Another Veteran's Fate

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIV, Issue 17, 26 April 1906, Page 1

Another Veteran's Fate

Ihe company in • A Comedy ol Lieutenants ' gave a pufii of laughter when the veteran Pugsley concisely summed ,up a \gratefui country's appreciation of his services in the army : ' Two bullets in my head, one in my neck, three months in Malta hospital, and a penny a day*' But, on the whole, he seems to have fared better "than another and later old fighter— an AngloSaxon -named Martin Fogarty, who answered his last uil-call a few weeks ago in the Koscrea workhouse (Ireland), at the age of seventy-five. Martin was a Crimean and Mutiny veteran, and his passing] /adds another to /the melancholy list of valiant fighters who, after carrying the flag of Kmpire afar and anear, have been left to die m the sordid neglect and squalor cf those graves of decent poverty— the workhouses of Great Britain and Ireland. The London ' Daily News ' tells his , story thus : ■' Serving in a foot regiment, Fogarty performed the truly remarkable feat of fighting throughout the Crimean campaign without being as much as a day on the sick list. Having regard to the hardships undergone by the troops in that campaign, Fogarty must be supposed to have had an iron constitution. He afterwards served through the Indian Mutiny. And now; he has died in a workhouse, where, it is said, he 'had; Uivetl for several years. There were prosecutions in Ireland recently for the circulation of pamphlets against recruiting in that country. It may occur to the authorities that one such case as that r Martin Fogarty, the Crimean veteran, dying in the Roscrea wo'Ekihousei, is a more powerful anti-recruithig argument than any pamphlet could put forward.' Which is quite true. But it is not prudent to' say so at the wrong side of the Irish Sea.

'Twas ever thus with the soldier when Ms fighting days were done, or the need of his strong right arm was no longer pressingly felt. Tommy Atkins and Paddy Atkins and Sandy Atkins are heroes and demijgods when the 'band plays and there's something harder than oxygen in the atmosphere. We ' maffick ' over him, and dance, and sing around him, and sound the loud timbrel in his praise— when we want him to stop the bullets and serve as cannon-fod-der, while we 101 lin inglorious safety at home. And when he hasi served our turn, we toss him aside as a squeezed orange. And the men who tore their voice to riD'bons huzzahing him on Mafeking and Kimberley nights, treat him in public restaurants and railway trains as ill-conditioned Americans treat negroes and Chinese. Jilven in New Zealand, ready-made promises of employment or re-employ ment were in many cases conveniently , forgotten or l^noied by Jingoes when peace was made and Johnny came marching home. Ben Battle— a * teoy of the bull-dog breed '—pleaded with 1 lalse and l:ckle .Nelly Gray ' :— ' The love that loves a scarlet coat Should be more unilorm ! ' He had been through the Peninsula war, and ' At duty's call he leit his legs In Badajos's breaches.' When he returned, and his pay was gone, he found that ' Though he'd no fleet, some other man Was standing in his shoes.' He was .cast, oft, and died a suicide, in pemless discos tent., Tom iHood's punning story ihas its moral. ' A giatetul country ' may, in a burst cf passing enthusiasm, ' llivate ' a successful general to the peeragfs— and then make haste to forget him. But, taken by and large, it -is a ' faithless JMelly Gray ' to the worn-out ranker. We are a commercial people. Gratitude is not a \ery marketable commodity, and our stocks of it are generally I'ight and tor the most part weewly. We may occasionally lentertasn a sort of sentimentality about an old racehorse or greyhound. As to our old soldier : his late is too oiten the work'us. And when the final roll is called,- we ' Kattle his bones Over the stones ; He's only a pauper whom nobody owns ' — not even the country for which he bled. Alas, poor Yorick — Fogarty !