POSTER APPEALS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume L, Issue 14744, 25 October 1915, Page 8

POSTER APPEALS.

USED IN BRITAIN AND AUSTRALIA. SOME POINTED EXHORTATIONS. APPLICABLE IN NEW ZEALAND. In every other part of the Empire recruiting has been assisted by the use of posters. At Home it has been a great feature of tue recruiting campaign, anu m Australia the various Governments have devoted, serious attention to this form of bringing home to the young men the necessity for enlisting. In fact, in Sydney every street hoarding, every public notice board, carries us great appeal. The designs are striking, and the result is stated to have been exceedingly satisfactory. A summary of their contents is interesting, if only to* show how the recruiting authorities in the Homeland are endeavouring to place the position in its proper ligut before the people. - The posters quoted ’from have been issued by the Imperial Maritime League. WOMEN AS RECRUITING AGENTS. The idea is popularly held ‘ amongst officers that women are the best recruiting agents the country possesses. Apparently the imperial League holds the sarnie opinion. ’Fills is how one big print puts it: — It has for many years been the custom in Switzerland for every young woman m that country to refuse to marry, dance with, or even walk with, any young man, physically fit, who is not prepared to fight for his country, BRITISH GIRLS ,'nform your male friends that, like your Swiss sisters, you cannot associate with them unless they, too. will come forward voluntarily and FIGHT FOR YOU. CALL OF THE WOMEN “The: Call of the Women’” is the title of a large-sized poster. It pictures a young mother, tightly clasping a wee child ip her arms, loye and horror clearly expressed in her eyes. Below run the words: “Save us from the Huns.” Yet another appeal to the women to stir the men to a sense of duty is contained in a poster, rich in colouring, which conveys the message:— BRITISH WOMEN. Are you content- to be saved from shame and dishonour By the Husbands, Sons, and Brothers OF OTHER WOMEN, While your own stay at home and shelter themselves and you behind those Other Women P EIGHT RECRUITS FOR A SOVEREIGN. ‘ln their appeal for funds to assist the recruiting movement the League puts the case in a nutshell thusly;— We can find— Eight recruits for—a sovereign. A Section for—£B 10s. A Platoon for—£lo. A Company for—£37 10s. A Battalion for —£150. The poster adds: “if the recruiting efforts of the Imperial Maritime League are continued on the same scale, and are as successful as before, then every sovereign you give to the campaign funds will mean the addition of at least eight recruits to the Army."

Then the posters set forth briefly but convincingly the facts of German brutality in Belgium and France. How, on August 26, at Malines, a child of 15 was tied up, and the body completely torn open with bayonet wounds. How, on August 29, at Herent, the Germans used 500 women and children as a screen. How. in Noracny, a little boy of 10 and two little girls, aged each three, were shot. How, at Bommeilles, women were horribly ill-treated and their bieasts hacked off. How, at a country house near Antwerp, the owner was lashed to a chair while his two daughters were stripped and made to serve the dinner to German officers naked. How, at a village near Corbeck Loti, some German soldiers took a girl of 16 with her parents to an empty house, and, because she resisted them, bayoneted her in the breast. These, and hundreds of similar stories, are told in all their tragic horror. They are quotations from reports verified by the Belgian and French Governments, and they are being used to arouse recruiting activity at Home, and are responsible for such an appeal as this; BRITISH SIEN! Do you want your children mutilated P Thq Germans have done these thing# to children in Belgium and Franco If they come here they will do the same to • British Children. Every British Soldier is the bodyguard of every woman and child. Wifi you join the. Now Army and l>ecome a British Soldier? ' AWAKE! Yet another stirring- picture is that ip which soldiers of the Empire —English and Cblonial—stand shoulder to shoulder, and .below appear the following verses;—' Women, awake! 'Tis yours your men to sway, Kid them beware the confidence thev feel, Bid thpni cast sloth and apathy away. The foe is brave and worthy of our steel. Awake! awake! Ere Time’s swift rising surge Brings- doom beyond recall ruthless fate; .While echoing through the ages rings the dirge, The fault is burs I Too late! Alas, top late! Britons, awake, Hark to the kingly call, Hark, to, the daughter nations’ answering cry: Hail, Sire! wc come, together stand or tall, Together fight’ Together do or die