Norwich bulletin., 1917-12-28

!, thing resemb bling an 0, but it is fiat and oblong. If the latest discovery re- veals the existence of forms more nearly approxfmating our own we shall be proud of the proof thus afforded Of our alphabet's long ancestry.-i1onden l Chronicle.
 l At several piaeee on the front we 1 have now for some days been using German guns against the enemy, and l conspicuously useful have been nye 1 field guns taken in the Bourbon Woods 1 area. Elsewhere we have used 5.ss
 and any quantity Of machine guns. | There is great abundance Of an1nnunl- 1 tion for all the captured pieces. Tor I besides the stores with the batteries l we have taken some larger depots, all
 the dumps-i1ke nearly everything else. l including the trenches, snipers' posts l and headauarter positions-being most | elaborately camoufia ged to conceal ! them from airrnen. In this sudden 1 irruption into country where the Ger 1 man was not expecting us. and had no | time to get away in proper order, we 1 have learned a lot about his casa1ou- i f1ace methods. It is subject, now ever on which he can teach us little. l-London Times.
 The Beriiner Taseblatt gives prom
 inenee toe, to pas5ase 1ss in Her RsFn ssnn 6 seems to have been carefully cut out of most of the reports. l. is a re-
 markable statement of Gernany's fi- i nancial position.
 | Helfferich has been semi officially de- scribed as candidate for further of l flee, it is necessary to be clear about
 his past achievements. He proceed l ed:
 The financing Of the war has really net been effective. We have voted between 25.0o9-09o pounds and 37,5oo,- GOO pounds of new taxes. but at the same time we have lost customs du = ties to the amount of at least 12,500,- I 000 pounds. We are able to balance | the budget only by leaving tho whole 1 of our military expenditure out Of the extraordinary war expenditure. We have new debt to the amount Of B. 900, 100000 pounds, and for the ser vice of this debt we need from 35o,-
 100000 to 4oe.ooo.ooo pounds. But in this direction practically nothing has been done. The result is that the credit of the German empire has been terribly reduced abroad.
 improvement in the German exchange at Stockholm after the victories in Italy is an absolute proof that the general deterioration in the German exchange has been due to the fan in i German credit. He remarked that people in neutral countries are able to buy German war loan at oi1e-half
 or its face value. and so, if German credit were sound. to make a profit of 100 per cent. but that they do not do so. He complained of the effect of the frequent Pan German announce ments that. if Germany does not get a war indemnity. she is bankrupt London Times.
 At a conference of the Irish potato merchants at Belfast yesterday. it was decided to ask the food controller to amend the potato order to permit ex- port trade. Mr. Barrie. M. F.. said that the Irish potato surplus amount ed to 1.25o,ooo tons. and if this did not get out of the country farmers would reduce Their potato acreage next year.-London Chronicle.
 IF the statement be true that the Germans have mounted big guns for the defence of Jeru salem, including one of Is 1-2 in. calibre, on the site
 Of Calvary, it may be necessary fot City. If so. that will be no new ex perience for Jerusalem, though it has had a fairly restfui time since the Turks consolidated their hold on i,
 in the early years of the sixteenth
 is sone long record of siege after siege
 stretching back for nearly 5000 years
 to it's initial capture by the army o1 1 Juddh Tn B. C. l400.
 When Pompev besieRed Jefusa lsm
 in B. c. 63 he almost entirely destroy ed the city, and over "a GOO of it's de-
 lenders were slain: but the rreatcsi | of all the many sieges of Jerusalem
 was that conducted by the Romans
 under Vespasian and Titus in 4. D. 70. when it was completely destroyed and the Jewish nation scattered. In A. D. 1S5 Severus captured it's pile o1
 ruins and rsbuilt 1t, at the same time changing it's name to Aelia Capftnlina by which it was known for two hun
 dred years. until in A. D. s55 the Elm peror Constantine built the Martyr
 lon" on the site of the Cruciffx, and revived the ancient name.
 The eoisheviks are.-so far sS tsAey
 can-playine havoc with the accepted
 notions of property, and 1t must De difficult to say at the moment to whom
 any definitf piece of land in Russia
 belongs. Fortunately in the event o1
 land nationaiisation, there is no lack of the material to SD round. An equal division all round will give about tiair- ty three acres to each inhabitaiit T while if Asiatie Russfa we're cof,sid : cred by itself the aii0wancn would be as much as fsD acres. The same pro. cess applied to this congestsn coun try tincludinS Ireiand) would yield
 cnly about one and d haIf aore apiece
 and to the whole British Empire fwen-