"CIVVIES" FOR SOLDIERS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 60, 4 December 1917, Page 3

"CIVVIES" FOR SOLDIERS

HARD CASE OF DISCHARGED "UNFITS." "Tlio Latio"—not Park, but Petticoat, Lane—is the place in London which is remembered as a last hojio when a soldier, broken in the war, is finally discharged, and has to find a suit on his allowance of fifteen shillings (says the London "Daily Notts )• Houndsditch is doing a largo and really beneficial business in furnishing hats and reach-me-downs (what Tommy calls "Martinis," because they ifre out-of-date) to discharged soldiers. Thq man ivho has "finished with the front;" which means that as a wagche is 011 nothing like his oW level, is complaining bitterly that lie is not getting the consideration ho might havo oxpectcd from a grateful country. Ho is usually shabbily dressed, and his inconspicuous decorations (supposing' ho has the M.M., D.0.M., or ribbons like that) mean nothing to most of tho public. More often ho is merely ablo to put the crest of his old regiment in his buttonhole, and hope that ho will not bo openly called a slacker. Even the "men who fought at Mons," and havo just returned, are. no bettor off. They aro going before medical boards in uniform, with a name, placc, and sonic distinction 111 tlio world. Thoy leave, finally discharged, .in a suit of "civvies," charitably given them, looking as hopelessly shabby as remittanco men who have bean forgotten.