28 JULY 1917, Page 14

CHURCH ARMY HUTS:

(To ma BMWS se me .1ZWECTATOR...1 Sza,—I am emboldened. You kindly, yet doubtingly, made room for a letter asking readers to, send their spare copies of the, Spectator to Church Army huts at the front. "Spare copies!" quoth you. "There are none. Each has already its billth" Ibt they came; and I, an P.P.O. of sorts, thanked the senders aud asked for more More, many more have come; they have found billete in remote places. Consider, Sir, the indestructibility of the Spectator. It goes from hut-to tent, from tent to trench. "Going up to-night," says "Tommy"; "gi' me something to read there." And why not Marcus Aurelius, the gentle Ella. or eke the Spec- tator/ All huts are billets for the Spectator, and for more. They' sissy be in the pleasant fields where the hops are stretching up their tendrile to entwine the highest strand; where the, flax is already out and mellowing, and the great sleek horses lean on their collars as the wain moves aside for the stern khaki column that passes on its way. Or they may be in some shell-swept and dismal place that was once a field, where the battle has tramped to and fro, and still roars sullenly not far beyond. We cast our net wide.

A few days since we were on our way to a but—the Worker who lived there, and myself, a person of no cOlicern. He had walked out for his letters and was returning. A cheerful Worker this, Lie tin hat an aura for a face that—well, never mind! One seen such faces here and is glad. So we were on our way to what had been his hut. The day before the jagged side of a shell had rent a yawning gulf in the roof, what time more subtle fragments had made fretwork of the walls, splintered tables sad benches, and spiked' the bass of the yellow-keyed piano. The Worker opened his last letter. "Who denies Providence?" he cried gaily, and braudished a small metal mirror. "Lest night in the strait, my shaving glass went with the rest. Look what some one has sent me, timed to a day." Nothing of a story perhaps, except that it happens. to be tree. Aa well as. the Spectator, what other thincs might not come to the huts, " timed to a day"? Gramophone Innards-1,nd Tig-sitw puzzles; footballs and cricket.hats; hags and pictures (not war ones—we get those outside): games, Mtge:books —fifty things gathering dust on the cupboard shelves and forgotten. it -is -all -so easy. A cardboard box, a sheet of brown paper, a piece of twine, an address to the Church Army Commissioner, el° A.C.G. of (whatever Army one is most interested in), 13.E.F., France—and to the nearest post office with it. Still easier and more quickly done, another added to the hundred cheques each of which was to be the last. We need them, too.-1 am, Sir, Ac.,

CHURCH ARNE COAINISSIONEN.