Having read much about the women and girls in the British Isles who are employed in packing and sorting cigarettes and tobacco for the front, and of the numbers engaged in sorting clothing, etc., for the comfort of "our boys'', I have thought that if properly organised New Zealand might do a good work in providing the men with a good supply of oatcake.
I have gone for a day with nothing to eat but a little oatcake, and I have also gone a day on flour bread, and I find that with the former one does not feel the same weakness from want of proper food as with the latter, and that a much smaller quantity will satisfy.
Oatcake is much more nutritious than flour bread or biscuit, and appeases hunger much more readily, and if packed in close boxes or tins will keep for any length of time.
Of course, it will be understood that the cakes would not need to be so thinly made, nor yet so carefully turned and shaped, as is usual.
I would suggest that they should be cut into small squares and cooked flat, to be convenient for packing; the taste or quality would not be impaired in the least.
It must be none other than the real old Scotch recipe; no flour must be used, and they must be packed in a proper manner to keep them dry.
- I am, etc, Soldiers' Sympathiser.
• The Otago branch of the Women's National Reserve is now in full working order.
Rooms in the Stock Exchange buildings have been opened, and a member of committee is in attendance there every day from 10 to 4 to receive the cards of enrolment and subscriptions.
Some misapprehension seems to exist in the minds of many people concerning the objects of the organisation, and the executive desires that it be particularly noted that it is proposed that the services of women registering under the scheme shall be available only for work ordinarily performed by men for which male labour is not procurable.
The president and other members of the executive will be present at the rooms the whole of tomorrow to afford information to persons desiring it, and to assist those who seek enrolment to fill in their registration cards.
• A little boy was rescued in Motueka the other day from almost certain death under somewhat strange circumstances (writes the Motueka correspondent of the Nelson Mail).
Some men, standing on the wharf, noticed a small boy in the water.
They had not seen him fall in, and thought at first he was just having a bathe.
It was soon evident, however, that he could not swim, and one of the men hurriedly got into the wharf punt and paddled towards the drowning child.
He reached him, and got him aboard with the aid of one of the paddles.
By this time a crowd had assembled on the foreshore, and a woman amongst them had brought with her a copy of an almanac.
She had the book open at the "instructions for restoring the apparently drowned'', which were read out while the rescuer of the boy acted on them, with the result that respiration was restored.
The lad was well wrapped up and taken home. - ODT, 7.2.1916.
• COPIES OF PICTURE AVAILABLE FROM ODT FRONT OFFICE, LOWER STUART ST, OR WWW.OTAGOIMAGES.CO.NZ
