avenue
in ----" well, a certain well-known American city. He was also caught up;
for the censor, being himself somewhat of a man of the world, shot the
letter back with the tart comment: "I've been there, too."

Those two men, however, were more fortunate than the average in having
their letters sent back to them for revision. The usual scheme is for
the censor to clip out completely the portion of the letter carrying the
damaging information. In case, therefore, a man has written something
innocuous--but interesting none the less to his correspondent--on the
other side, he is simply "out of luck." One can see it pays to be
careful.

On the whole--aside from the mania which seems to have possessed some
men to give away the location of their units in France--the censoring
officials declare that the army deserves a great deal of credit for
living up to both the letter and the spirit of the censor's code. They
do, however, find fault with the men who continually "over-address"
their letters--that is, who persist in tacking on the number of their
divisions to the company and regimental designations. This, for military
reasons, is forbidden, but many men seem as yet unaware of the fact.

Many Thank-you Letters

During the first half of January the base censor's office alone handled
more than 8,000 letters a day--two thousand a day increase over
December, due, no doubt, to the thank-you letters which our dutiful
soldier-men felt compelled to write in return for those bounteous
Christmas boxes. In the spring, though more transports will be coming
over, more men will be writing letters, but still the work will go on.
The abuse of the letter-writing privilege by one man might mean the loss
of many of his comrades, so the long and tough job of censoring must be
"seen through."

So, you smarty with the private code to transmit all sorts of dope to
the folks, have a care! No matter how the letters pile up, old Base
Censor, Inc., is always on the job! Like the roulette wheel at Monte
Carlo, he'll get you in the end, no matter how lucky and clever you
think yourself. Or, as Indiana's favorite poet might put it,

"The censor-man 'ull git you ef you
don't
watch
out!"

----
MIRABELLE
----

One st