Grey River Argus and Blackball News MONDAY, JUNE 28, 1915.

Grey River Argus, 28 June 1915, Page 4

Grey River Argus and Blackba ll News

MONDAY, JUNE 28, 1915.

salivated avery morning ia Qreymjath Kamars,. Hokitika, Dobsou, Wallaend, Taylor villo, Brunnarton, Stillwater. Ngahere, Blackball. Seiscn Creek, Ahaurn, Ikamatua, Waiuta, Seeftou, Cronodun, Rn- &nga, Dunolhe, Cobden, Baxtei's, Kckiri, T?atain, Kaimata, Aratita! fcotaku, Moaua, fturu, T< Kinga, Sotoiaanu" s'uorua, I bounie, Jaononi and Otir*

IT has so long been taken for granted that a soldier must be tall, stalwart, muscular — the very embodiment of physical manhood — that it seems like heresy of the worst kind to suggest that this time-honoured conclusion is open to review. Time, however, according to the poet, makes ancient good uncouth; and the remorseless logic of recent events has compelled a reconsideration of the whole question. Our attention is directed' to the matter by two recent statements of a diametrically opposite kind. Dr. M. S. Pembrey, who is lecturer on physiology at Guy's Hospital, London, raised the point at a meeting of the Eoyal Sanitary Institute. Dr. Pembrey is confident that, in selecting men for active service, too much is sacrificed to the desire to obtain tall and handsome recruits. The craze for men of towering stature was originally a Prussian foible, and now that we are overhauling our judgment of all things German, we are provided with an appropriate opportunity of testing the justice of this assumption. The Emperor Frederick William and his famous son, Frederick the Great, cared little as to what qualifications were lacking in their recruits so long as they were sufficiently tall. "The ambition of the King," Macaulay tells us, "was to form a brigade of giants, and every country was ransacked by his agents for men above the ordinary stature. No head that towered above the crowd in the bazaars of Aleppo, of Cairo or Surat, could escape the crimps of the Emperor." From that time to this, the idea that height is essential to military service has been regarded as an axiom; but at last the assumption has been challenged. Dr. Pembrey points out that the essential organs are in the head and trunk, and that these organs are often better developed in short than in tall men, the weight of the brain being relatively greater in short men and the time spent in reaction between the brain and the limbs not so long. "Tall nren of full proportions," the Doctor went on to say, "are heavy and often slow ! and there are weighty physiological reasons for the greater agility and activity of small men, who do not suffer the mechanical disadvantages of height and weight. The small man has a greater capacity for work, endurance, and stronger j resistance to disease." Dr. j Pembrey has no hesitation in affirming that, judging from the

fighting capacity of tall and short men of the same race, the advantage was with the shorter men; and by a subsequent . vote the members of the' Royal Sanitary Institute endorsed the doctor's conclusion ; :•. After the splendid proof that the Japanese gave of the small man's fighting capacity, in these days of improved firearms, there can be little doubt on the matter. For the other statement to which we have referred we must pass from the scientist's desk to the street corner. A correspondent who signed himself "A Twice Rejected Weed" wrote recently to one of the papers, heading his article with the striking demand "Give the Weeds a Chance ! ' ' His contention is that it is a little unfair to assume that all those who adorn by their presence the corners of our principal streets are guilty of a cowardly shirking of their duty to their country. He states that he is quite willing to go to the front; he believes himself to be fully qualified for active service ; he has proved his mettle by tbe persistence with which he has repeated his application; but he believes himself to have been excluded from the firing-line by arbitrary and indefensible standards. At a tirrne like this nothing can be taken for granted. The code by which volunteers are accepted or rejected must be a code that will weed out only the unfit. Precedent and custom are all very well; but we are not now presenting fancy regiments for inspection on parade. The nation is fighting for her life, and can afford to reject the services of no man who has both the spirit and the ability to take up arms in her defence. We trust that a battalion of New Zealand bantams will be enlisted, and we are confident that they will distinguish themselves equally as well as their countrymen of larger growth who are now making history at the Dardanelles.