14 APRIL 1900, Page 3

The Montreal Daily Star publishes in a recent issue a

most interesting batch of letters from the Canadian soldiers at the front. They are animated by a most cordial spirit of good- fellowship towards their brothers-in-arms, and exhibit a truly Tapleyan capacity for cheerfulness amid trying conditions. One of them, describing the tattered condition of his shirt, adds that it is " very warm on one side " ; another gives a truly humorous account of the various animal nuisances— including the ostriches, who steal and devour their soap—and all are alike in their appreciation of the Queen's gift of choco- late, their anxiety to be in the thick of the fighting, and their enthusiasm for Lord Roberts, Lord Kitchener, and General Hector Macdonald. The two former are portrayed with quaint realism in the following passage :—" Thursday morning we had the joy of seeing at close quarters the heroes of India and the Soudan,—Roberts and Kitchener. They are a peculiar pair, Bobs,' a little man with a face wrinkled and coloured like a raisin ; Kitchener, like a retired pugilist or a chucker-out' at a hotel. Between two such different men some plan should be found to do for the Boers."