The Brecon County Times Neath Gazette and General Advertiser for the Counties of Brecon Carmarthen Radnor Monmouth Glamorgan Cardigan Montgomery Hereford

BY THE WAY. Random Jottings about Men and Things. II The sky is sometimes A Thought bright and it is sometimes for To-day. clouded but we have on our side those great spiritual forces, which, in the long run, can never suffer defeat. Asquith. Some time ago a London 11 Rough on sewer was stopped up and the Rats. water could not get away. After examination it was found to be clogged with fat, and this was attributed to a large restaurant in the neighbourhood, where it was a custom to throw all the wash- ing-up water down ,the sink. A grease trap was installed, with the result that now 5 cwts. of grease are taken from that sink every week. Only the rats are disappointed with this economy. Saccharin, it is definitely Saccharin stated, has no injurious effect, Quite Safe. the British Medical Journal" assuring us that if one fell a victim to a saccharin habit and indulged in the secret sucking of tabloids, it would have no bad result on the system. Regarding the kind of tabloid which fizzes in the tea-cup, this is due, it is stated, to the dilution of the essential benzo-sulphinide with carbonate of soda or some similar substance that is harmless if not positively helpful to the digestion. During the siege of Paris, Paris Rations which lasted from September In 1871. 15th, 1870, to January 28th, 1871, when starvation com- pelled surrender, the population, military and civil, suffered terrible hardships from the lack of food. Horseflesh, dogs, cats, and even rats were eaten, and the city was only enabled to hold out so long as it did by a most rigid system of rationing, which was put into force at an early stage of the investment. Mr. Edwin Child, of Stockport, who went through the sie,e possesses some relics which are par- ticularly interesting at a moment when Great Britain is herself undergoing a system of rationing. These are bread and meat cards, showing that the meat ration for three days equalled about 4oz., the individual ration 2 working out at rather less than loz. per day. Mr. Child, like many others, pulled his belt tight in those days, and he has had a good long innings since then. It takes a lot to kill an Seven Weeks English soldier even on the In battlefield. The storv of Pri- Shell Holes. vate J. Taylor, of the London Fusiliers, is a remarkable illus- tration of physical endurance in a terrible strain. Last June, Taylor went over the top with his battalion, and was wounded in the thigh. For fifty-two days, from June 15th to August 7th, he remained cut off in No Man's Land." For a part of the time he was in company with another soldier who ultimately was captured by the Germans. During the daytime Taylor was obliged to remain hidden. At night, to relieve the pangs of hunger, he crawled along the ground opening up the packs of dead soldiers. From these he was able to obtain small morsels of food which kept him alive. Private Taylor has been awarded the D.C.M. He can walk only with the aid of crutches, but he still says that it is good to be alive. Mr. Harold Begbie has been They Prefer collecting the experiences of Eau de those splendid women who Cologne. have joined the Land Army, and it is not surprising to learn that the job they all most dislike is that very necessary task of spreading manure. Said one of them It's all very fine when it's ordinary farmyard manure, but what price something that calls itself Hoof and Horn?— or t1..e variety known as Blood and Meat ?— or Fish Manure on a nice hot day? Some of the things they put in the land is awful. The smell's enough to knock you over. And we lave to go on tossing it about for hours and hours. Oh, it's a beastly job but if you keep thinking of Thomas Atkins, Esq., it's not so bad. Of course, it knocks some girls clean out of business, but most of us have got used to it now. We don't like it; we prefer eau de Cologne but we can stick it. Oh, you can stick anything if you've got a good heart and a strong pair of shoulders." Which is the right spirit for all of us in these days. Even if you haven't a strong heart and a good pair of shoulders (we purposely reverse the adjectives) you can achieve wonders by remembering Thomas Atkins, Esq., and the effort that he is worth. Our customary feature The "Fame's Bede Roll" is Ack-Emma" crowded out this week, but as a Fighter, we must find room for one splendid feat of gallantry in the air. This is to the credit, not of an Officer, but of an Air Mechanic Ack- Emmas" they are called in the Air Ser- vice. He was up in a seaplane, one of two which had left an East Coast base on patrol duty. While the other machine was flying some distance ahead, five enemy seaplanes- two twin-seaters and three single-seaters— dived out of the clouds at the rearmost machine. The three single-seaters closed in behind the tail of our seaplane, and opened fire at between 200 and 300 yards, hitting our machine frequently. The British seaplane kept up a running fight, and, by steering a zig-zag course, enabled the engineer and the wireless operator to bring the rear guns to bear. The engineer succeeded in hitting one single-seater, causing it to side-slip and crash into the water. The enemy two-seaters circled round the crashed machine, while the remain- ing two single-seaters kept up the fight for another five minutes and then turned back. The man who carried on this fight against odds was Air Mechanic J. H. Robinson, and the King has given him the D.S.M. for his fine feat.

