FIELD TELEPHONE AND SIGNAL APPARATUS.
The pontoon and the field telegraph and signal services are the objects of great attention on the part of the Belgian military authorities, and I have added photographs illustrating all these branches. The country south of the Liege-Namur line, where the Germans are expected to appear some day, is intersected with more or less impassable rivers, which will often need bridging in short order. The pontoon service is consequently of the first importance among the various factors in the country's defence.
BELGIAN GENDARMES.
The best picture—artistically speaking—represents a group of Belgian gendarmes around a camp-fire. It is a masterpiece of artistic photography. The gendarmes are also a very important branch of the service, and their duties are most onerous, since they are not only called upon to police the rural districts, suppress strikes, and make themselves generally useful as servants of the law, but in war-time they form part and parcel of the regular army, and are obliged to fight their country's battles like the rest.
[HOW TO EXTRA-ILLUSTRATE A BOOK.]
BY WILLIAM HALE.
Every one knows how much more interesting is an illustrated book than one without pictures. What a satisfaction it would be to us if we could illustrate our favorite books ourselves! What pleasure we would take in it! This is entirely possible. It is a comparatively easy matter to illustrate a book, or, in the case of a book that already contains pictures, to extend and increase the illustration by means of old prints, engravings, and pictures gathered from various sources and bound in with the leaves of the book. This is called "extra-illustrating," and has long been a favorite amusement of collectors.
A book that is carefully and judiciously extra-illustrated is not only much more attractive in appearance, but its value is greatly increased, and the amount of pleasure and instruction to be gained by the extra illustration of one book is a rich reward for the trouble and time it costs.