UNFIT FOR MILITARY SERVICE

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 31 July 1914, Page 7

UNFIT FOR MILITARY SERVICE

"We are coming, Father Abraham —three hundred thousand more," rings the chorus of a stirring song popular in the United States, and dating from the great Civil War. But, as a matter of fact, President Abraham Lincoln's decree for the levying of 800,000 new conscripts to join the Northern ranks and crush the slave States by the simple force of "bigger, battalions" was anything but popular at the time. It was voted on November 30, 1962 ; but its application was postponed till several - months later, when this interminable war seemed as far from its end as ever. The great object of every peaceable citizen being to escape army service, the "exceptions" were carefully considered by the Judge Advocate, and it was decided to admit as claims of freedom from military service : (1) Age under 18 or over 45 ; physical incapacity ; (3) colour (no negroes or mulattos) ; (4) alien nationality ; (5) clerical and scholastic professions. A caricature of the period represents a conscript stating that he is (1) GO years of age, (2) of Irish birth, (3) the son of a "niggerwoman," (4) hump-backed and dubI'ooted, (5) a "confirmed drunkard," (0) a "minister of the Gospel I" The examining oliicer drily remarks, he has "more than proved his case for exemption." As a matter of fact, the. number of American wives prepared to swear that their husbands were confirmed dipsomaniacs, and the number of youthful-looking citizens who persisted in declaring themselves over 4 5 years of age, largely increased during these anxious months.