THE LAND WOMEN. They drive the motor tractors and they walk behind the ploughs They feed the lambs and pigs and calvj- they feed and milk the cows They clean out all the stables and the styes and yards—for now's The time to win the War. Of course it makes them tired, but it keeps them jolly fit! And they think of all the boys in France, their patience and their grit; And they say, "God helping 'them and us, we all will do our bit To help to win the War."

RUHLEBEN'S LESSON. Rationing of Food Helps All to Get a Share. The point enforced by our Cartoon this week is that people who grumble about the ration- ing of food are usually people who have not yet felt the pinch of the war, and who grumble because they are very selfish and very blind to the hardships which thousands of their countrymen have and are enduring, because of the war, without grumbling at all. The point has an even larger application. It covers every case where sacrifice of small personal comforts and conveniences for the welfare of the nation is made grudgingly and in the spirit of complaint. For a foil to his comfortable, well-fed grumbler our artist pictures the wasted frame of a man who has been immured in the Ger- man camp for civilian prisoners of war at Ruhleben. Many hundreds of Englishmen have been detained there for three and a-half years, and those who have lately returned to England all tell the same story—that they had very spare living indeed and had to de- pend for food to keep body and soul together almost entirely on parcels sent to them from England. Did they grumble about their lot ? Not a bit of it. On the contrary, they accepted the fortune of war cheerfully and kept their tails up" all the time. The sailors who guard us on the seas, the soldiers who are fighting our battles in France, have times of difficulty about rations. Do they grumble ? Not a bit of it. They growse, but growsing is different from ill conditioned grumbling, and their letters home always de- clare they are "in the pink." We at home, thanks to the sailors and soldiers, have food enough for all if it is evenly shared, and rationing is the only means by which can dis- tribution can be assured. Here and there the machinery of rationing may work irregularly at first, and where there is such mischance let everyone approach the difficulties in the spirit of making the best of it and setting the irregularity right without a fuss. A little patience, plenty of goodwill—these are ways in which we may all manifest a real patriotism. The story of the Ruhleben internment camp shows the value of a rationing system well organised and well administered. The camp leaders there saw to it that the parcels from England were shared out so that all had food even if the quantities were spare. The Ger- mans provided only a daily ration of potatoes for their prisoners, and the parcels from Eng- land alone saved the situation. There was not a man there who called the system of sharing the parcels a dashed nuisance." All were in the same boat, and all shared alike. One result was that many Germans in Berlin envied the English prisoners, and Mr. E. L. Pyke, who was lately released, says that the Prussian authorities more than once had fears that the mob would attack Ruhleben in order to get at the English parcels Why was this ? Partly because many people in Berlin were desperately hungry. Food was very scarce indeed in Germany, and although the Germans had cards for rations, just as we have now, the rich people got more than their share because they were ready to.pay for it, and poor people who could not pay exorbitant prices had to go without! Mr. Pyke tells how he bought a secretly-fattened chicken for 45s., how in Berlin, when he was out on parole one day, he paid £ 9 for a bad lunch for two, how he paid 12s. for a fresh cabbage, and 4s. 6d. for a pound of Brussels sprouts,. If the German Food Controller were doing his duty to all classes of the com- munity alike, this could not have happened— but that is another story. Before we call rationing "a dashed nuisance," let us remember two things that so far we have fared far better in matters of food than any other belligerent European nation engaged in the Great War, and that rationing is the only system that will ensure for everybody a fair share of certain essential foods of which there is now a world shortage. It is up to each one of us to take the rationing system cheerfully, and if we remember the lesson of Ruhleben we shall make light not only of rationing restrictions but of many other little interferences with our daily life that the further necessities of the war may inflict on us. &

WAR MAXIMS. Eat less; breathe more. Talk less; think more. Ride less; walk more. Clothe less; bathe more. Worry less work more.

