CRITICAL COLONELS.

Shannon News, 25 November 1927, Page 3

CRITICAL COLONELS.

MOST COMPLAINING CLASS. A West End tradesman, writing to the London Daily Mail, says he has found that most of the letters of complaint he has received against . his ' woods or his service come from retired colonels. “This fact so strikingly de-monstrated-to me that colonels, pn the whole, comprise the most , complaining class in the country, that I kept my eyes on the correspondence columns ot newspapers, ’’ he said. “I discoveied that more letters of a complaining nature are received from colonels than from all other ranks put together. The 'crusty colonel’ has long been a subject for music hall and comic-paper jokes, but my experience is that the majority of colonels are crusty. If I could carry on business according'to my own wlums and there must be many traders like me—l-would display a notice ‘No business done with colonels.’ ” A Government official who handles a larwe volume of letters received from the°public criticising the public services of his department, Said: “Now you come to mention it, I find that we dp get an altogether disproportionate amount of our complaints from colonels. After all, isn’t colonel merely, a stepping stone between major and bii gadier? Yet majors never seem to complain, and brigadiers only do so, in a hearty and helpful sort of way. Colonels, however, are usually bitter, and colonels of the Indian Army, retired, particularly so.’’