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Show Tb army .ordnance dfntsrfrcvt tv negotiated approximately 12,000 con-tracts con-tracts since tills coum 17 -m. . s ., war, involving within $175,000,000. the total funds directly available- for the department, for the present ftfc:;I year $3,383,280,015. Additional contracts con-tracts totaling $1,503,703,741 have bwi' entered Into on the authority of con gress pending appropriation of 1111 amount aggregating $1,671,460,750. The magnitude of the task of the ordnance department financially Is evidenced evi-denced by the disbursement recently In a single day of more than $25,000,000 on ordinary contract vouchers. Disbursements Dis-bursements for the month of April, 1918, ran to $356,884,803, an Interesting amount as compared with the $5.05,-264 $5.05,-264 disbursed by the ordnance department depart-ment in April, 1917. These disbursements disburse-ments were made at the ordnance office, of-fice, in Washington. , Amounts disbursed dis-bursed at government arsenals are not Included. One check recently drawn by the ordnance ord-nance disbursing officer for ordnance material was for $18,750,000. One requisition re-quisition made recently by this samp officer on the treasury was for $109,-000,000. $109,-000,000. This is the largest single requisition requi-sition ever made by any United States disbursing officer. . Prior to two months ago, before the ordnance department established Its 11 district offices which zoned the country to expedite payments to contractors and relieve the strain upon the main office In Washington, the disbursing officer at Washington signed from 500 to 3,000 checks a day. Because of the instruction1 of gas officers of-ficers who have been at the various camps for the last six months, the troops which are going forward to France are well posted on methods of combating gas attacks, says a statement state-ment authorized by the war department depart-ment A group of British gas officers has been in this country since lust summer. One of these, men has been At each of the training camps, advising and Assisting the division gas officer. . All the men going overseas are supplied sup-plied with gas helmets. Under the division di-vision gas officers and their assistants, the men are drilled la the use of masks, taught how to detect ,Jlw presence pres-ence of gas, and given actual experience experi-ence with different sorts of gases. Mimic gas shells and cloud attacks, used often at night In connection with high explosives, help to make the training train-ing realistic. The United States has been able to build on the experience of the British and French, to whom gas attacks were unknown when they entered the war. No American troops have been sent to the front without practlcul experience In iVefldjnjhemseJves jigalnst gas. fense Incudes a course of 'abouTone month. Most of the gas officers arr commissioned first lieutenants. ' One of the interesting developments of the war, according to a statement authorized by the war' department, Is the rapid expansion of the various bureaus bu-reaus of the war department At the outbreak of the war there were less than 3,000 employees on duty. The number now Is approximately 25,000, an Increase of S00 per cent While this represents a tremendou expansion, the Increase In the army Itself has been more than 1,500 per cent I Only four out of every 100 officers In the service were In the army at the , time the war began, BROWNING GUN FOR AIRCRAFTJS 0. it RATE OF FIRE SYNCHRONIZED WITH REVOLUTIONS OF THE ' TRACTOR, PROPELLER. BASEBALL CAPTURES LONDON American Army .and Navy Teams Draw Big Crowds British Officers In U. 8. Give Instruction In Qas Defense. The Browning machine gun has successfully suc-cessfully undergone a test to determine deter-mine Its value for use with aircraft This is one of three types of machine guns with which the rate of fire can be so synchronized with the revolutions revolu-tions of the propeller of a tractor airplane air-plane that the gun can be fired by the pilot of a combat plane through the revolving blades. " . ' ' Airplane propellers revolve at from 800 to 2,000 revolutions per minute. The machine gun Is connected with the airplane engine by a mechanical or hydraulic device, and impulses from the crank shaft are transmuted to the machine gun. .. The rate of fire of the machine gun is constant and Its fire Is synchronized with the revolving propeller pro-peller blades by "wasting" a certain percentage of the impulses it receives from the airplane engine ami by having hav-ing the remaining impulses trip or pull the trigger so that the gun fires Just at the fraction of the second when the propeller blades are clear of the line of Are. . . - The pilot operates the gun by means of a lever which controls the circuit nd allows the Impulses to trip the trigger. "As the latest wonder of the world London has taken to baseball," says "a committee on public Information representative in London. "The English Eng-lish never before had much use for our great game. They called it an exaggerated ex-aggerated form of rounders and wondered won-dered what the noise was all about, but the American and Canadian soldiers sol-diers in England have been educating them. . "A regular league of eight teams has started a summer schedule, and the English public Is learning what It has missed. Big crowds witness the game the sport bids lair "to !Fe'coT!