YOUNG WARRIORS ON PARADE.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 84, 7 April 1916, Page 2

YOUNG WARRIORS ON PARADE.

PARENTS BREATHE BRAVE FAREWELLS. W T ith a gay courage worthy of the tradition of their elders, the Parisian youths of the 1917 class left yesterday morning for the various depots, where they will be trained for the grim work of the trenches. Half Paris turned our to see the youngsters of eighteen march in their thousands to the city's principal stations. The first conscript trains left from the Gare St. Lazare, before 8.30, but from the other stations trains left at regular intervals until after midday. Never since the time of the general mobilisation has the fine spirit of the French people, and their determination to win this war at any cost been so manifest as in this departure of the beardless youn'sters leaving home for the first time, with a smile on their lips, dauntless in the resolve that, now that they are called to the colours, France shall not find them wanting. Everywhere the streets were lined with enthusiastic crowds of relatives, friends, and simple sightseers. Here and- there could be seen the soiled uniform of a soldier back from the trenches of Argonne or Champagne. As the "bleuets," wearing their civilian cloths for the last time, and with close-packed haversacks at their hips, swung by, they cheered his Croix de Guerre, while the old campaigner gravely raised his hand to salute his comrades of class 1917. The farewells were said outside the stations, for only th e conscripts were allowed on the platform. Mothers, pre-occu-pied with last counsels, kissed their sons good-bye, dry-eyed; fathers exchanged handgrips with their boys, as between man and man; and the conscripts walked by the barriers with head erect, as becomes the soldiers of France.