The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1907-05-30

l. LAO 40 thO pCo ihA'htS va CAO wv
year tour of duty for the troops in
the Philippines. The tour formerly
was three years, but it has been re-
duced in the interest of the health
of both officers and men The in
surrection as such is over and there
is but little organized lighting. But
there is always trouble with the
more or less we'll organized bandits
even in Luzon and Pickering of
fighting throughout the remote isl
ands. The result is that the officers
now going out are taking the advice
of those coming home and preparing
for emergencies This preparation
usually consists in buying a light
gun that will shoot soft nosed bull
lets. OF course, this is against the
rules OF war and contrary to the reg
ulations. But the fact is that the
army six shooter is heavy affair,
and light pistol while it will kill
eventually, will not stop the rush of
. fanatical Moro or Tagalo. There
fore the most of the outgoing Off
GERS are arming themselves quite I'M
officially with very light guns that
carry a mushroom bullet. the sort
that make hole the size of lead
pencil where they go in and q hole
the size of a football where they
come out. The enlisted men, of
course. cannot indulge in the luxury
of special arms, and have to rely on
the small bore Springfield with the
steel jacketed bullet. But as far
back as the Cuban campaign the
men learned that if you scratch the
nose of st eel coated bullet with q
knife, it will mushro ,m just as ef-
fectively as though it were intended
to act that way, and it is said that
there are few of the old enlisted
men who do not carry a special clip
Of scratched cartridges for emergen-
cies. These things are just men
toned to show that there are ways
of obeying the regulations and evad-
ing them at the same time. Also
there are still more things doing in
the Philippines than always get in
to the newspapers.
The story has come out at length
as to why the British feet sailed
away from jamestown two days be-
fore the great naval fete was to have
occurred. 1t appears that Admiral
"Bob" Evans, who was in command
of the American squaron there was
in a bad humor on the morning of
the opening day. He did not want
the sailors from any of the vessels to
60 ashore, and set signal to the
effect that shore liberty was not to
be allowed to the sailors on any of
the ships, either American or for
eign OF course he had right to
boss the American ships if he chose,
but his authority over the foreign
ers was merely by courtesy The
managers of the Exposition were
Mortified a. the prospect of having no
sailors ashore. and they got into tel
ephonic communication with the
Secretary of the Navy and the order
was revoked by wire. But it had
the effect of putting the foreigners
on edge and the British fleet left
without waiting for the naval dis
play. There has been good deal
OF soreness over the incident and
more is apt to be heard from it.
The Duke of Abruzzi, who has
been the social lion of the week in
Washington, has been the guest OF
honor at number of receptions,
and just before leaving was enter
tanned by the wife of the Secretary
of the Navy at floating luncheon
on the Mayfower during his visit to
Mt. Vernon.
M