$aYi&IAJ popular. .Here Is the way Thomas Burke, the short-story writer, reports s game In the London Star of May 27. .I;' "'Last week I discovered baseball. The match between the Army and Navy teams was my first glimpse of a pastime that has captivated a continent conti-nent and I can well understand Its appeal ap-peal to a modern temperament Believe Be-lieve me, it's good goods. And the crowd I I had heard and read much of baseball fans and. their method of rooting, root-ing, but my conceptions were nothing near the real thing. The grandstands, crowded with army and navy : fans, bristling with megaphones and tossing hats and demoniac faces, would have made a superb subject for a lithograph by 8lr Frank Bragwyn. The gas defense service Is now manufacturing manu-facturing about K.000 horse gas masks per day. These are being sent to France, and It Is expected that within a short time every horse connected with the American expeditionary forces will be equipped with the new masks. The gas defense service has a completely com-pletely equipped fuctory for the manufacture manu-facture of the masks. In less than three weeks a building was selected and the factory was producing masks. The Introduction of riveting machinery has done away with the heavy hand sewing of the frame which supports the masks on the face of the horses. The masks are so constructed that no metal or chemically Impregnated parts can chafe the horse. ' In Bavaria the monthly meat ration has been cut 20 per cent from l.(XX) 1 to SO0 gram according to German newspapers. The monthly meat ration j In Saxony has been reduced from 800 to 700 grams, public officials are re-ported re-ported In the Pninninn press as discus sing the poHslblllty of a further redue-tlon redue-tlon of the bread ration In Prussia. ' A Munich paper reports that from ' the bediming of the war to March 1. 1(118, Bavarian hog stocks have de- creased from 2.100.312 to 700.301 bend. The Danish boir census shows a decrease de-crease from 1,051,000 hogs July 12, ( 1!)17, to 7S0.OM December 5, WW, or a dfcreHse of oiic ililrd the number at the beginning of the war. j The restriction on the Importation of " crude rubber has been followed by re-' strtctlons on Importation of four coin- t modltles possessing some of the char- : ncteristles of rubber, and capable un- ' iler some cln iiinsliinees of being Used .is substitutes for until nil rubber. fl ; li , K Actitf on 11 su'etslon of General j l'ersbiiiu iiti order bus been Issued In- ' erensiiii; enc h regiment's bund from 2S 1 '.' to ,'.0 members, l'.ntid leaders having ' I; 'i:id more tluiti live yearn' military ex-' I; ;erlence as band lenders will be mudo 1 , irst lieutenants; liaise with less than ': live years' experience sviil be made sec 1 ', 'lid lieutenants. : liesble eiilurinir 'tie bands n bucle ' j'j no! drum corps will ,e added to each 1 p( r flue nt. Kadi enrps will include tho lr ouipuny bu.rl.-ix ei' its retrltnent, and ! a uot more than 1.'! driiuiiuers. 1 "The game got hold of me before I the first pitched ball. The players In ' their hybrid costumes and huge gloves', the catcher In his gas mask, and the uiovc-i.uuts of the teams as they practiced prac-ticed runs shook roe with excitement Then the gume began and the rooting began. Ia past years I have attended various footbnM matches In mining districts dis-tricts whore the players came In for a certain amount of ragging, but they were church services rompared with the furious abuse and hating hn titled to any unfortunate who failed to play ball. " 'There was, for example, uu explosive, explo-sive, reverberating "A-h li h-h-h" whlh I have been practicing In my hack yard ever since, lint without once catching Its true quality. You should hiivu heard Admiral Sims, as college yell lender, when the Navy made a home-run home-run hit, with his "Atta hoy; oh, ntta-way ntta-way to play ball," and when they got an error he sure handed the Navy theirs. , " 'Yes ; I've got It. From now on I'm a fan.' I'm going to see every baseball match played anywhere near I-oudon. I shall never be able to watch with excitement ex-citement a cricket or football match after this; tt'd be like a tortoise nice. Come along with me to the next match mid Join me in rooting and In killing the umpire.'" In March mid April the secretary of agriculture, yi recommendation of the otllce of public roads, und rural engineering, engi-neering, approved 'Jl'J state road-build-lag projects Involving more than miles of highways under the federal aid road act. The estimated cost of these Improvements to the states is about ?i:.hhi,uki. The federal uld allowed al-lowed is more than $5,000,000. Bottlers of soft drinks In the United States may nave approximately 0O.1KK) tons of sugar annually by using other sweetening materials, according to Investigations In-vestigations by Hjieclalists 01' the Ini-reuu Ini-reuu of chemistry, 1'nltcd States department de-partment of agriculture. The bureau of chemistry in preparing in furiiih bottlers with sweetening formulas that will allow the actual sugar content in soft drinks to be cut to 50 per cent or less and at the same time w ill preserve the customary taste of the level-uses. Starch sugar, starch simp, maltose f'r-up f'r-up and hom y are the substitutes usud. |