The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-11-14
SIavs Are Not Discouraged at Defeats Sustained
 in Poland
MEN UNIMPRESSED BY GREAT LOSSES
American Engineer Describes Condi- tions as He Saw Them in Russia. Crying Need of Russia
 Is Army Rifles

London, November 5.-~(Correspondenc of the Associated ss.)-''Russia is now 1 suffering only for want of rifles, and when she Is properly supplied at least 100000
 additional soldiers will be thrown into the field with results which only next springs campaign can tell" This Is the opinion of prominent American mining ensi- neer, who has just returned to London empire. mainly in Siberia, where he is the chief engineer of an important group of mines. Describing conditions In Rus sa, he said: "The depression which pre- vailed outside Russia during the great German drive through Poland was never really duplicated in that country. Doines- tic troubles existed as always, but the people have made their power felt as
 never before, and the only thing that could cause revolution now would be the conclusion of an unfavorable peace with the central powers.
 Russian Peasant Thriving The people of Russia are enjoying something in the nature of a boom. and the cost of living of the Russian peasant. who does not require luxuries has not appreoiably increased. The Russian peas
 ant Is not an imaginative individual. and the losses suffered in the war have not greatly impressed him. And besides. the losses incurred in the great retreat were unbelievably small when the magnitude of the fighting is taken into consideration | Il,-. ..a rifles, the wastage of which was been un- precedented, is not causing the Russians much concern, as the staff has realized that the rife used by infantry Is not an effective arm. The Russian army is now we'll supplied with heavy guns and muni tions and the infantry is being supplied with thousands of machine guns. In at lacking, the Russian infantryman almost | invariably detaches the bayonet from his | rifle and uses 1t as a knife when he leaps
 Into the German trenches He has even | been known to discard both rifla and bayonet, relying on club to win x 1 trench.
 . Teutonic Prisoners
 l For the greater part of the war we
 have used Austrian prisoners as miners ] in our mines, but lately we have been
 receiving Germans from the government
 prisoners labor bureau. These Germans
 
 labor, most of them being old men with gray boards, while others are of the stu
 dent class. many of them wearing glasses
 with thick lenses. A stan officer. who Is
 closely connected with the prisoners bureau, told me that for sometime on tho
 Dvinsk front the Russians have been
 capturing from 100 to 200 women weekly.
 These were all in German uniform, and
 were apparently serving as soldiers. German Food Shortage l Tn Petrograd l entered the recently opened museum of atrocities, but the hor- l TOTS displayed there were too much for
 me. and feeling deadly i'll was compelled oleave the place without seeing the com plete display, but l was allowed to bring ! to England an Austrian rifle cartridge loaded with an explosive bullet, which ia really miniature shrapnel shell that ex- plodes when a little plunger at the tip is driven In by contact with human target. Tn the Scandinavian countries nothing was talked about except the food short- age in Germany. and some confirmation l of this was given to me by a Dane, who represents in Berlin one of the biggest American packing companies This Dane declared that the fat allowance had been | reduced from Il to ounces a person daily
 and he stated that the German working l population would have a difficult time get ting through the winter on this reduced allowance This Dane also told mo that
 England was supplying it's prisoners in Germany with food l "In Copenhagen I learned that the In- 1 terna tional Harvester company had re-
 called all of its American employees from
 Germany, Austria Hungary. Turkey and l the Balkans, and they are being held in
 the Danish capital awaiting orders. Shipping owners in the Scandinavian countries are making enormous fortunes | out of the war and it is said that in Ber-
 gen alone this industry has created 27 now millionaires since hostilities began.n