"CLINK" INSCRIPTIONS

Thames Star, Volume LII, Issue 13819, 8 October 1918, Page 4

"CLINK" INSCRIPTIONS

THOUGHTS-IN DURAOSTCE VILE. .( In one respect, at any rate 1 '(says; the Daily Maai) every soldier wuw>! goes to the military prison a. second, time profits by his first'experience oi' "dink." He conceals about his person —generally in ihis rooutih —a stump of pencil. Thia little stump, •has saived many a man from the madness of despair. Wihen-' every- j tthing else except a. pocket ihiandker- • chief has been taken away, it has proved a. tthrice-'blessed compianion' through many an hour of soul-racik-ing monotony. And abundant testimony is available to sihow that solitude, instead of dulling -tyhe mental faculties of the sinning soldier, sharpens his wits and brings into play tittle-suspected powers of expression. In "clink," as eLsewhere, one finds evidence of the unconquerable optimism of the Britisih soldier. On tihe whitewashed walls of the cell the confined Tommy, with tihe aid of the priceless stomp of pencil, expresses his view of life and, matters generally. Some do it piotoriailly, others in pirose, many _others in ■verse, and not a few in clever Erencihi idionis. Could these "clink, thoughts" be colleoted from, say, a. score of military prisons a-nd piu,blisihed ia book form the result would be a work of emibraciiing "paitiiios', tragedy, comedy, drama, /philosophy, 'Solomou-'like wisdom, biting fiarca^m, and the striking of the human . not.c to an almost tear-raising eaobent. Tifeke one or two examples piciked a-t ' random fronn tihe cell walls:—-•

"From this knob (these v.orda were written beneaitlh a heaivy bell ihandle) Private BLank hanged him:self. He was a fool. Don't you do the same. No senfence lasts for ever. Buck up and take your gruel like a maa." Expreeeed tersely, not far away one finds a poignant little hiunaan tragedy, the central chiaracter in which is a soldier who, alter giving number, *niame ; and regiment, and length of service, siays: "Came home after 18 months. Found wife sloped

with a Russian. r Got drunk. Went mad. Bashed two M.P.'s (mdlitar^

' policemen). Sentence 56 days. Mar- .■ riage is, a lottery; I've drawn, a ■blank. God knows! Haippy k tihe oihap wiho hiais drawn a. prasse.'.' Tihe latter part of tine sentence ;is co faint that it/oan only t© deciphered with! difficulty, and one can well imaigiine : hoW the point of tih© pencil hod worn ' a.way, leanring the prisoner witrti no means 'of sharpening it and cuitting ' " short'had bitter reflections. ; Even wi-tih tihe hard laibour he had to r perform, one sinning Tommy found the atmosphere of "ciimk" . restful after tossing onr wluat was : evideMly a> tempestuous miaitrimonial sea. «He had placed on record for. future wrongdoers to' see tihat in hia opiinioiii tiie place is a, "blinkin' para-; disc alter 2 13 i years of nagging by the j woman "I Baarried." then ho gives her full nanie ( address, and occupation. . Some of the drawings to be seen are worthed»*ne; niame of art. 'The 1 political opinions! expressed a-re often slhrewdj crypticj: and 'comvanoing 1. But the waiy the soldier in "oliihik" • expressed himself' concerning the officer or officera who pass sentence upon him, often? aicicompanied by a crude pictorial TepreseTitation of -a. clutch--ing 'Mhd, is a guibject begt left to the imaginiation. of tihe reader.