FIVE AMBULANCE DRIVERS TRANSFERRED TO SALONIKA

In a letter received from J. S. Taylor '18, a former secretary and assistant managing editor of the CRIMSON, an interesting account of the work of the American Ambulance Corps, and especially of the University members of the Corps, is given. Taylor reports that the University contingent that left for France last February is already hard at work on the western front. N. Wainwright '19 and K. Merrick '19 have been transferred from their original sections to Section 8, which did such gallant work during the heavy fighting at Verdun in May and June of last year. Taylor, together with W. K. B. Emerson '16, H. J. Kelleher '18, R. B. Varnum uC, and C. A. Amsden uC have been detached to Salonika to flH vacancies in Section 3, where the qualifications are especially severe, and an ambulance driver is able to see a great deal more action. Taylor describes the effect of the war on three great French cities in a letter sent from Marseilles:

"The three great cities of Bordeaux, Paris and Marseilles present marked contrasts in the way they are affected by the war. Bordeaux seemed like a rather quiet commercial city which had lain dormant until roused to an exhilarating state of activity by the war. The people were jubilant over the part they were taking in defeating the 'Boches.' Permissionaires back on leave supplied a military setting, and looked as if they shared in the general feeling of confidence.

"Paris, however, looks thoroughly chastened. The crowds in the subway, on the boulevards, show on their faces that the war has borne heavily on them--they look tired and careworn, each doing his share in the struggle, and each weighted down by the thought of the Herculean necessity for victory. The soldiers and officers seem unable to escape from the thought of going back to the trenches--they are imprisoned by the immense forces playing against each other, being mentally as well as physically crushed by the intense pressure at the front.

"Marseilles is further removed from the struggle--it typifies the universality of the conflict. The streets are thronged with soldiers of most of the warring nations and their dependencies; French, French colonials from the Soudan, Algiers and Indo-China, British, Australian, New Zealand, Hindu, Serbian, Russian--all united in the same titanic task."