The Chesterfield advertiser. [volume] (Chesterfield C.H., S.C.) 1884-1978, 1918-08-29

euom' We Soon came TO the Br1t1Sh
rest camp, where we stayed for sorne
few days. In that emp we began to
realize as never before what cos
mopolitan nation Great Britain is.
There were English, Scotch, with
their picturesque kits, Australians,
Canadians, British subjects from Afri-
ca, India and her island possessions
then there were tie Chinese, Portu-
guese and Frenchmen, and possibly
other nationalities. Yes, there were
the German prisoners. The Scotch
were by far the most distinctive in
their dress. Australians and Canadi-
ans seemed very much like country
men of ours.
/ really liked the british fare very
much, except the dinners. We got
tea, buns, cheese, butter and Jam
quite often at breakfast and supper.
At our dinners we would receive
thick soups or cold meats in addition
to cheese, butter and buns.
! The British Y. M. C. AS. are great.
There is the canteen room, where one
can get hot cocoa and sweet bread as
well as few kinds of candies. the
lecture room (where I attended the
coneert), a room fitted up as pool
room, reading roow with a good Ii
brary and such games as chess and
checkers, and a quiet room. The
quiet room" is small affair-it is
htted up with all kinds of religious
books. There were several ladies as
well as men who worked in that Y.
We were in that camp one Sunday
and l attended service at the Y. The
Church of England chaplain was GER
tainly fine. The simplicity of the
service, the statliness of the hymns
and the use of the doxology would
lead one to think that he was attend
ing Presbyterian instead of an Epis-
copallan service. Ne took several
hikes while in that town. Very enioy-
able ones they were. The first day
we were there we went by a beautiful
old church. There was magnificent
piece Of statuary, the Madonna and
Child, which we all admired very
much. Another day we went to the
beach. That, too, was a pleasant
hike. Jennings and myself met very
bright little Belgian boy, thirteen
years old, who was visiting an aunt
IN this town. His father is a prisoner
of the Germans. This little fellow
could speak broken English. He
seemed to be very familiar with
French. In this camp there was also
a very fine Salvation Army Y. M. c..
A. l did not know that they at
tempted any army work, but l wasn't
much surprised.
July 8th.-The next thing to going
home is hearing from home. Through
all of our pleasurable excitement and
the joy of "going somewhere" we
were constantly wishing that we
could hear from home. You would
be surprised how many times first
one fellow and then another would
say, "lf l could only hear from the
folks back home, I'd be happy" We
almost attained happiness on "In
dependcnce Day. but the 5th in
stead of the 4th of July is destined
to linger longer in most of our minds,
because it was then that we received
our first mail from the States.
was lucky enough to receive nine let
ters and one card. Wasn't that great?
One of the letters and the card were
from you, dated the 5th and 9th Of
June respectively.
Today Jennings and myself were
put on detail to clean up at the Y,
kind of half janitors and half libra
rians, don't you know or rather
Jocks" is janitor and am librarian.
See? We finished our work early
this morning. At present Jock" is
curled up reading Henry Esmond"
and it's obvious what I am doing.