GENTLEMEN OF THE CAMP.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 160, 2 August 1916, Page 5

GENTLEMEN OF THE CAMP.

A young New Zealander who has had considerable experience in our military camps says he has had to completely revise his opinion regarding the various classes of men. He is absolutely convinced that the men with the best camp manners are not those drawn from the public offices ancr banks, nor those who come from the well-to-do classes, but they are the men from the back blocks, settlers, timber workers, navvies and miners. These men, he says, have a wide experience of camp life, and know the value of orderliness, cleanliness and equal division of tasks. Moreover, they know how to make camp life comfortable; how to wait their turn when meals ar» being served. The class with the worst manners, he says, are the young recruits from the city, and particularly those from large offices. They are inclined to be rowdy, and think it is a sign of smartness to rush in and obtain the best of everything irrespective of the claims of others. The bushmen

and miners, on the contrary, are always ready to do a comrade a good turn, always ready to help a new chum and they have a strong belief in playing fair all round. “I am convinced” says this young soldier, “that the back-blocks worker and the man (generally who has been doing our roughest work everywhere, is our truest gentleman; the most generous, the lest selfish, always ready to take his share of camp duties, always willing to bear extra duties for those who are weak or ill.”