Weekly journal-miner., 1915-08-25
BOMB THROWING
 DEVELOPS INTO AN ART

IIdlIICy July ~ AOOll llSSPOuuSlSC VI The Associated Press.)-It was at a bombing school on a French farm where chosen soldiers brought back from the trenches were being trained in the use of the anarchists weapon, which has now become as respectable as the rifle Specialism develops as the war goes on. There are no M. B. degrees for Master Bombers yet; but that may come. any day.
 Present was the chief instructor, young Scotch subaltern with blue eyes, pleasant smile and Cock of the North spirit. He might have been 20 years old, though he did not look it. On his breast was the purple and white ribbon of the new order of the Military Cross, which you get for doing something in this war which would have won you Victoria Cross in one of the little wars.
 Also present was the assistant in- structoT, sergeant of regulars-and very much of a regular-who had three ribbons which he had won in previous campaigns. He too had blue eyes, bland blue eyes. These two un- derstood each other.
 "If you don't drop it, why it's all ripht :" said the Serpeant. "Of course. if you dos * '"
 We did not drop it.
 "And when you throw it, sir, you must look out and not hit the man behind and knock the bomb out of your hand. That has happened be- fore now to an absent minded fellow when you throw bombs"
 "They say that you sometimes pick up the German bombs and chuck them back before they explode" it was suggested.
 "Yes, sir, I've read things like that in some of the accounts of the re- porters who write from Somewhere in France" You don't happen to know where that is, sir? All I can say is that if you are going to do it you must be quick about it. l shouldn't advise delaying your decis- ion, sir, or perhaps when you reach down to pick it up neither your hand nor the bomb would be there. They'd have gone off together, sir.'
 Have you ever been hurt in your handling of bombs?" one asked. Sur prise in the bland blue eyes.
 "Oh, no, sir! Bombs are we'll be- haved if you treat them right. It's Ill in being thoughtful and consider ate of them!"
 Meanwhile he was jerking at some kind of patent fuse set in a shell of high explosive.
 "This is a poor kind, sir It's been discarded, but thought that you might like to see it. Never did like :t! Always making trouble!"
 More distance between the audience md the performer.
 'Now I've got it, sir-get down, sirw
 The audience carried out instruc- tions to the letter as army regulations require. We got behind the protec- ton of one of the practice trench .raverses. He threw the discard be- yond another wall of earth. There was sharpt report, burst of smoke and some fragments of earth were tossed into the air
 In small affair of 200 yards of trench the other day it was estimated that the British and Germans togeth- CT threw about 5000 bombs in this fashion It was enough to sadden any minister of munitions. However, the British kept the trench.
 Do the men like to become bomb ers?" one asked the subaltern.
 "I should say so. It puts them up in front. It gives them a chance to throw something-and they don't get much, cricket in France, you see. We had a pupil here last week who broke the throwing record for distance. He was pleased as punch with himself. A first-class bombing detachment has ! lot of pride of corps"
 To bomb has become as common a verb with the army as to bayonet. "We bombed them out" means a section of trench taken. As you know a trench is dug and built with sandbaks in zigzag traverses. In fol lowing the course of trench it Is as if you followed the sides of the squares of a checker board up and down and across on the same tier of The square itself is a bank of earth with the cut on either side, and in front of it. When a bombing party bombs their way into the pos session of a section of German trench there are Germans under cover of the traverses on either side of them. The German is waiting around the