obably the most
"international" in history, and it sends letters to the base written in
forty-six different languages, excluding English. Out of 600 such
letters--a typical day's grist--the chances are but half will be written
in Italian, followed in the order of their numerousness, by those
inscribed in Polish, French and Scandinavian. The censor's staff handles
mail couched in twenty-five European languages, many tongues and
dialects of the Balkan States and a scattering few in Yiddish, Chinese,
Japanese, Hindu, Tahitian, Hawaiian, Persian and Greek, to say nothing
of a number in Philippine dialects.

A Few Are in German

An interesting by-product of the censors' work is the discovery of
foreign language interpreters within the ranks of the army. One soldier,
for example, wrote in Turkish and wrote so well that the censor handling
the letters in that tangled tongue passed on his name to those higher
up. As a result, the man was detailed to the interpreters' corps where
he is now serving his adopted country ably and well.

Seldom, say the members of the censor's staff, is anything forbidden
found in the foreign language letters. The only striking feature about
them as a whole is the small number that are written in German. In fact
the Chinese letters as a rule outnumber those expressed in the language
of the Kaiser.

Besides all this thousands of letters are sent direct to the base
censors every day, in cases where soldiers are unwilling that their own
immediate superiors should become acquainted with the contents. To
humor, therefore, the enlisted man in a former National Guard unit whose
censoring officer he suspects of trying to cut him out with The Girl
Back Home, the base censor takes the responsibility off the company
officer's shoulders; and the enlisted man feels oh! so much relieved.

Those clever chaps who devise all sorts of codes to tell the home folks
just where they are in France, meet short shrift at the censor's hands.
For example, one of them was anxious to describe a certain city in this
fair land. "You know grandmother's first name," he wrote naively,
thinking it would get by. But the particular censor it came before,
having a New England grandmother of his own, promptly sent the letter
back with the added comment, "Yes, and so do I! Can it!"

Another man was so bold as to write: "The name of the town where I am
located is the same as that of the dance hall on Umptumpus