NO IDLING IN WAR TIME

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 281, 16 August 1918, Page 8

NO IDLING IN WAR TIME

FIE3T PROSECUTION UNDEII XI3W AMERICAN LAW. The arrest, trial, conviction, and sentence of a youug man-in Syracuse, State of New York, for idling in war-time has -peculiar interest as marking the first pronounced and clear-cut case of the kind under the "anti-loufing" law in the State named, lie had committed no ofl'enco in an ordinary sense. Ho was not a vagrant, for he had money. The new statute, however, had mado him an offender, subject to penal correction, in that ho was performing no useful labour at a time when the industries of the country, as well a.s the Army aud Navv, were in great need of man-power, this young man snid that ho had never worked, did not find it necessary to work;' in fact, .would not work. Hut ho will work, nevertheless, since he was sentenced to six months at hard labour in the county penitentiary. The possession of "visible means of support" (comments an American writer) formerly excused this type of idler, 110 could fritter his time away, while the penniless loafer was constantly liable to arrest for vagrancy. .War is a leveller in mors senses than one.