ARMY BOOTS.
[To rex Roma or THE " Sr...mos.") • should be very grateful if you could find room to publish the following extract from a letter written on January 14th by an officer in the Foot Guards now at the front If you know of a rich philanthropist anxious to help us, tell him to send out good strong boots for the men, size eleven. The ones supplied are like brown paper and last about a week. It really would be a perfect godsend to the men, and if you could form it a committee for ' boots' would just now be worth all the
• sock and ' glove' and • shirt' committees in the world."
Now it certainly should not fall upon the private individual to provide boots for our soldiers, but we are living in excep- tional times and they are fighting under exceptional conditions. Whether the pressure laid upon the manufacturer of boots at this moment renders it quite impossible for him to turn out as satisfactory a boot as in normal times, or whether the demand, far exceeding the supply, has necessitated the using of inferior material, the fact remains that anyhow this regiment is receiving an utterly unserviceable boot. They may have been unlucky in striking a bad batch, but, fighting under the conditions prevailing at the front at present, it is more than imperative that every man be well shod. The dangers of frostbite, and other " ills the feet are heir to" from standing for days in the wet trenches, are quite bad enough without increasing them in this way. Something, I feel sure, will eventually be done directly the attention of the authorities is drawn to it, but in the meantime I want to send out as soon as possible as many good strong well-greased boots as I can collect. Will any of your kind and generous readers help me by sending one or more pairs of good strong boots, size eleven or thereabouts, bought at their local hoot- maker, or some good old shooting-loots, which, well seasoned. will no doubt prove more waterproof and last longer than
inferior new ones am; Sir, &c., ARTHUR REISS. Cassia, Winsford, Cheshire.
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