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Show would have been dead by now," the ' surgeon told him. Early in the war an officer who wore protection of this kind would have been frowned on by his fellows as uasoldlerly. A type of. corselet of small plates of highly tempered steel Joined together by steel wires is being be-ing more and more worn by officers. Its structure adapts itself to the movements of the body, it weighs only a few pounds, and, fitting snugly as a vest, it is not cumbrous. If the son of Lord Shaughnessy, president of the-Canadian the-Canadian Pacific, who was killed recently, re-cently, had been wearing one, his life would have been saved. Since then Canadian commanders have strongly urged all their officers to buy corselets. corse-lets. This is at any rate better than no protection against bullets, unless un-less they are spent. Such is their power of penetration that they go through the thin steel, "mushrooming" "mushroom-ing" and making a larger wound than if nothing had been in their way. But In the trenches, unless one shows his head above the parapet and in moving about In the shell zone in the rear of the trenches, one is rarely exposed ta bullets. When an officer goes into a charge in face of machine gun and rifle fire he takes off his corselet. On average days in the trenches the main danger is from shrapnel bullets bul-lets and fragment from shell explosions, explo-sions, which may inflict ugly and fatal wounds preventable by comparatively thin protection to such a Vulnerable substance as human flesh. Together a corselet and steel helmet pretty well shield vital parts from missiles of low velocity. The use of the corselet is practically practical-ly limited to officers, who pay for them out of their own pockets. The expense and labor of supplying all ranks of a great army with them would seem out of the question. But gradually all the British soldiers sol-diers are being supplied with the steel helmet after their successful use by the French, who first Introduced them. The French pattern is quite graceful beside the British, which is round and somewhat the shape of a toadstool. The British is heavier than the French, and there Is method In its soup-plate grotesqueness. Thanks to Its form, a bullet which strikes It in front, instead of going through the head, as is the case with the French helmet, glances and follows the inside of the helmet, passing out at the rear. Curate Gets Victoria Cross. The Victoria cross Is rarely given even In this war of countless deeds of bravery. The Rev. Noel Melllsh, a London curate, is the first chaplain in the British army to receive the cross since the second Afghan war of 1S79. On the occasion of the presentation the units of the famous fighting army were drawn up in division, forming a hollow square on the spring green of an open field. In the center stood Mr. Mellish with another officer, who received re-ceived the distinguished service order. In the front lines stood other officers who were to receive lesser decorations. decora-tions. Before pinning the ribbon on Mel-lish's Mel-lish's breast the general read a brief account of the deed of gallantry that won him the honor. When the clergyman cler-gyman came forward those witnessing witness-ing the ceremony were agreeably Impressed Im-pressed with an extremely slender and boyish figure scarcely looking his thirty year, and indeed, looking more a gentle and reserved man of peace than a fighting parson. The general told how again and again, fighting at St. Eloi under a murderous fire, Mellish had risked his life to attend the wounded and bring them to places' of safety. Then there was a call of three cheers from the troops and these were given with a mighty roar. As already told in dispatches, Sec-od Sec-od Lieut. Arnold Whitridge, Yale 1914, son of F. W. Whitridge of New York, was among those receiving the military cross for gallantry in continuing con-tinuing to direct the fire of his battery in the face of some of the hottest fighting recently experienced, and with the enemy trenches but a few hundred yards away. Whitridge is one of a group of young American college men who joined the British artillery early in the war. DEADLY, BRUTAL RAIDS ENLIVEN TRENCH WARFARE Monotony of Existence Broken by Preparing for Assaults or Against Them. RIFLE IS OF LITTLE USE Sandbag or an Indian Battle-ax or Spiked Club the Better Weapon Inventions Fight Snipers and Trickery Many Saved by Steel Corsets. By FREDERICK PALMER. British Headquarters, France. In today's modern machine warfare, where every man was supposed to have become a pawn without Initiative of his own, has been developing the deadliest form of sport Imagination can conceive, where every combatant places his cunning, his strength and his skiH in hjind-to-hand Jightlng against those of his adversary. Hardly a day passes that there is not a trench raid. No subject is more tabooed In its details by the censor. Commanders do not want to let the enemy know why their raids succeed or fail, or why the enemy's succeed or fail Invention fights invention; secrecy se-crecy fights secrecy? All the elements' of boxing, wrestling, wres-tling, fencing and mob tactics plus the stealth of the Indian who crept up on a camp on the plains, and the team-work team-work of a professional baseball nine, are found of value. The weapon least needed is the rifle. A sandbag or an Indian battle-ax or spiked club is better. A good slugger without any weapon at all may take an adversary's loaded rifle away from him and knock him down and then kick him to death. The monotony of trench existence these days is broken by preparing for raids and against them. Battalion commanders com-manders work out schemes of strategy which would have won them fame in smaller wars. Fifty men or a thousand thou-sand may be engaged in a raid. It may be on a front of fifty yards or a thousand. thou-sand. its object is to take as many prisoners prison-ers and kill and wound as many of the enemy as you can in a few minutes; min-utes; and then to get back to your own trench. If you try to hold on to the piece of trench you have taken, the guns are turned on you, the bombers close up on either side, and machine guns and rifles are prepared to sweep the zone of retirement. An uncanny curiosity gives the soldiers sol-diers their incentive for the raids. Ordinarily Or-dinarily they never see their enemy hidden in his burrows across No Man's Land from their own burrows. Unseen bullets from unseen snipers crack overhead. Unseen guns suddenly concentrate con-centrate in a deluge of shells. Grim Monotony Continues. For months this sort of thing goes on, and the trenches of the adversaries adversa-ries remain always In the same place; grim monotony of casualties and watching continues. This arouses the desire to "get at" the enemy which the trench raid satisfies. sat-isfies. It means that you are going to spring over your parapet and rush across No Man's Land into the very houses of the enemy, and man-to-man on his doorstep prove whether you axe a better man than he is. To go over the parapet ordinarily means death. In order to make any rush there must be "interference," as they say in football, and the barb wire in front of the enemy's trench must be cut. This is usually done by the guns, which become more and more deadly in their ability to turn accurate sprays of destruction on given giv-en points. They cover the rush and they cover the return of the raiders with their prisoners. But the guns are not all; there are all kinds of organized trickery in order or-der to enable a body of soldiers to get into the enemy's trenches for a few minutes of activity, when the invaded throw themselves on their invaders at Buch close quarters that it is a question ques-tion if even a revolver is now a practical prac-tical weapon. You cannot throw it over a traverse and you can a bomb. Running into a German around the corner of a traverse, a blow may be better than a Bhot. There have been trench raids where every man who went out was responsible respon-sible for a casualty or a prisoner, while the raiders' own loss was not one in ten to the enemy's. There are also failures. Success requires that every detail should work out right. The British inaugurated trench raiding, which the Germans promptly adapted. Where its development will end no one dares venture to say. One advantage of any raid is that those who return are bound to bring back some information of value to the intelligence corps. Steel Corsets Save Lives. "Score one for breastplates," said an officer who had been doubled over by a shell fragment which hit him in the abdomen. Instead of a flow of blood crimsoning his blouse, all that was visible through the rent in the cloth was an abrasion on a steel surface. sur-face. "But for your new corset your aorta would have been opened, and you |