Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-11-10
WAR VETERAN TELLS
OF SOLDIERS NEEDS
CONTINUED from First Page.l

the field or trenches unless they have
endured it.
Personally cannot testify wildly
to the horrors of war because my
experience was confined to fourteen
months campaigning with the Boer
army, in that war when England
swiped the Transvaal from the Dutch
farmers. Considered as a war there
were no horrors in that conflict, on
the Boer side, at least. Those old
rangers fought mostly on horse
back, moving rapidly from action to
action and were not long in camp.
The British, however, led no such
open and healthy life l saw them
at night about their canteens, wal
lowing in drink, when they had the
price to pay for 1t, and u drunken
Tommy is in nowise Il noble
spectacle. In those extensive camps
of English soldiers there was not one
shack" that l ever saw or heard of.
There was no headquarters even
where a man could write a letter or
sit down for an hours reading. The
British soldier, If quite human and
inexperienced before reaching South
Africa, was completely vitiated with
in a few months. This was known
and marked by thoughtful officers
whom 1 have often heard say 1t was
a shame that some means of whole-
some amusement was not provided
for the soldier. Verify no one can
measure the benefits resulting from
this campaign to further the ac-
commodation provided by the Chris
tian associations. Just think of 1t
a thoroughly equipped Y. M. c. A.
shack even provides a hot or cold
bath. And as to the luxury of n
bath at the front can testify.
Reader, were you ever in such a
situation that for three months you
had no chance to souse your carcass
in tub or a pool of water? No,
well, consider this when they come
for contribution to purchase home
things for the Sammies. Three such
unwashed months it was my luck TO
put in with Boer commando. We
were so busy making our escape and
it being the dry season / never had
an opportunity to get in water until
reaching Pretoria, the night before
1t was seized by the British forces.
With long whiskers and plastered
with Mother Earth so that ones own
mother could not have recognized
you my eye spotted a sign advertis-
ing an American laundry as we fled
northward
1t was in charge of a Pennsylvania
man named Nelson who had started
the enterprise on a shoestring and
was making good Despite our dis
guise he was generous enough to in
Vite couple of us in to the wash
room of his establishment and there
we wallowed in steaming hot water,
scented soap and O dry-off with
genuine crash towels until the roll
of British drums warned us of cap
ture and perhaps worse. Man alive,
that bath was Heaven. Nothing, 1t
seemed to me then, could give
human being such relief ms the
luxury of a bath when at the front.
| mention this as one of the COM
movement. 1t may Eeem trifIing,
but believe me. it is not to the soldier
boy away from home.
BY all tokens. the enthusiasm of
the present has not reached the
heights recorded in our Civil War
When men and women rose to every
emergency almost before IL was nd
vertised. On one occasion II is told
an order was sent to Boston for S.
600 shirts for the troops at Peters
burg. Every church in that city
instantly sent a delegation of needle
workers to Union Hall, suburban
towns contributed. and within for%y-
eight hours the shirts were made up
and on the way TO the front.
temperance ami industry, said a
philosopher, are the two great physi-
clans of man. At the battle front
and in the camps there is not n great
deal of leisure time but when there
is an idle hour you will find MANY
man who sighs for and Graves n
shack. however little. where he can
have decency and cleanliness. And II
is only the super-hardened and
material minded chap who never has
tinge of inconsistencies.