THE STUNT MERCHANT. Tricks to Dodge Death in the Clouds. [BY LIEUT. F. J. SLEATH.] THE great development in air fighting during the last two years has forced the pilot fighter to acquire an attainment in which individuality counts for everything. Not only must he be able to keep the air with his machine; he must be able to "stunt." In aerial combats victory goes to the airman who can manoeuvre most quickly into a shooting position known as a dead spot "—that is to say, a position from which his opponent's guns cannot be brought to bear against him. Similarly, when attacked that pilot who can extricate himself mostquickly from such a position and can turn the tables on his adversary, is he who is most likely to be victorious, or, at all events, who will live to fight another day. Quickness in manoeuvring is the sine qua non of success in air fighting, and quickness in manoeuvring depends on the ability of the airman to make his machine do tricks. Thus if a pilot desires to take up a position a short distance to the right, his quickest way of reaching it is to side-slip. To get behind an attacking machine—and a single-seater pilot obviously must do this before he can use his gun—he may either loop-the-loop direct or side-loop. el To deceive a persistent attacker, or to upset the range of anti-aircraft gunners, he must be able to perform some such manoeuvre as the spinning nose-dive, which will take him to a safe distance from his enemy, while giving the latter the impression that he has been mortally injured. Such tricks in the Flying Corps vernacular are called "stunts." The pilot who has a particularly large number at his command, is a "stunt-merchant." And the greatest stunt-merchant is the best pilot-fighter. The stunt-merchant is born, not made. Everything depends on the individuality of the flier himself. Each time he sends his machine into some stunt manoeuvre for the first time, he takes a step into the unknown. Not only must he be able to begin the manoeuvre'; he must be able to return to the normal again, or his career comes to a quick and fatal close. It is often a case of a hit or a miss. Yet every day you can see the British boy airmen practising stunts, new and old, sometimes making the observers go sick with apprehension as to the result of their manoeuvres; but always practising and practising. For the British schoolboy pilot has the sporting instinct big within him, and stunting is the sportsman's gaino.

We are fighting for our lives, the lives of every man, woman, and child here and every- where else. I-Fe are fighting that we may not be herded into actual slavery such as the Germans have estab- lished by force of their arms in large parts of Europe. We are fighting against eighteen hours a day forced labour under the lash or at the point of the bayonet, with a dog's death and a dog's burial at the end of it. We are fighting that men, women, and children may not be tortured, burned, and mutilated." —MR. 1UDYAKJD Km.I NO. -=- SOME OF OUR PRISONERS. — [British Official. The Germans have boasted of their capture of prisoners in the Great Offensive. Our men oaptured prisoners too. Here is a sample group. Under the Hun dis- pensation man will become once more the natural prey, body and goods, of his better-armed neighbour. Women will be the mere instrument for continuing the breed: the vessel of man's lust and man's cruelty; and labour will become a thing to be knocked on the head if it dares to give trouble, and worked to death if it does not. And from this order of life there will be no appeal, no possibility of any escape." —MR. RTDYARD KIIUM;.

