"The employer gave out the straw and paid for the worked article, three sous per 'brasse,' a little under six feet. Some men could make twelve 'brasses' a day. Beaudoin (a sergeant-major of the 31st Line Regiment) set to work at it, and in the course of a couple of months became an adept. After four years came the remonstrance of the country people that this underpaid labour by untaxed men was doing infinite injury to them; the Government prohibited the manufacture and much misery among the prisoners resulted. From this prohibition resulted the outside practice of smuggling straw into the prison and selling it later as the manufactured article; and a very profitable industry it must have been, for we find that, during the trial of Matthew Wingrave in 1813, for engaging in the strawplait trade with the prisoners at Valleyfield, it came out that Wingrave, who was an extensive dealer in the article, had actually moved up there from Bedfordshire on purpose to carry on the trade and had bought cornfields for the purpose." [31] Abell, "Prisoners of War in Britain," p. 203. Thus it is clear that the curios made by prisoners of war embrace a wide range of interesting objects, and that there is much fascination to be had in collecting them. The reader who would know more of the lives, the romances, and the sufferings of these unfortunate men should read Francis Abell's capital book bearing the title "Prisoners of War in Britain." [Illustration: A NEWSPAPER POSTER WHICH TOLD OF WELCOME NEWS.] [Illustration: A SET OF BONE DOMINOES CARVED BY PRISONERS TAKEN IN THE NAPOLEONIC WARS AND INTERNED IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF PETERBOROUGH.] CHAPTER XVII MISCELLANEOUS MILITARY CURIOS Considerations respecting miscellaneous curios--Battlefield souvenirs--Regimental colours--Odds and ends of dress equipment-- Books and newspapers of military interest--Royal souvenirs-- Official military documents--Gruesome relics--Relics of the Great War Among the most acceptable military curios are those which may be classed as miscellaneous; they range from fragments of "Black Marias" to chocolate tins, and Prussian helmets to early copies of the Army List. Treasures which come under this head are to be found at almost every turn--in sale-rooms, in the shop windows of second-hand dealers, in cottages and mansions, in local museums--almost everywhere, in fact. Curiously enough, the military treasures which may be described as miscellaneous are usually to be picked up very cheaply, for there is a much smaller demand for them than there is for such groups of things as medals, firearms, and armour and, of course, the price is regulated by the demand.