we
conclude that, except with the lowest
savages and in the most extreme cli-
mates, some kind of grain is a neces-
sary food, and bread—when the entire
grain is used—is one of the most con-
venient forms for everyone, in all
classes, as it gives the greatest
amount of nourishment for the least
labor and cost; so our conclusion must
be that in this upward progress in civ-
lization, the more intelligent the peo-
ple in a country or community, the
better the bread.
——Iceland has decided to introduce
compulsory national service. Every
young man is to give to the State six
months’ labor on some work of nation-
al importance, such as bridge and road
ping and the building of public edi-
ces.
Start |
the
Day
Rig ht
LAL SSR
It’s not much fun crawling out of the comfy covers
at five or six o’clock on frosty mornings. But the
alarm has a pleasanter sound when you know a Per-
fection Oil Heater is waiting—ready to make things
warm at the scratch of a match. However, to get
perfect results, always use
Ras oli sht
It gives a steady, room-filling heat or a clear, brilliant yet
mellow light without smoke, soot, smell or charred wicks.
That’s because Rayolight Oil is more highly refined than
ordinary kerosenes—yet it sells at the same price.
Ask for it b
name at the store that displays the sign:
‘Atlantic Rayolight Oil for Sale Here.”” Then you'll be sure
of getting the genuine.
It’s a scientific fact that, of any artificial light, a kero-
sene lamp is the most restful and pleasing to the eyes.
THE ATLANTIC REFINING TOMPANY
Philadelphia and Pitts...
PERFECTION
Smokeless Oil Heaters
Make cold rooms nice and comfort-
able regardless of the weather.
Quick, radiant heat at the strike of a
match. Seethem at
your dealer’s—$4.50
to $8.50.
Rayo Lanterns
» The always reliable Safestand best. Give
light makers, Hand- a piercing, far-reach-
some designs for every ing lighton the darkest
room. Give a clear, night.’ Durable con-
metiow ight, eal or SHUN Onl Towns
0! never leak,
Re, $1.90 up. dealer’s, 50c up. Your
On September 15th, 1917
——) the prices on all models (——
WILL BE INCREASED
The Standard Touring Models will be Advanced as
follows :
Four from $ 985 to $1050
Six from $1250 to $1385
Other models will advance proportionately.
Order your Studebaker Car at once
AND SAVE MONEY
GEORGE A. BEEZER, AGENT,
North Water St.
61-30
BELLEFONTE, PA.
~ e 1917 STROUSE & BROS. ING. BALTO. MD. =
. 2 3
at
Funes”
Economy vs. Parsimony
HIS Fall make your every
purchase tell true. Do not
confuse parsimony with econo-
my--consider “how good” not
“how cheap”--buy clothes that
will last and not look the worse
for wear; clothes that will not
compel additional purchases be-
fore the season’s end--that is
economy. Guide yourself ac-
cordingly in everything you buy.
To attain this end, men find
HIGH-ART-CLOTHES
the logical choice. We show
them in styles for every build.
FAUBLELE’S.
Allegheny St. BELLEFONTE, PA.
58-4
LYON @ COMPANY.
OUR LINE OF
COATS and SUITS
is the finest and up-to-the
minute styles.
Coats from $10.00 up to $65.00
Suits from $15.00 up to $45.50
All the new weaves—Velours,
Silk Plushes, Pom Poms, Broad
Cloths, Vicunas, Burrellas and
the staple Serges and Poplins, in
black and all the new. colors. We
can fit the largest or smallest wo-
man.
A Big Line of Misses’ and
Children’s Coats.
New Dress Fabrics
We have just opened a big as-
sortment of fine Woolen Dress
Goods in plains,checks and stripes.
Shoes Shoes
Our new Shoes for Fall and Win-
ter are here. Shoes for Men and
Women, and a special line for the
School Children. Prices the lowest
.
Lyon & Co. --. Bellefonte."
Cr