RECRUITING IN SYDNEY

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16208, 10 May 1918, Page 3

RECRUITING IN SYDNEY

TROOPS MARCH THROUGH

STREETS

(from our owx correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 1

The Federal Government, to get rid of an embarrassing problem, appointed, a Minister for Recruiting, and the Minister has initiated a new system of outbarking reinforcements in.Sydney. Men. going to the front now marcli tlirougli tho streets, with bands and banners, amid the cheers and Kandclapping of interested crowds. New Zealanders, accustomed to this sort of thing since 1914, will be astonished to learn that the spectacle or. soldiers marching to the transports is a novel one in Sydneyi For years, the scores of thousands of troops who navo been embarked her© have been taken, by devious back ways, to the docks in. the dead of night, or in the very early morning. The authorities said that the men could not be trusted to march, through, their familiar haunts, past their sorrowing "cobbers," and arrive safely on the ship. Thus a valuable recruiting agency was lost —but now all that has been changed. A body of reinforcements marched through the main streets quite recently, and it was the most typically Australian thing I have seen. Tho men were well tralined, magnificently equipped, andl their demeanour bore witness to their earnestness. They were a splendid body of soldiery. They started out well on their march, in correct fours, well aligned, in perfect step. Then, as they marched, their friends—and particularly their women friends —broke into their ranks, and marched with them. Their line became ragged, and they lost step. No officer, knowing his Australians, would dare interfere.

The crowds applauded the compact, marching columns dutifully; but when, at - increasingly frequent intervals, the ranks were broken, and instead of the swinging fours there appeared a group of women clustered like bees round a heavily-equipped warrior, the crowds cheered frantically. And when the soldier carried a baby or two and had an obvious wife clinging- to him, the crowd could scarcely contain itself. That is so very characteristic of Sydney : a set piece, like a carefullyplanned display of troops, leaves the Sydneyite cold, but let a note of human interest _ creep in, in whatever form, and ho is moved almost to tears.

And so the procession of soldiers, which started otf so bravely, ended in ail indescribable condition. Tho bands were about the only units which retained their formation, and kept step. Between tho bands was a slowly flowing river of clustering femininity, broken ranks, and _ half-smothered, perfectly liappy "warriors. The men arrived at the docks eventually, one supposes; but the reluctance of the military authorities in agreeing to this form of recruiting can be understood.

Sir Walter Davidson, Governor of New South Wales, entered the Conservatoriuni Hall one night last week to preside over the annua] meeting of the Industrial Blind Institution (sav ß the "Sydney Daily Telegraph"),.the while a blind boy scholar, standing at the grand piano, played the National Anthem. With the minds of the big audience thus brought intimately in touch with tho matters that were to be placed before their notice, the State Governor rose to open the meeting. His - Excellency began in dramatic fashion. "I am nearly blind myself," he said. "It has always been a great disadvantage to me that I have been eo extremely shortsighted. It has never interfered with my being able to serve as an amateur soldier, but I fear that as a result of it I have been excluded from activo service." His Excellency went on to speak of two of his nephews who answered the call from the ends of the earth. One was as short-sighted as he himself. He passed his eye-test with the assistance of a friendly sergeant, who stood at his back and read out the test card for him, thus "making the examination a little easier. . . . Both boys have died," he concluded.