riking feature of the war is the number of women and girls engaged
in various kinds of work back of the lines. The British Army has
thousands of them doing clerical work or driving ambulances, while in
the A.E.F. their activities so far have been limited to canteen work
with the Red Cross or Y. M. C. A.

Most of them are practical individuals doing a lot of good, but
occasionally one slips over imbued with the idea that soldiers are sort
of overgrown bacteriological specimens to be studied and handled only
with sterilized gloves.

Possibly one of the latter inspired a certain A.E.F. private to lapse
into poetry after he had stowed her baggage away and heard her
dissertation on what the camp needed. His verses were:

The ether ethered,
The cosmos coughed,
Mirabelle whispered--
The words were soft:

"I shall go," Mirabelle said--
And her voice, how it bled!--
"I shall go to be hurt
By the dead, dead, dead.
To be hurt, hurt, hurt"--
Oh, the sad, sweet mien,
And the dreepy droop
Of that all-nut bean!

"One must grow," Mirabelle wailed,
"And one grows by the knife.
I shall grow in my soul
In that awful strife.
Let me go, let me grow,"
Was the theme of her dirge;
"Let the sobbiest of sobs
Through my bosom surge."

The sergeant took a lean
On the canteen door
The captain ran away:
"What a bore! What a bore!"

WAR RISK
INSURANCE

February 12 is the
last day to take out
war risk insurance.

DO IT NOW!

----
THE MACHINE-GUN SONG.
----
(As rendered by a certain battalion of Amex
_mitrailleurs_, to the tune of "Lord Geoffrey
Amherst.")
----

We've come from old New England for to blast the bloomin' Huns,
We have sailed from afar across the sea;
We will drive the Boche before us with our baby-beauty guns
To the heart of the Rhine countree!
And to his German majesty we will not do a thing
But to spray his carcass with our hail;
And when we're through with pepp'ring hi