"RATIONS" IN GERMANY. The Poor Have Cards and the Rich Eat the Food. WE have for three years or more been familiar in outline with the elaborate food regulations of the German Government, and sometimes we have blamed our own Administration for delay and neglect in this vital matter. The experiment of rationing London and the Home Counties in meat, butter, and margarine is now some weeks old, the. sugar regulations have been in force since the New Year, and we have some material for comparison between ourselves and Germany, and, having it, we may thank the goodness and the grace," as the hymn says, that our daily food is rationed here on sensible lines, and not under a Prussian system of so-called" efficiency." Our most prominent advantage is that we do get our rations, and pay for them the prices fixed by the Food Controller. German food cards are often mere useless scraps of paper. In vain their careful experts in figures ascertain the available supply, and divide it by the sum of the population—the rations will not go round. Mr. Percy Shuttlewood, of our Ministry of Food, tells us why. It is because in Ger- many the rich can obtain at an exorbitant price rationed foods in almost any quantity they desire. Government officials do not confine themselves to rationed quantities, though they may pay controlled prices. The remainder of the population finds that it can neither obtain its food in the quantity promised, nor at the price fixed. Three-fourths of the people in Germany try to evade the regulations, and many succeed. The maximum price of pork in Germany is Is. 5Acl. per pound, but a 151b. ham has been sold in Hamburg for X47 10s. Sausages are offered and sold for 14s. a pound without penalty. Krupp and other large firms habitually obtain extra supplies of food by paying excess prices, and go unprosecuted. The Prussian system breaks down where profiteers are con- cerned. Almost every food is in theory carefully rationed according to supplies available in the locality, but Ham- burgers find that lib. of white cabbage, nominally obtainable for one coupon, some- times costs several. National Kitchens sometimes supply food without tickets, and sometimes demand the deposit of coupons for three months ahead by an intending customer. There is a great appearance of careful attention to detail in the announcement that the egg ration of Frankfurt is 1.7 eggs every four weeks, but the luckless Frank- furter knows that eggs are being hoarded in country districts, that the rich can buy as many as they wish, and that some locali- ties are promised, or actually given, two eggs weekly, and that does not satisfy him for being allowed officially an egg and a fraction of an egg, neither of which he can lay his hands on. Some of Mr. Shuttle- wood's figures are very recent. In January, 1918, restaurant-keepers near Munich stations were found to be tempting farmers with the offer of 15s. per pound for butter. Germans may excel us in organiza- tion so far as plans go, but their actual administration is leaving many Germans very hungry. All of which means that German "efifciency" is all very well on paper, but a little thin when it is applied to people who cannot help themselves.

CUT THIS OUT. MISCELLANEOUS RECIPES. Sausage and Potato Rolls.—INGREDIENTS. -1 lb. uncooked pork sausages 3 tablespoons cooked rice or macaroni; 1 lb. mashed potato salt; pepper. METHOD. — Pass the sausage and rice or macaroni through the mincer, mix well, season with salt and pepper, and turn out on a floured board. Roll into a long sausage and cut off two inch pieces, cover these with mashed potato, roll them in dried bread-crumbs or pea-flour, after brushing over with hot fat. if this is available. Bake in a greased tin in a hot oven till nicely brown. Brown Fish Stew.—INGREDIENTS.—1 lb. fish; 1 oz. fat; 1 oz. flour; 1 onion; 1 carrot; 1 teaspoonful dried herbs; 1 pint water. METHOD.—Free the fish of skin and bone, cut into nice-sized pieces, and roll in a little flour. Melt the fat in a saucepan and fry the fish until it is brown. Take it out and fry the onion and carrot, which has been previously minced. Add the seasoning, stir in a pint of fish stock or water, and continue stirring until it boils. Add the fish, simmer for five minutes and serve with rice or boiled potato. Spiced Oatmeal Pudding. INGREDIENTS.— 5 ozs. of coarse oatmeal 1 oz. of sugar (or to taste); £ lb. of chopped dates; 1^ pints of water 1 oz. of cocoa butter; 1 dried egg; 1 small teaspoonful of spice. METHOD.—Grate the cocoa butter finely, and mix it with the sugar, spice, and fruit. Pre- pare the egg as directed, beating it well when dissolved. Bring a pint of the water to the boil, mixing the oatmeal with the remaining cold water. Pour the fast-boiling water over the mixed oatmeal, then beat in the other ingredients. Grease a basin well, pour in the mixture, and covet with a cloth. Boil the pudding steadily for two and a quarter hours. The price of cocoa butter is now 2s. per lb., and dates, which have been very expensive, will shortly be procurable at 6d. per lb. This pudding is therefore both cheap and satisfying. Marrowfat Peas with Cress Sauce.— INGREDIENTS.—I lb. of dried green peas (soaked) 1 tablespoonful of barley meal or flour; 1 gill of milk and vegetable stock; i teaspoonful of made mustard; 1 teaspoonful of tarragon or onion vinegar; l bunch of watercress seasoning. METHOD.—Put the well-soaked peas on to cook in the water in which they were soaked. Boil gently till soft; a casserole is the best thing In which to do this style of cooking. When soft, mix the meal or flour with the milk, pour it into the boiling peas, stir, and boil for five minutes. Add the well-wasbed and chopped cress and seasoning. Serve in the casserole, and send in with it fried or baked potatoes.

