Digest of stories from the Luton News, December 17th, 1914.

A reward of 20 shillings is to be offered by Luton Town Council for information which would lead to the punishment of offenders who damaged recently planted trees in Dunstable Road between the Laundry and the borough boundary.

Councillor A. A. Oakley said four had been deliberately broken off. He thought it a matter of great regret that the Council could not endeavour to beautify the surroundings of the town without this sort of thing happening. The trees he had mentioned would have to be taken up and replaced.

Councillor Yarrow remarked that it was not only newly-planted trees which were damaged, but also some which had been planted from six to eight years. It was time the police took the matter in hand.

• Members of Luton Town Football Club have come forward splendidly to join the Footballers' Battalion. There was a big meeting of professional players at the Fulham Town Hall on Tuesday afternoon and the Luton players were represented by H. P. Roberts and F. Lindley. At the close of the meeting the two wing forwards were among the first five to step up and enlist. Yesterday morning six more of Luton's professionals went up by train to enlist. They were J. Dunn (back), R. W. Frith and T. T. Wilson (half-backs), A. Wileman, A. Roe and E. Simms (forwards).

• Reference to the various complaints which have been put forward in respect of the nuisance which it is alleged is caused by smoke and grit from the Corporation's electricity works was made at Tuesday evening's meeting of the Luton Town Council. The Electricity and Tramways Committee reported that they had considered two petitions and other communications complaining of the emission of smoke, grit etc from the chimney shaft at the Electricity Station and, after hearing the report of the Electrical Engineer, the Town Clerk (Mr William Smith) was directed to reply to the complainants. Alderman A. Wilkinson said everything that could be done was being done to minimise the grievance. Hopefully as soon as they used a new shaft it would be entirely obviated.

• Luton Town Council's Sanitary Committee reported on a letter from Colonel Clarke, North Midland Division Territorial Force, asking the Council to provide medical treatment and food for eight soldiers suffering from infectious disease (scarlet fever, diphtheria and mumps) who had been left in a state of convalescence in a temporary hospital in Brook Street, the War Office undertaking to pay 3 shillings per patient per day. The Acting Medical Officer of Health stated that he had made the necessary arrangements and visited the patients. Five had now been discharged and the remainder would be discharged in about a week's time.

• The military have agreed to pay one guinea per week for the use of any or all of seven of the tramp cells at the Luton Union House.

• Two thousand soldiers from the Leighton district were busy entrenching between Dunstable and Houghton Regis on Tuesday.

• News has reached us of the promotion of Lance-Corporal Jack Hobbs, son of the late Mr William Hobbs, butcher, of Toddington, to a Lieutenancy in the 1st Royal Scots.

• The London Gazette has announced that Claudius G. Hyde, an old Luton Modern School boy and a cadet with the Officers' Training Corps, Royal College of Science, London, is to be temporary Second-Lieut, Royal Garrison Artillery.

• Messrs J. Cumberland and Sons' Sale of Christmas Fatstock on Monday at their Mart in New Bedford Road constituted a record. It was the 50th annual sale - the jubilee of the Christmas Market - and it was most satisfactory to be able to report that it was the largest they have ever held. The trade for Christmas beef was very sharp and, though the demand for mutton was slow, pork was in good demand at late rates. About 120 lots of poultry changed hands at good prices.

• For the match between Luton Town and Northampton at Northampton on Boxing Day, an excursion will run at 11.30. The Railway Company will only run one train, so there will be only 500 tickets. Supporters who desire to take advantage of the cheap fare should take tickets early.

• Young ladies in the millinery department of Messrs J. W. Garrard and Co, George Street, held an exhibition and sale of dolls hats made by the young ladies themselves. About 300 hats were sold at between 3d and one shilling and over £8 was realised for the National Belgian Relief Fund.

• A departure from the customary open day at Chapel Street Infants School was made this year. In the place of the usual festivities a bazaar was held on Tuesday afternoon, and the proceeds realised by the sale of the many neatly and cleverly made articles by the schoolchildren were devoted towards the provision of New Year gifts to the Bedfordshire Regt at the front. The sum of £8 10s was realised, all to be spent on tobacco, cigarettes and chocolates for the troops.

• Members of the Town Working Party are privately subscribing to provide a Christmas treat for the children of Luton soldiers and Territorials. An arrangement has been made with the Palace Theatre to provide a programme and present a little gift to each child from an inclusive sum of £10. It is expected that about 1,000 children will participate.

• A letter writer signing himself Lucifer II, wrote that French and English words are being banned in Germany and their places taken by frightful substitutes made in Germany. I wonder how many residents in that sylvan retreat Waldeck Road know that Waldeck is a charming German name which means the colour of the wood. They should pronounce it Valdt eek, not Wall deck. Waldeck is one of the numerous states now forming part of the German Empire.

• The Guitar And Mandolin is the title of a work of over 300 pages by Mr Philip J. Bone, of Luton, and it is a most creditable outcome of a great deal of research at the British Museum and elsewhere in the pursuit of - to him - the most fascinating study of music and musical history. The book is not only a biographical dictionary of players on the two instruments mentioned and of composers of music for them but includes a number of hitherto unpublished compositions specially intended for the mandolin or guitar by some of the great composers who were scarcely known to have devoted themselves in any special sense to the production of such music.

• Undertakers Messrs T. & E. Neville, of Castle Street, are now using a most up-to-date motor hearse for funerals at a distance. It has already been used for a funeral at Southampton and completely avoids all difficulties of conveying a body by rail.

• The funeral took place at the Luton Church Cemetery on Saturday of Pte George Cuthbert Patten, 5th (Reserve) Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, who died at Bedford on Wednesday last week from pneumonia. He lived at 109 Ash Road, Luton, and went to Bedford with the rest of the detachment about a fortnight ago. His death is not attributed to "roughing it" as he was billeted in a very comfortable house.

• Luton Town Council heard on Tuesday that the previous week had been the best for some time in regard to diphtheria.

• Of 16 death notices in The Luton News, four related to babies aged between three weeks and four months, one to a toddler aged three and one to a nine-years-old girl.

• Enrolment was due to begin in the Luton Volunteer Training Corps.

• The German Navy shelled the Yorkshire coastal towns of Hartlepool, Scarborough and Whitby, killing 48 people and injuring 166, mostly civilians.

CASUALTIES OF WAR

The death is officially reported from the front of Pte F. W. Miller, of 70 Highbury Road, Luton, who went out with the 1st Battalion, Beds Regt, shortly after the outbreak of war. Pte Miller was the eldest son of Mr and Mrs A. Miller, of 14 Broomfield Road, Chelmsford, and was 35 years of age on November 5th. He was killed in action on November 7th.

Pte Charles Sansom, Beds Regt, from Stopsley and son of the late gamekeeper at Whitehill, was recuperating at Hazelwood, Ryde, on the Isle of Wight from wounds sustained at Ypres when the Bedfords were in the thickest of it - "we were sometimes three or four weeks in the trenches without having a wash or shave." He was first sent to Portsmouth Hospital but then moved to the Isle of Wight to make room for wounded Germans. The millionaire owner of Hazelwood "treats us as honoured guests," he said.