"WILLIAM AS JOVIAL AS EVER."

"If the Emperor does not happen to be elsewhere, he is present at nearly every council without, however, showing the slightest desire of asserting his personal views," says Cabasino-Renda, an Italian newspaper correspondent in a letter in the Giornale d'Italia. "He takes part in the council as any other General does, without laying claim to any decisive voice even in questions in which he is specially competent.

"It is well known, for instance, that William II. is a distinguished tactician. At a recent meeting of the Great General Staff a purely tactical problem was discussed and was solved in opposition to the Kaiser's views. His Majesty simply remarked: 'I think differently, but, after all, tactics are a matter of opinion.'

"Very frequently he goes to see the first line troops, and in such days and nights he has to suffer a great deal of privation, for he takes nothing with him and moves about like a simple General. His retinue comprises only eleven aides-de-camp and functionaries, and his physician in ordinary, Dr. von Ilberg. Small, too, is the number of his riding and carriage horses, and of his autos, which are painted gray.

"The Kaiser and his villa are under the strictest police protection, yet William II. likes to go out unattended, as if he were in Potsdam. Repeatedly I saw him having fun with the children, and he looked as jovial as ever."

The Kaiser has published the following injunctions for economy in the use of food, especially bread: "Respect your daily bread; then you will always have it, however long the war lasts. Eat war bread known as Letter K, which is satisfying and as nourishing as other kinds. Cook potatoes in their skins. Give animals no bread or corn, but save them the scraps."

According to a person who has the confidence of the Belgian officials, a number of the art masterpieces of Antwerp were placed in waterproof containers and sunk in the Scheldt by the Belgians before the capture of the city by the Germans.

North of Rheims the Germans have built an underground town. Ten thousand men live there and have constructed long corridors, huge halls, bedrooms, fully equipped offices, with typewriters and telephones, and a concert hall where Wagnerian music is played daily for the officers.

At some points during the German retreat toward Strykow, the German dead were piled not less than a yard high. Polish peasants spent days burying the bodies. Most of the dead were frozen. Thousands of wounded Germans froze to death before help could reach them.

The State of Georgia has been stripped of mules for the British army in France. Every negro who has a long-eared mule, not too antiquated, has offered the beast for sale to the agents of the British Government. Some Southerners foresee danger in the heavy draft of mules from the South.

A French infantryman writing to a friend in this country says: "At night we crawl forward and dig ourselves in. During the day we hide behind the mounds of earth we have thrown up and we fight foot for foot any attempts they make to advance. They do not like our cold steel, and many times we must give it to them. I cannot write any longer; I must relieve a sentinel."

The Belgians adore their brave King, and he adores them. The democratic friendship between King and the common soldiers is amazing. It is quite customary for him to hand his cigarettes to them and take a light from them in return. He spends a portion of each day in the trenches with them.

A cigar presented by the German Emperor and by him to a gentleman living at Hambledon, England, was sold by auction in aid of the local Red Cross Hospital. The cigar brought $72.50, and is now the property of a firm of local butchers.

Wounded Russian officers in the Tiflis hospitals describe the extraordinary endurance of the Turks, who march barefooted through the snow and shoot standing and kneeling, but rarely from trenches. They only dread bayonet charges. The Turks are said to have lost very heavily.

Great Britain is provisioning Gibraltar on a large scale. The shipments from this port of late include 141,265 bushels of wheat, 2,240 bags of refined sugar, and 1,400 bags of wheat flour. As yet, no explanation has appeared why England should make such plans.

A court-martial in France sentenced Louise Zach, a German woman, to serve six months in prison and pay a heavy fine, on the charge of using an American passport, which was obtained by a fraudulent declaration. The woman was a governess in the employ of an American family. She got a passport at Geneva by representing herself as the wife of an American named Appel, and on the strength of this came to Paris.

Russia has awarded the St. George cross to three boys, aged seventeen, fourteen, and thirteen. The youngest is the son of an engineer in Warsaw, who has followed the army since the fighting at Lublin and carried cartridges under fire to the men in the trenches. He finally became a wonderful scout, and his reconnoitering resulted in the capture of ten heavy guns.

The ledger of the national debt of France listing the names of the bondholders as distinguished from bonds payable to bearer, was brought to Paris again to-day from Bordeaux. It required ten cars to transport the ledger. The Germans had planned to seize this vast book and use it to exact indemnity.

The International Sunday School Association plans to send a Bible to every soldier in the warring armies in Europe. An appeal will be sent to every Sunday school in the country, each scholar being asked to contribute five cents he has earned.

The Prince of Wales often goes incognito among the soldiers. He likes to get among the men, and the other day he was found talking to a wounded sergeant and half a dozen privates to whom the sergeant was explaining the methods of snipers. A messenger came up and said something to the Prince, who turned round and wished the men, "Good-by and good luck!" and then went off.

A minute later the soldiers who had been standing near by came up.

"Who was the grenadier chap?" asked the sergeant of one of the new arrivals.

"Why," replied the man, with a grin, "don't you know? It's only the Prince of Wales."

Three of the Foreign Legion with the French Army, all Americans, were doing sentry duty in front of the trenches when some cows came along. In the darkness one of the Americans crept forward to attack the cows, thinking they were Germans. Another section began firing and almost hit the Americans, who made their way back. They were greeted with laughs.