THE WOMAN'S PART. The Better Way of Cooking Vegetables. [BY MARGARET OSBORNE. J We can easily sacrifice too much for appear- ances in cookery, and especially in cooking vegetables. It is pleasant to see Brussels sprouts or cauliflower a vivid green or a clear green and white, but not so pleasant, in war- time, to pay the price of this little bit of vanity. Suppose we sacrifice the colour, what do we gain ? First of all our sprouts or cab- bages will taste much nicer than they used secondly, we shall miss the horrible smell of cabbage water which pervades many houses from one o'clock till two. And, thirdly, we shall save nearly 80 per cent. of the nourish- ment of all these green vegetables, which we are at such pains to grow, which are cheap and plentiful, and might make up a consider- able part of our mid-day meal. Other veget- ables and cereals also lose much of their goodness when boiled but in the case of beans, peas, rice, onions, carrots, and almost everything except the cabbage tribe, the water in which they have been boiled can be used as stock for soup or gravies, and the nourish- ment lost from one course of the dinner is transferred to another. But cabbage water (as our men who have been prisoners in Germany could tell you) is a very unpalatable basis for soup. Pigs will thrive on it, but very few cabbage eaters can keep a pig. If we can bring ourselves to forego our bit of swank and put up with cabbages that are brownish-green, we shall try the more reasonable plan of cooking greens for five minutes just as we have been used to do it, with boiling water and a pinch of soda, then throw away the water all but about a breakfast-cupful, and simmer gently with the lid on until they are cooked. If a little margarine or other fat is added it will be a great improvement, and you will save yourself washing-up by using a fireproof dish on the top of the stove or a covered pie-dish in the oven. After trying this plan once or twice you will probably find yourself quite in agreement with the Frenchwoman who thinks very bright green sprouts look uncooked and unwholesome. By-the-bye, young uncooked cabbage leaves make quite a tolerable salad, mixed with boiled beetroot and potato. About Vegetable Pies. Root vegetables may very well be boiled, and the stock from these saved for the varied purposes for which we used meat stock in more prosperous days. Whenever recipes for meat pies, rissoles, gravies, etc., say "moisten with gravy," or stock," or milk use vegetable stock instead. Pies of mixed veget- ables with potato or suet crust, or a crust made with suet and both flout, and mashed potatoes, are very good if properly made. But the vegetables must first be boiled, and at this time of year they take a long while to cook properly, and some of them take longer than others. A pie in which each kind of vegetable has had exactly its right period of preliminary cooking, which is flavoured with pot-herbs, contains an ounce or so of chopped fat bacon, cooked liver, or ox kidney, is served with a good brown gravy made with a fried onion and stock thickened with flour, and is covered with a well-browned crust, is a very different thing from the pie-dishful of haricot beans which often goes by the name of vegetable pie, and discourages further experiment. Nor is it very troublesome to prepare if you reserve for to-day's pie the remains of yester- day's vegetables and cover it with to-morrow's pastry, which will be all the better for waiting twenty-four hours before the bulk of it is baked. Tomatoes are too dear to use now. but a little bought tomato sauce is an excellent flavouring for a vegetable pie, or for the gravy served with it. Or you could try a little chopped walnut or gherkins or other pickle in this. And if your family like this or any other dish to-day, do not imagine that they will like it again to-morrow in exactly the same form and with the same flavouring. For the Sweet Tooth. Carrots and parsnips contain a great deal of sugar, so much indeed that some people dislike eating them with meat. They can be used, now apples are nearly over, as an in- gredient in sweet puddings, if mixed with a little jam. Damson jam, which seems just now to be more plentiful than other kinds, is really better for an admixture of carrot or parsnip very well boiled and carefully mashed so that no hard or stringy pieces remain. Carrots were used by many people in orthodox Christmas puddings. About one-third of vegetable to two-thirds of flour and suet is the most satisfactory proportion. (•Continued in next column.)

[Continued from last column.) If more is used, the pudding will be a com- promise between sweet and vegetable that may end in pleasing nobody.