Lady Recruiting Officer.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 12, 21 March 1908, Page 67

Lady Recruiting Officer.

HOW SHE GETS HER MEN AN® TRAINS THEM. In view of the recent announcement in the “Daily Mail” that women' may act as recruiting officers, the experiences of Mrs. Louis S. Paterson, who has taken up recruiting as a hobby, are interesting. Mrs. Paterson, of “Pixbo,” Horley, Sussex, has recruited a number of young men in her district for the Army. Mrs. Paterson is the wife of Mr. J. G. Paterson, a well-known athlete, who has done some record-breaking in his time, and was for nine years hon. secretary of the London Scottish Football Club. “It is so easy, and such pleasant work,” said Mrsl Paterson in her picturesque Sussex home. “I secure all available young men I can in this district, and am afraid the shopkeepers are cross about my taking so many. A lot of Army literature sent to me by the authorities I distribute on Sunday afternoons in the streets, etc. I got three men into the Somerset Light Infantry, others into the Garrison Artillery, the Army Service Corps, and the Royal Horse Artillery. Colonel Maxse, commanding the Coldstream Guards, has asked me to send him men. “I take men to the central recruiting office in Trafalgar-square. Boys don’t like going to the local office. If one is rejected we try to remedy the defect, if possible, and thus get him through. \Vc have four here now. “Colonel Walsh, the head of the recruiting department, at St. George’s Barracks, Trafalgar-square, writes: ‘I have sent you the posters and the recruiting regulations. I do wish 1 knew a few more ladies like you. We have so many places untouched by us. Really, if it were not for you we should never get many men at all. I always say we must have a gentleman for recruiting; in future 1 shall say, a gentleman —or a lady.’ ... “The authorities have sent me a recruiting sergeant’s cockade,’" said Mrs. Paterson in conclusion. “I am very proud of it. I don’t know whether I may wear it, but perhaps one day I may get something I can wear.” ' ©. © ©