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Show THE AMERICAN ARMY NOW 1,360,000 p e . a HUMBLE PRUNE TAKES THE PLACE OF SUGAR Derby, Conn. The sometimes despised and often ridiculed prune 'jaas come into its own here. When the sugar famine struck the town someone discovered discov-ered that the sugar in a dried prune was sufficient to give a semblance of sweetening to a cupful of tea or coffee. The prune dropped in a cupful of coffee cof-fee is soon rendered soft by the heat and the sugar and sweet is extracted in a short time. It is claimed that the caffeine in the coffee offsets the taste of .the prune so that the process is not objectionable in any way. It is being extensively tried here by many persons. E- 1 - A Grows in Few Short Months From Force Numbering Only 110,000 Men. OVER 300,000 ARE REGULARS i Officer Personnel NurrrDers More Than 80,0p0 Equipment of Men Much More Diverse Than in Any Previous War. Washington. The latest official figures fig-ures put the number of enlisted men in the armies of the United States at 1,-300,000. 1,-300,000. This is the force that has grown in eight mouths out of an army which on April 1 numbered only 110,-000 110,-000 men. Most of them are still in the training train-ing camps. Many of them are not yet disciplined troops, fully equipped and armed for battle. But there they are l,3G0,O0O of them, already one of the biggest factors Hindenburg is reckoning reckon-ing with for the campaign of 1918. To lead them there are over 80,000 officers. offi-cers. When the graduates of the second sec-ond training camp get their first orders or-ders the number will be over 100,000 as many officers as there ware privates nine months ago. Over 300,000 Regulars. Of the new American force over 300,-000 300,-000 men are regulars. In all the world only two regular armies remain the American and the Japanese. The others oth-ers have all been swept away in the flood of war. When the first American onslaught takes place German Land-wehr Land-wehr and Landsturm troops will find themselves opposed to an army of professional pro-fessional soldiers. Behind the regulars are the 400,000 soldiers of the National Guard, regulars regu-lars in experience, many of them, thanks to our neighbor of the South. After the Guard come the 000,000 men of the new National array. The whole military establishment, with the marines aud the auxiliary forces thrown In, numbers a million and a half. The expansion that has taken place is as if Grand Rapids had grown in eight months to be virtually as big as Philadelphia. Diversity of Equipment. The first thing to be done for the new army was to provide them with shelter and clothing, food and warmth. That large undertaking is ail but accomplished. Equally great is the task of providing arms. To arm an infantry division in the Civil war meant to provide as many muskets and as many bayonets as there were men in the command. In the present war the job Is more ccmplicated. There are rifles and bayontfts to be furnished now as formerly, but there are also grenades and gaMnnsks and helmets and trench mortars to be seen to. Each of the four infantry regiments In a division di-vision must hnvt 'ISO trench knives, 102 automatic rifles and three oue-pnundor oue-pnundor cannon. The 70S men of the machine gun Initiation and the COGS men of the field artillery brigade must have machine guns and throe-inch guns In numbers that would stagger an artillerist even of so recent a period as the war wiili Spain. Two hundred anil si vent y-five thousand thou-sand troops were miiili; ready to tight Spain in IW, Ihnugh only 00,(100 of 'I li i in were actually engaged. |