BOGUS WAR HEROES

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2428, 6 April 1915, Page 5

BOGUS WAR HEROES

CHEAP FAME AND IGNOBLE EXPOSURE. The British war hero on leave from the front obtains so much public adulation that the rolo has been asby a number of men who hare no claim to military distinction, or even to having served their country at the front. In some cases the bogus hero has pretended to be wounded, and ha§ succeeded in extracting money from credulous people, but in other cases the bero asks for nothing more than adula. tion for the imaginary bravo deeds he has performed. Ono man who has been exposed told a. circumstantial story of having rescued his colonel from death, and declared that ho had feu recommended for the Victoria Cross ia consequence. The London papers accepted his story, and somo of them went go far as to publish a drawing illustrating his deed of heroism. i Another soldier, who finally had to admit that ho was a .deserter, and had never been at the front, took part in a turn at a London music-hall, being advertised on the programme as a genuine V.C. hero. Ho was prosecuted by. the police. In London there is always a brisk traffic in war medals - even in times of peace. South African medals [ are so plentiful in the curio shops that they brine: only 2s. (3d., and even Indian frontier niedals are worth only, 4b. to 30s. A genuine Victoria Cross brihSs £40 to £100, according to the distine. tion of the man to whom it was awarded. Previous to the outbreak of tins war there wer<* less than 160 surviving recipient? of the V.C., up -to tha Present lees than SO hare been awarded for heroic cedas ia the present cam. pa«3J.