Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 218, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1916 — SICK SOLDIERS SENT TO TEXAS HOSPITAL [ARTICLE]

SICK SOLDIERS SENT TO TEXAS HOSPITAL

Train Visits Rio Grande Valley Camps and Transfers Sufferers To San Antonio.

Mercedes, Tex., Sept. 8. —A United States hospital train passed through the Rio Grande valley gathering the sick and transferring them to the hospital at Sna Antonio. The train was composed of fourteen Pullman gars, and was in truth a hospital on wheels, equipped w’ith doctors and nurses. Most of the sick soldiers were taken from Mission, where there are many cases of para-typhoid fever among the troops. The train stopped at Llano Grande for eight sick soldiers. Para-typhoid is not a dangerous disease. It really is not as bad as dengue fever, but the terror name of typhoid is what causes all the excitiment. Well, the big ballar is over. What’s a ballar? Why, that’s Mexican for dance, and the dance given by the officers of the Indiana infantry in honor of .25(1 Texas school teachers w r as a genuine social function. The enlisted men gathered—«• thousands and wished they were participating in the dance. In appreciation of the event some of the rangers among- the spectators took off their six-shooters and carried them inside their shirts, where they would not attract so much attention, and A. Y. Baker, sheriff of Hidalgo county, removed his long barreled pistols from his boots and placed them up his sleeves. Nothing was undone to make the event as cheerful and homelike as possible. At 11 o’clock the guests were taken back to Mercedes : n the motor trucks. When Indiana soldiers get back home the big ballar will be one of the few pleasant remembrances of their life op the border.