Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1918 — How Would You Get Rid Of Miles of Barbed Wire?; [ARTICLE]

How Would You Get Rid Of Miles of Barbed Wire?;

One of the Many Problems the Red Cross Has to Meet.

Have you ever thought what strange and baffling problems must come up tc the Red Cross workers when they start out to rebuild a French towp —just the problem of the barbed wire, for instance? This letter tells It: "We have nearly every day about half a dozen German prisoners working amongst us, who are escorted in to work in the morning by a polio and called for In the evening. They appear quite harmless, but we have too many evidences all around us to prove that their race is quite to the contrary. “You should see the barbed wire—miles and miles of it How any one could ever get through ft, let alone under fire, is beyond me. It’s usually

coiled and stretched around iron stake* or crosses about four feet long, and the whole thing makes a waist high mass sometimes 15 or 20 feet wide. There are really acres of it around here, and when you think how many strips of it there are, stretching from Belgium to Switzerland —why, it’s go. Ing to be a real problem after the way to get it all up and out of the way. I bet a lot of people walk into it through the snow this winter. “We came across unexplodetj sheila now and then and hand grenades of various shapes and sizes also; but, believe me, we leave them alone. There are four on the wall in our back yard and several in a field near by."