UNIQUE.

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 3001, 24 July 1916, Page 4

UNIQUE.

LEGION OF THE REDEEMED. 70 MEN WHO "MADE GOOD" IN THE WAR.. ONE OF THEM A V.C. London, May 25. A roll of honour which forms a noble commentary on the scrupulous impartiality of British police methods and the undeviating fairness of British justice, is in the proud keeping of the authorities at New Scotland Yard.

It is a roll of honour of men who forsook their life of crime find voluntarily offered their lives to their country on the outbreak of war. There aro 70 names on the roll—all of them of men who were criminals and became clean-living, self-sacrificing soldiers when they realised that their country was in peril.

The majority of those 70 men have been killed in action. Some of them were decorated for bravery. One man was awarded the Victoria Cross for a brilliant achievement in the German trenches in France; another was decorated by the Czar with the St. George's Cross.

This roll of honour is, of course, not for public inspection ; it is a confidential record, and. framed in oak, it hangs in the private room of'Mr Basil Thomson, , Assistant Commissioner, Criminal Investigation Department.

It is an artistic production in water colours, and i.s the work of an officer in the Convict Supervision Department. Across the tot) is a fanciful scroll bearing tho words "Roll of Honour," and supported by two female figures. On the left side is a panel painting of a British battleship throwing a searchlight on a German submarine; tlie right-hand panel depicts a British bayonet charge. Between the panels are three columns containing the names of the 70 heroes.