The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-10-05

From Stars and Stripes, France
 1NROM feeding the fires on one of
 fJ those freight hogs which go pound- GS ing past the snow lines over the divide of the Rockies to the throttle of an army locomotive bouncing along the valley of the Loire-this is the change war brought to Rofier Bowers of Lara mic, Wyoming, whose life had been bounded by the Mississippi and the he came to France a year ago.
 Roger Bowers was the first American soldier to drive locomotive in France, and today, after one year on his 4S-hour run between a base and the interior, he is famed through the length and breadth of the Loire valley.
 For Roger Bowers has friend at every crossing and every siding stop. Every Frenchman in the railroad yards and on the French trains knows the tall and thin chauffeur american with the sandy hair, freekled face and wide mouth. whose Adams apple is the wonderment of the countryside in the frankness with which
 it roams about on his neck above the army shirt. They like his smile and the way he has grafted his Wyoming drawl on to the French language.
 The men in the fields and the women in the farmhouses know the time when his big engine will come rolling along, and they wave their hands to him, ana L -l, tie. Or maybe he starts the whistling far back from curve, and madame in her kitchen and all the garcons and les pe- tites hastily come out of the doorway and start down for the siding with their arms full of apples and pears and cakes and punches of grapes. It's a lucky fireman who travels with Roger Bowers.
 At transportation department head- quarters they tell of the day an Ameri- can engineer took an American locomo- tive and American freight cars equipped with air brakes out on the line and ran at full speed toward a block set against him. Up toward the stopping place half dozen French yard men stopped. amazed as the big locomotive came on with unchecked speed. They were an- guished as the train showed no signs Of slowing up.
 The engineer had a glimpse of them dancing and waving their arms franti- call3 its he put on the air and brought the train to the usual stop in front of the block.
 For sometime thereafter that engineer until the Frenchmen found out 1t was only mechanism that had stopped the train so quickly.
 A prince of Prussia-genuineness guar anteed-who had rapiered his way through Munich or Heidelberg, bullied poor old cobblers and kept up generally the standing of his house, found himself rufflcd but intact. in a prison camp for German officers, somewhere in- the $ 0 zone.
 An American captafn, an engineering designer, who had been born in Switzer- land and spoke German perfectly, was trying to extract military information from the line of prisoners when at last they brought in the royal lieutenant.
 'Guten morgen. leutnant," observed the American officer pleasantly.
 The Prussian made a noise deep down in his throat, and his lips shook with a rolling, gutteral exclamation of disgust.
 Address me as Your Royal High nessr he demanded. drawing himself up in his chair.
 stand up!' roared the captain, How dare you address a superior officer in that manner? Remember you are only g 
 The interview proceeded satisfactorily.
 The c. M. c. is shaking hands with it. self again on this cargo saving stunt. They're leaving the soup bones behind tor vessels are bringing tons of bonesess beef to France The experiment has worked very well, although dubious cooks think the next plan may be to send all fresh ground Hamburger steak
 Pigs and finance have taken hold of the imasinations of the officers at $ headquarters. The Wallingford dreams of the man who had it all figured out that by raising rats and cats on one farm, slaughtering them for their belts, and feeding the rats on the cats and the cats on the rats. in an endless chain sys- tenn, so that all the promoter would have to do would be to boss squad of skim ners and keep track of the bookkeeping of his bank account, had nothing on the genius behind the Q. pig fund scheme.
 The pig fund prospectus sounds like a get-rich- quick advertisement-how to tuln 6o francs into 300 francs In . few months. officers form clubs to buy pigs at to francs each. The pigs are kept