The Wisconsin tobacco reporter. (Edgerton, Wis.) 1877-1950, 1918-12-13
The Telephones of France.

Nantes, France, Oct. %, 1918.
Dear Friend:-We have American
telephone girls in this town and West
ern Electric phones, u. S. government
stuff of course. The French don't
seem to use cross-arms much, and their
method of construction is much diff r
ent than ours. About all they use is
iron brackets, which are made out Of
round iron about of an inca in diam
eter, and put on with bolts. They stick
out about foot on one side of the pole
and about six inches on the other. As
a rule they don't have more than
one phone in the smaller towns and l
guess they don't ever intend to put any
more in, so the bracket system works
good enough. You very seldom see
farm house in this country, and for
that reason there are no rural line 8
like ours. Wherever you see hou e
there lis nearly always small villagt,
and in most places there there are lots
of them only short distance apart.
/ am working in the Assistant Pro-
vost MarshaPs Office just at present,
in city named Nantes, France, and
she's some town too but We'll get to
that later. Don't know whether I've
written you letter since | got hauled
away from the lines or not, but the
chances are that you have heard my
tale of woe from source some or anoth-
err, so won't bother you with much Of
it. l really believe that playing sol
der at the front is darned near as
risky as driving a Ford on a muddy
road. I'll make long story short by
saying that after | went over the top
the last, / came to in hospital amor g
the white sheets. And want to say
that up until that time had lived and
labored under the impression that white
sheets and pillows had gone out of
style many moons ago. A bed with
springs in it and four legs to hold it
up, seemed to be something had seen
IN q dream, and real American girl
was something that didn't exist. /
went thru couple of hospitals and
replacement camp and from there was
here to do military police duty, of which
/ always had dread. Somehow was
lucky enough to miss ittho, and put
me in the P. Ms Office with n W
handle, desk sergeant. You see, VIII
a fellow goes to hospital to replace
ment camp, he goes before a board #
doctors who examine him and put him
in class according to the kind of duty
he is fit for. If you are fit to go back
to the front, they give you CAL.
They gave me "B-2'', which means six
months behind the lines, but you Or
called up every two months for re-ex.
animation and of course, re-classifi. a
ton. An order came out short tine
ago to re-classify all B class men It
once, so went before board aga n
and when my papers came back was
marked B. again, but light duty out
of doors was recommended by the
board, so I suppose I'll soon lose this
job if it is followed.
Now I'll say word or two about the
town. This is one of Frances larger
cities and is only about 80 miles from
sea port. They don't wear "tin lids
here anyway, that's one big consola-
ton because where I'm used to soldier
ing, fellow has to sleep with them on
so that he can rest fairly we'll assured
that he wont awake up in the morning
with a mug full of Kaiser Bill's iron
rations. We have something like 80
M Ps. on post here all the time, so
maybe if / get by on this job I'll be
able to hold down the same kind of
position on the Edgerton police force
when I get~back. Sometimes there are
as high as 80 arrests made here after
7:3O o. m, so you see the job isn't as
soft as it might be A fellow has to
listen to some awful tales of woe at
times, and very often soldier comes
in under the escort of M. P who
carries the idea in his noble bean that
there are not enough men in the Amer
can Expeditionery Force to handle him.
l little French wine will do won
ders sometimes you know. l don't
have any of that rough stuff to do tho,
because there are always enough men
around to take care of the boys that
get over ambitious. / never could
savoy any kind of a jolt on police
force and / hope stay lucky enough
to steer shy, but job in the office is a
different proposition.
The French people sure are enthus-
iastic over the recent victories of the
Allies in the field. The day after Lille
was retaken by the French, this old
town looked like Front street in Edger-
ton on Fourth of July morning. Just
now / am wondering where they are
going to find room for the flags on some
of these buildings when peace is de-
clared. France is quaint and queer
old country and when a fellow first
lands he sees lots of things that are
really funny to him, but one soon gets
used to them and lives along just as if
he was native But here's one thing
that will never cease to be funny; you
know the saying, ''Love always finds a
way" You'll see an American soldier
coming along the street who can not
speak a word of French excepting
"Oui. oui, mademoiselle, with little
French girl on his arm who can't savoy
word of English, but they both seem
to be having hell of time. This
French lingo is little difficult to learn
on account of the pronunciation and
the way they mix things up. but that
isn't the worst of it. Some Frenchman
will come along and hand you line so
fast that it sounds like Cannibal Island
stuff and you realize that you don't
know thing about the language after
all. I'll take the good old U. S. A.
for mine.
The folks won't have to worry much
about Xmas present for US buns this