NEW ZEALAND GIRLS' FINE SPIRIT

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2625, 22 November 1915, Page 6

NEW ZEALAND GIRLS' FINE SPIRIT

OFFERS TO FIGHT IN THE TRENCHES.

The example of ait least one Now Zealand girl who wishes most anxiously to serve her King and countlry in tho trenches should be a valuable stimulus to the young single men who are still studiously avoiding the recruiting office.' In the course of a letter to the Minister of Defence, the gallant young demoiselle writes :—

"I have been intending -for a good .while to write'to you on this very serious subject. lam very anxious to know whether I and others can go to the war and in the trenches, and I am positive wo would not disgrace our country. If only you would give the girls a chance, what a name little New Zealand would got—lending ita girls to fight ! People would say we wore mad, but wo would soon prove our worth, aiid put those admirable shirkers iu tho shade." She suggests taking a suitable number of country girls and putting them through military training. of a severe kind. Thore would be good results. She herself was a big girl, twenty years old, weighing ten stone, and not afraid of anything; could ride almost anything, and had done a little shooting. Ono brother was away at the front and another was going in the 9th Reinforcements. She pleaded for a chance, and threatened to pestor t'ho Minister unless it was given her. She had intended getting a healthy young fellow; to pass tho doctor, and 'then go' herself in his name—ana &o would yet, if rot allowed to go! "Mother is quite i'.proeable, and tells me overy day she wishes she could send me. ... I would go for nothing a day—l would do that much for deai' old Now Zealand."

Tho Minister sent a sympathetic reply. appreciating tho splendid ' spirit prompting tho girl, but- saying the regulations were against her. _ _Ho also didn't want their only remaining privilege to pass away from our young men —that of fighting for the women and cliildron of the Empire. i