FRANCE'S JUVENILE BATTALIONS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 2, 27 September 1918, Page 5

FRANCE'S JUVENILE BATTALIONS

GLIMPSES. OF FRENCH CHILDREN

Freuoh villages'do not take kindly, as a rule, to tlio long, straight, bleak tree-lined "highways, lint prefer to ' tuok themselves away along the narrow twisting by-roads which bring back now a Devonshire lane, at other times a Wiltshire by-way, or again re-call-a bit of typical Dorset. As your car lurohes round the bend, past the first outlying red tiled barn with its disintegrating mud walls and its clumsy skeleton of rotting timbers showing through, you come across the ohildren. - Half a. dozen solemn, largeeyed, intelligent little folk, not playing, not singing,. never by any chance gesticulating or jabbering as .'we image 'Latin children always do, hut leaping with lightning speed to tho shelter of the pathways there are none. . There they stand as you lumber by—inourious but intelligent-look-ing, and with an odd, elfish dignity all their own. They look, but novel' stare, at you as you pass, and it is not until the little fair-haired unbrecched tot—with the poilu's sky blue 'fatigue cap,half hiding his curls—salutes you with grave military precision that you realise you are not unmarked. Those sky blue caps on tinr golden heads are one of thefmost pathetic Utile touches' of tho Fronch countryside to-day..' You meet them in every hamlet, and the clothing department of the great military machine of Franco obviously turns a blind eye to this wholesale depredation of Government stores. They come, of course; from the French 1 father or elder brother home on his raro Ifurlough • from the hell just over the skyline beyond. And what father bidding that little goldenhaired fellow adieu could resist the plea, ; "Father, you promised me your blue cap. before you went." And in a twinkling there is recruited a new soldier for France full of childish visions how he is going to light "when he is grownup."

Rising four is apparently the age when the martial headgear.is first assumed. Tliera is a sad disproporttah indeed in size between cap and Head, and there, is a provoking tendency for the former to sag over the new 'ecruit'B neck in an extremely uneoldier]iko manner. Much can be done, however, by a careful bunching of curls, and the tyro with projecting ears has two heaven-sent supporters against lateral deflection ready at hand. A firm and straight carnage is instantly adopted to conform with military ideals, ' besides, the stiffer you Walk the less chance there is of the cap sitting down on your shoulders and making you look like a civilian; Once formally adopted, the cap must always be "worn,—in rain, in sunshine, on Sundays, ■on weekdays, going to school, or merely .taking the air just outside , the, ■house. Bigger . boys who wear 1 real collars and liave ties sometimes affect & certain'disdain of this irifantito militarism, and a naval touch is distinctly '"nuttish" at twelve or thirteen. Tho cap adopted is something.,like what a ideck,hand in a fourth-rate" - tramp steamer 1 might buy if he' were too drunk to know anjr better. Iti is certainly. the most hideous cap' in the world. And it lacks the something, ' and the illegality; of purloined, Government clothing. It is merely a bagman's line from some cheap, shoddy tailoring manufactory of a smoky town, and lm ahoutias much reminiscence of the salt sea as a bowler has. In' their . heart of hearts these blase youths bitterly regret that they have forsworn' the-sky-blue canoe-shaped " cap they once took sucji pride in. ■The. ethioa of the sky-blue cap involve one cosmic /law. Never must it ibe worn by a girl. The male child of ■four may. assume ;it and wear it with • youthful self-consciousness; he does so in virtue of his sex. He is a son of .Frarib'e/'a 'soldicr in posse, the . saviour of his ; country, and the protector .of his womankind. His ten-year-old sister may admire it, look at it, handle it, oven try it on a huis clos, but to wear it outside .would be-to trifle with the dignity of the army which is in ler ■haby brother's, keeping. Lucky little ones'of, Francti, if you but knew your good fortune. For you will tell your children's children of the days of the Great AVar and of tho roar, of the guns, and, of how you were alive ■at the'most glorious period of all Jbe glorious histpry of your native land. And • for. the 1 tiny, favourite, goldenhaired grandchild there'will perhaps one day ba taken from the ■ old oak press just a shabby, faded, old-fashion- 1 , ed, sky-blue soldier's cap. Who knows?