The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-03-13

A ILL the statistics of the great
 A\ war are on such a scale or = seeming exaggeration as tc stun the mind and prevent their real meaning from becoming clear. Too often the figures giving the totals of money. property or human losses rep resent such bald facts without bringing in all the collateral relationships that they are consequently without signif icance since they. in turn, only tell sort of pallid half-truth. This is par ticularly the case with the appalling tota of those who have succumbed on the Sattlefields or died of battle wounds as computed by General March. The total of 7,354,00o which he sets out is formidable enough, but, as all must see, it is mere hint Of what such a frightful score of the dead real l. 1y means to the countries concerned.
 For, far from being an overestimate, the figures are likely to be quite under the acutalities, since, including the battle deaths only, they naturally leave out deaths due to the war but not to battle, per SC, which have reach ed an extremely high total in Russia and in the central empires and which are continuing today. And, above all these battle deaths do not tell in their millioned totals the horrors that spell- ed death to the butchered civilians of Belgium, northern France, the Balkans, Poland, Galicia and in Armenia and other parts of the Turkish empire.
 While, as to the secondard effects of war if to the dead the list of wound ed be added the figures would reacn would but partially convey their ter rible meaning. Just as it Is difficult in times of peace to convey the full demoralization that the statistics of the influenza epidemic. for instance, may indicate that nothing more IS given out than the death rate per thou sand
 For it is really the secondary figures that count. While France is represent ed. for example, in the official fig ures as losing 1.SS5,300 l1ilfeo in bat tie, the determining fact is that France entered the war with a population of 42, 900, 900 and has now barely popu- latior of 35,000 ,000, with a total oi 2,000, 900 afflicted with disease or oth- erwise incapacitated as a result of the war But even these startling figures only begin to tell what such totals of 
 SLANG WORDS AND THEIR ORIGIN From the New York Herald.
 It is necessary that the language of a nation should be refreshed and strength ened now and then by the Introduction of new words and phrases, and, as. befits democracy. these spring from the soil; not one of them descends upon us from the Olynpian heights. Neither scientific nor scholastic bodies ever enrich the common tongue with expressions so apt and full of meaning that they gain inn mediate and enduring vogue The slang Of the undergraduate collegian is pitiful- ly inept and meagre.
 For anything that can give a new zest to the vulgate we must look to the stage, the gambling house and even to the opium den and thieves resort. Returning soldiers vii. certainly bring with them much of the argot of field and trench, ot which 'cooties" is a sample. The word joint as applied ito iniquitous and oth- CT resorts comes from the joint of bam. boo from which an opium pipe is made. Dope was originally the slang term for opium-hence dope and 'dopy.' Innumerable are the verbal products oi the gambling house. Among the common est of them are -four flushing" keeping tab," standing pat" and down tc cases" To give the office or office some one Is a very old bit of London theives' slang.
 The cause of all this is quite apparent to the thinking mind. Persons of educa- ton and cultivation have a vocabulary of their own sufficiently large and varied to enable them to express themselves without going beyond its limits Those who are lacking in education sometimes coin words in an emergency that prove so expressive that they acquire general