The labor standard., 1918-04-15

unfurnished, of course. It immediately refurnished it with two double-decker hunks of the latest type-nothing more. We sleep two in a corner, and 1 have one of the lowers. We have discovered, by the way, a virtue in this arrange ment. The beds are sturdy, but can be jared by q Juggling of the body, and in the event that your bedmate, above or below, is addicted to snoring (and you would be surprised how many soldiers are) you can always stop him by rocking the cradle" until he turns over. This is very handy. It saves looking all over the room for a shoe when you get up in the morning.
 There are four of us in this room. The most optimistic of the succeeding landlords of this hostelry must have had trouble in recommending it to the four generations of transients who have abided here and gone. But all the soldiers do not fare so. We are lucky! A relative of soldier "billeted out" was looking for him recently. The headquarters of the company were in former private dwelling house.
 ''Take a look upstairs" said a broth CT soldier. eff you don't find him there look out in the carriage house and in the barn loft. If he's not there he'll be In the chicken house."
 Our room doesn't afford even that relic of the castle and pride of the bungalow, a fireplace. But our next door neighbours does, and we are of ficially assigned to hang out around his grate. That solves the heat prob lem. and also the bathing question.
 Bathing facilities are limited in France-at least that. In all of France, for example, there is probably not one of those bOors who bothers you about statistics on his daily matutinal inun- dation. I do not know the favorite Saturday night pastime of the people, either, but can say that if there is a modern bathtub in this particular town the Americans have not yet found it, So we merely heat a kerosene canful of water-at our neighbours fireplace and take '.bird bath" AS there are eight men who must perform this ablu- tion about one fireplace, and good soldier takes bath twice a week, and there are only seven nights in the week, this grate is busy place.
 Drinking water is obtained only after difficulties sometimes. The American doctors are taking no ones word about She supply but their own, and we are allowed to partake only after samples have been tested. Frequently, when in a town, the municipal supply is avoided and the supply is brought in in trucks from distant points. But I am not so skeptical of water as I was.
 Our last station was near hospital. In front of this hospital always hung a big canvas bag full of invitingly cool water. I cannot speak for the whole company, but my squad know used always to drink thereof. We had kept 1t up for something near a month when one day a doctor in tortoise-shel glasses and a white apron espied sol dier partaking at the bag. He became immediately very vOciferOusly appre- hensive and expostulatory. -
 s'For the great .jumped-ufp Holy Moses, man." said he, ''don't drink that. That's where we keep all the samples of contaminated water from this part of France" -5r .
 Find Disease Germs.
 In the last IF days we've found germs of 13 deadly diseases right in that container. There are nine million bacteria to the square inch in that enough germs in that bag to kill the whole German army. I should say that my squad consumed several cubic feet of that water, and don't know enough about mathematics to compute the pRATEnE nE MQc MhRcAAIl