MEN WHO HAVE "MADE GOOD."

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16397, 17 December 1918, Page 3

MEN WHO HAVE "MADE GOOD."

"A big proportion arc victims of atavism and have done splendidly in this war." The speaker was an officer of high rank, who has to do with penitentiaries throughout tho country. He was speaking of those "unfortunates" who are now serving in the Army and have, for the most part, "made good" in every sense. He referred to the man who, roleased from a loug sentence in order that he might join up, won a V.C. which cost him his life. "I could tell you of many others," he went on, "who have made excellent soldiers, and behaved with conspicuous gallantry. Some have been rewarded.. Some, unfortunately, have not. It is always so. It is inevitable.

"Their conduct sheets would surprise you. Also they rarely or never overstay their leave, though it may be said that tho majority befoi'e they joined the Army had not seen their homes for some years.

"Of coursc they arc distributed. Their C.O.'s know - their past histories, 1 but no one else, least of all their colleagues. Those I have met were one and all desperately in earnest,"amazingly keen to. pieet. the Hun.. Out of evil good; sometimes comes, and .ihis war will prove the salvation -of many a man With whom fate has dealt harshly. "My theory always has been that plenty of these unfortunates are victims of circumstance. Born- and reared in a vicious atmosphere, they absorbed it j, and could hardly hare done otherwise. That atmosphere their Army life js now eradicating. And this I may tell" you : 'conscientious' objectors who to-day inhabit the locality occupied formerly by !.\vie of these men are a great deal more disliked by the majority of residents in tho neighbourhood than their predecessors ever were." He mentioned a man sentenced to seven years' imprisonment, hut released at tho end of three years to join up, who had heen twico wounded and threo times mentioned. Another who lias won' the D.C.M. Three who have won the M.C. Two who have been rapidly promoted. Ho also said how amenable these men are to discipline,. Army discipline may be irksome to many, hut no matter how strict it is it bears no comparison in this respect with the discipline to which tho men referred to had become inured before the war. ' But what most appeals to them, he said, is the complete change of life, its varietv, also the constant change of scene/ One of the greatest hardships of life in a penitentiary, is it monotony, its drudgery, its unceasing sameness. The men now have something to look forward to; they can onco more become ambitious; in a sense there is the excitement of competition. Few men of intelligence can live happily without excitement of some sort, and practically all these men possess intelligence in a high degree, also initiative. "It is quite a rare thing," he ended, "for one of them to be 'crimed.' The majority are exemplary soldiers, serious-minded, and dovotod to duty. —Basil Tozer in London "Evening News."