"THE MERRY MALINGERER."

Press, Volume LI, Issue 15173, 11 January 1915, Page 4

"THE MERRY MALINGERER."

to trk -_-rroß o? "Tan press.***

Sir, —Your correspondent with * the high-sounding signature "Honoro" thinks that '"a littlo explanation might enlighten" your readers about tho "malingerer." So she explains (I presume, under correction, that she is a woman) that sho knows a great many young men who aro longing to enlist, but are prevented by their employers, who reft-sa to eparo them. This is interesting information,- but it says nothing about malingerers, and neither explains anything nor enlightens anybody on tho subject of malingering. I wonder if your correspondent knows tho meaning of the English word '"roalingorer"? She may bo excused, if, as her name seems to suggest, she is not hcr_elf English. A "malingerer" does not mean a male who lingers to enlist because, although ho ardently desires to do so. his employers refuse to civo him leave. I pointed out that --the merry malingerer" did not appear to console himfc.lf for his highest martial aspiration* by denying himself or spending a eingle sixpence less on whisky, tobacco, tennis, or any other form of amusement, or by enlisting in tho Citis-ons' Defence Corps. This latter course is open to any genuine "reject" who can smoke, drink, dance, and play tennis. But your correspondent declares that it is "really our fin-t duty" to try to live ''in theso troublous times" and spend our money, just as wo would in times of peaco. And why? Because forsooth it would assist the shopkeepers! It follows then, according to "Honorc.". that an Englishman's "first duty" in times of peaco or Mar is not to deny himself for the sake "of his country, not to help the ones who oro lighting and dying that ho may live in comfort, but —"to assist the shopkeeper 1" Well, Sir, the Germans. I believe, say that we aro a nation of shopkeepers, and this reads rather like a German's idea, of an Englishman's duty just now. And

"Honore" does sound a foreign name. Not exactly German ; but then wo know that Gorman "shopkeepers." in disguis-. iug their machinations to promote German shopkceping, are extremely ingenious. As for English shopkeepers, thoso of them I know would indignantly repudiate, as an insult, "HonoreV crafty insinuation that it is our "first duty" to "assist" them** and spend money on our amusements for their sake, rather than send it to our sailors and soldiers in the bitter gales of tho North Sea and tho half-frozen slush of tho trenches. English shopkeepers Imay bo 'feeling tho pinch** like tho rest of us, but they aro not so povertystricken as to accept such "assistance" as tho "first duty** of their fellow-coun-trymen. I am told of one great firm that is going to sell every scrap of its original German imports for anything they may fetch. _\ow, Sir, may I change my tone? Perhaps my first letter to you may havo seemed somewhat lacking in the Beriousness which this question demands. I do not say that we sliould go about with long faces, but I do say that this is emphatically not a time to tspend much on afruuscment. It is a time for national and self-sacrifice to tho utterrnaii!. extent of what every English man and women is capable. While men are dying for us every hour, what right have we to spend on amusement a single shilling that might alloviato their -fyrin ? I do not think that it is for want of heart, hut for want of thought, that wo do not understand this. But do w« really think, do nine-ty-nine out of a hundred of. us ever truly realise tho awfulness of what na happening for our sakes 16,000 'mileiaway? Wo are apt to associate tho soldier's life with honour and glory, and adventure and victory and -reward, hut do many of us ever realise tho other side of the picture? Do wo ever "enter into our chamber and shut our door," and there alone in the presence of the Great Author of Lifo and His angel of death, do we over bring our hearts face to face with the noble solemnity and grandeur of the poorest soldier's death and the unthinkable immensity of the sacrifice which that simple common man has made to guard our lives and homes? I know that this may hot be easy for some of us: it needs an effort of imagination, which few of us try to make. We are so far away from the "captains and tho shouting" and the sudden stroke of everlasting silence. But I cannot believe that it is impossible to any English heart, however far away. And. if we once do realise it, from that moment we shall never cease to feel that nothing we can do in the way of personal service, nothing we can give up in' tho way of amusement is too much to do or to give up for the poorest man who gives up "all that he hath" for us.—Your_,»etc.. MARY.