Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 288, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1915 — GETS FIRST-HAND WAR INFORMATION [ARTICLE]

GETS FIRST-HAND WAR INFORMATION

Earle Reynolds Writes From Winnipeg About Meeting Soldier— Rome On Furlough. Earle Reynolds under date of Dec. 3rd writes as follows from Winnipeg, Canada: “There are 12,000 soldiers in the barracks here now under training for the front, to which they are being sent at the rate of 600 per week. Canada now has 110,000 men in England and along the western float and they are being enlisted here 100 daily. A gTeat many come back wounded or on furloughs. Hundreds of young fellows from the states, filled with adventure, are coming here to enlist. The Streets are crowded with soldiers. They are fine looking and orderly. “Last week I met a young man “who was home on a 3-months’ furlough and invited him to dinner with Mrs. Reynolds and myeelf and we had a very enjoyable visit as he had been right at the front in the Belgian campaign. He says some times they were wai'St deep, in the slush and mud and that the continued boom of the canons makes the men in the trenches deaf and nervous. Frequently the trenches were within 75 feet of each other and .that they threw cans of jam to the German boys and that while the British soldiers played mouth harps the Germans would sfing. During the recent offensive the British captured many 'Germans and Gertnan-American who was captured said that they were short on meat and had had very little bacon and ham for the past month. He also said that the firing otf the German's big guns is playing the devil with the artillerymen, and that 70 per cent of those who are handling the big Krupp guns go insane. He says that millions of dollars worth of shells have been shot into the air because the men stand off the guns 24 hours at a time and become exhausted. He says that the big shells from the guns can be seen coming and that they strike in the ground and are buried from 30 to 40 feet in the earth and. lie there quite awhile sometimes before they explode and then they tear great craters in the earth 40 and 50 feet deep and 100 to 150 feet in diameter.” The Republican can not vouch for the correctness of the soldierNs impressions and it is probable that the effidet the Krupp guns have on those firing them is very much overdrawn and also that the report of the meat shortage uS also not authentic. Dispatches from Dond'on have been making similar statements for a 'tfng time and ft is done for the effect ’t has on the soldiers of the allies and also the home people, who hope that ft means a 'great advantage over the Germans. On the other hand, if there was an actual food shortage in Germany it is probable that it would be denied from (German sources. , Mr. Reynolds estates that from Winnipeg they make a jurrip of 2,000 mild., going to Seattle, Portland, Frisco and other places, playing the Orpheum circuit. Mir. and Mrs. Reynolds stopped at ‘the Fort Carey hotel in Winnipeg, which they state is finer than the Btackstone in Chicago. Their room was $5 per day, but before the war it was only $2 per day.