The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1945-04-26
LETTERS FROM THE
FIGHTING FRONTS

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FIGHTING FRONTS
The following letter was writ
ten by Cpl. Fred RouSh, who is
stationed somewhere in central
England, to his wife, and was
recently received by his mother
Mrs. Flora l.. Roush.
My Dear Wife:
I shall try to set down a few
impressions of my furlough be-
fore they are forgotten. I spent
the greater part of the time in
London finding plenty to do.
Madame Tussand's waxworks
seem to me to be somewhat ov-
er-rated and actually something
of a catch-penny scheme. The
wax statues of the famous and
notorious are of course well
done, but in the case of the
living newsreels have made such
rather superfluous. The histori-
cal character mainly kings of
England and presidents of the
U. S.-are more interesting.
Possibly the show was better
before fires and air raids de-
stroyed part of it.
Sunday evening is a dull time
in any English town, even Lon
don, and so the Red Cross sent
me out to an address in the
West End which I located after
some difficulty. They were a
childless middle-aged pie
who made a habit of entertain
ing Allied servicemen. They told
me about a Norwegian flier
and a couple of Poles and said
I was the 18th American and
the first from Montana. In the
early days of the war, one Of
the Poles couldn't talk much
English, but knew German as
does Mrs. - so they talked
German. I asked whether they
ever talked politics, and was
told the Poles felt very bitter
about the CurZon line and
wished that the King of Eng
land might also become King of
Poland, if that were practicable.
The Poles also hate the Ger
mans more than any of the
other Allies, more even than the
Norwegians. These people were
bombed out of the house they
were living in at the beginning
OF the war. I asked them how
they stood it during the blitz,
when there wasn't much chance
to sleep for months on end and
they said they didn't know how
they stood it. incidentally, some
people are still sleeping in the
London subways.
The trip through the Houses
of Parliment was much like any
other conducted tour. One thing
was explained that you may
have noticed in the papers,
when a House votes the mem
bers assemble in different lob
bleS, according to their views,
when they are counted. That's
why a vote in Parliment is
called a division. The House
OF Commons part of the build
ing was destroyed by the Ger
mans and Commons now meet
in the House of Lords. Few of
the Lords come to Parliment
and they are tucked away in a
smaller room somewhere.
The most interesting part of
my furlough was the visit to
the Law Courts, where I hap
pened to see and hear parts of
two interesting cases in the
Court Of Appeals. AS you pos
sibly know English lawyers and
judges wear wigs and robes. In
this court the lawyers (they
have other names for them ov-
er here) wore black and the
three judges wore red robes
trimmed with white fur. The
court room was smaller than
most of those I've seen in Am
erica, and not too crowded con-
sidering the sensational nature
of one case. I heard the judges
summing up in the appeal of
a Raj man who had been con-
victed of numbering a WAAF in
a lower court. It was an inter-
esting study in evidence. The
other case was appealed by his
lawyer for a man Who had
caught his wife with an Ameri-
can negro soldier and hit her
over her head with a bottle,
breaking the bottle and cutting
her head ope.l. He was tried