Evening star., 1918-02-17
Cartoonist Who Drew Humor
From the Mud, Distress
and PeriIs of Ypres.
WORTH MANY ARMY CORPS,
BRITISH GENERALS THINK
His Drawings Made the Soldiers
Laugh Before He Offered Them
for Publication.

Picture the days when the trenches
around Ypres were at their worst
when the British "rkin line" was hold
ing desperately in miry bitches. with
dugouts made of any old sort of thing
and supplies far from what they are to-
dav. Picture these men hanging on
week after week, outnumbered and out
gunned waiting for Kitcheners army
to come over and turn the scale.
Would You be cheerful" Would YOU
find fun in the shells that constantly
blew YOUR shelters about or carried off
some of your fellows Would you get
a laugh out of the drudgeries and dis
comforts and the rain that came down
and down.
Vet the laugh was there. And Gu
riousIy the man was there who could
catch it and picture it. put it in way
that could make other soldiers get it
and the people back home get it and
people in other lands get it.
Bruce Bairnsfather? Surely you've
laughed at Where Did That One Co.
and IF You Know of a Better ole. Go
To 1t and I'VE Are Staying at a
Farm" and all the ways of Bert and
Alf? Well, if You haven't. you've missed
a lot.
There Still Is Hope.
Even so, there is still hope for you.
For Capt Bairnsfather is still alive
and his sense of humor is unimpaired
He has found new inspiration, not only
in the great Haig army, but in another
new army-Pershing's men. The cables
told few weeks ago of American SOL
diers detecting him sketching and of
one calling out:
"Ello, Aft: 'ow's Berto'
to hn 0rI Mt nd n
The Star beginning tomorrow. Under
a special arrangement with Capt
Bairnsfather The Star will be able to
present them twice a week-MondayS
and Thursdays They will give famil-
lar glimpses of both the British and
Yankee fighters "over there" and the
familiar touches and bracing optimism
will show Americans why British gem
erals reckon on BairnSfather as a posi-
tive military force worth several army
corps.
How this artist came to do his re-
markable work is one of the ro-
mances Of the war.
No thought of artistry was in his
mind when he went into the struggle.
His father, Mai. Thomas Bairnsfather,
had been a soldier. and he had served
with his fathers old regiment and had
passed through Aldershot. the great
British military school. When hostil-
tiles came he was out of the service, but
ors and soon found himself at the south
of Ypres salient, facing Messines ridge,
in command of a machine gun company.
There he looked after his men and
guns in long tramps in the mud at
night, often in no mans land, with
bullets whistling by. He lived in the
mud trenches and earth dugouts until.
when he finally came to live by stealth
in the remains of a half-wrecked farm
house, it was positive luxury. and the
finding of some coal and a table were
Like coming upon treasure trove.
The Inspiration.
In long days spent in this refuge. wait
ing the coming Of darkness and the
dangerous rounds of his command. came
the inspiration for his drawings. He had
never tried to do anything of the sort
commercially. though he had studfed art
and had sketch books filled with all sorts
of things
One day as he and his companions were