The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1918-05-09

can hardly tell the ace Of spades from
the ace Of hearts. The owners of these
decks sometimes condescend to lend
them after much coaxing.
SO you see, MIR. Atkins has his fun
mixed in with his hardships and, con-
trary to popular belief, the rank and
file of the British army In the trenches
is one big happy family. Now in vir-
ginia, at school, i was fed on old Nc
Guffy's primary reader, which ave me
an opinion of an Englishman about
equal to a '76 Minute Mans backed up
by a Sim Feiner's. But / found Tom
; my to be the best of mates and a gen-
tleman through and through. He never
thinks of knocking his officers. If one
makes a costly mistake and Tommy
pays with his blood, there Is no gen
eral condemnation of the officer. He
Is just pitied. 1t is exactly the same
Balaclava, to say nothing of Gallipoli.
Neuve Chapelle and Loos. Personally
| remember a little incident where
twenty of us were sent on a trench
raid, only two of US returning, but l
Will tell this story later on.
l said 1t was a big happy family, and
so Ii is, but as in all happy families.
there are servants, so in the British
army there are also servants, officers
servants, or so. s." as they are termed.
In the American army the common
name for them is dog robbers" From
d controversy in the English papers,
Winston Churchill made the state
ment, as far as / can remember, that
the officers servants in the British
forces totaled nearly two hundred
thousand. He claimed that this re-
moved two hundred thousand excep-
~tionally good and well-trained fighters
from the actual firing line, claiming
that the officers, when selecting a man
for servants duty, generally picked the
man who had been out the longest and
knew the ropes.
But from my observation / find that
a large percentage of the servants do
go over the top, but behind the lines
they very seldom engage in digging
parties, fatigues, parades or drills.
This work is as necessary as actually
engaging in an attack, therefore | think
it would be safe to say that the all
round work of the two hundred thou
sand is about equal to fifty thousand
men who are on straight military du-
ties. In numerous instances, officers
servants hold the rank of lance-corpo-
rails and they assume the same duties
and authority of a butler, the n
stripe giving him precedence over the
other servants.
There are lots of amusing stories
told of 30. S."
One day one of our majors went into
the servants billet and commenced
"blinding' at them, saying that his
horse had no straw and that he per-
sonally knew that straw had been is
sued for this purpose. He called the
-lance-corporal to account. The cor
poral answered, "Blime me, sir, the
straw was issued, but there wasn't
enough left over from the servants
beds; in fact, we had to use some of
the 'ay to 'elp out, sir"
1t is needless to say that the serv-
ants dispensed with their soft beds
that particular night.
Nevertheless ii is not the fault of
the individual officer, it is just the sur
vival of a quaint old English custom.
You know an Englishman canine be
changed in a day.
But the average English officer is a
good sport. He will sit on a fire step
and listen respectfully t6 Private
Jones theory of the way the war
should be conducted. This war is
gradually crumbling the once insur-
mOuntable wall of caste.
You would be convinced of this if
you could see King George go among
his men on an inspecting tour under
fire, or pause before a little wooden