Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1918-01-09
SAVING OF WARS WASTE IS ITStlt
 A BIG INDUSTRY
Eight Trains of Damaged Equipment Received Ev-
 cry Day at De Mans.
uorrespondcncc Associa ted Press.)

correspondence Associated PreSS.)
 I.e Mans, Department of the Sarthe, France, Dec. 14-On an averag. of eight trains d day bringing to Le Mans the Wastage at the battlefront consisting of thouands of tons of dam aged and ruined soldiers equipment. There have been as many as seven- teen trains a day heavily loaded with this material picked up on battlefronts and around camps. l. Mans would be the paradise of ragmen and dealers in second hand goods were it not for the fact that the French army is find ing it's own use for such of this ma terial as it is able to recuperate or repair.
 Establishments located here by the quartermaster's department recuper- ate monthly 50.0OO outer garments. 125, 900 under garments, $500 pairs of shoes, 60,000 pairs of trench boots, 25,OoO steel helmets. 27O,000 sheep skin capes and 120,000 pieces of equip ment These articles arc made ready for use again by disinfection, reno vation and repairs. There are in ad- dition, made each month from pieces of clothing that are not repairable, 100000 pairs of shippers, 120,O00 cas- es for soldiers canteens, 50,000 forage caps, 75,O0O shoe laces. 10000 cloth cases for bread loaves and 10000 wash rags.
 The rocuperation repair of worn and damaged articles began in the spring of 1916 in vast warehouses and re~ pair shops in which 5000 persons, in cluding 2,OOO refugees, mostly women, are employed.
 Here and at Les Mullins, northwest of Orleans, among the quays from which the mobilized men of the 5th military region went off to war in August, 1914, German prisoners of war now line up in front of incoming freight trains and unload quantities of great sacks that loow like the product of gigantic ragman's shop. The in describable mass invokes the cOnfus ion as we'll as the tragedy of the bat tlefield. There are pierced and dent ed helmets. worn and stained pieces o1 uniform, forage caps, great coats, leg gings, army boots and trench boots some of them pierced by bullets, some torn by shrapnQ and others shred ded by violent contact with barbeC wire.
 l All of them are covered with layers of mud of varying thicknesses ant not infrequently a garment presents 2 strain of an indefinable color, alway; easily recognezed but gotten rid o with difficulty. These garments re ceive special treatment They ar' first thrown into a acceptable where thcv go through a long and thorough cleansing before being treated as Oth CT garments.
 The first operation on the arriva of train is the sorting of the load in to three piles, leather, metal ant cloth. The cloth and canvas go a once into immense disinfection tank that arc in operation night and day and from there to the laundry. Thel they go to another warehouse wher they are separated into repairable ant unrepairable: here there is a grea deal of ripping 10 separate trimming
 from garments and to divide the gar : ments themselves into pieces of a nearly uniform size as possible t facilitate their transformation int comfortable slippers.
 , The sheep-skins are purified by sul ; phur application in the abandOne : vault of an old cemetery nearby wher 6,000 of them are treated each day, al } ter which they are made pliable an
 ready for wear again by beating mach
 inc. Some of them, are able to talk
 another turn at the front but most c
 them, along with pieces of uniform ar distributed among the assemblin
 stations at the rear for the equipmer