EX-CONVICT HEROES.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 August 1916, Page 5

EX-CONVICT HEROES.

{' ONE WIXS VICTORIA CROSS. ! A roll of honor, which forms a noble .ommontary on the scrupulous impart ij ality -nf British police methods and the mi-deviating fairness of British justice, if j in the proud keeping of the authorities ■it New Scotland' Yard. It is a "oil of honor of men who forsook their, Mfe of crime and voluntarily offered their lives to their country on tho outbreak of <var. There are 70 names on the roll—all nf them of men who were criminals ami became clean-living, selfsacrificing sold ers when tliov realised that their country was in peril. The majority of these 70 men have been hilled in action. Some of them were decorated for bravery. One man was awarded the Victoria Cross for a brilliant achievement in the German trenches in France; another was decorated by the Tsar with the St. George's Cross. This mil of honor is, of course, not for public inspection; it is a confidential record, and. framed in oak, it lianas in the private rooms of Mr. Basil Thomson, Assistant Commissioner, Criminal lnvesligation Department. Immediately undernenth the scroll is a semi-circle containing the following apt quotation, chosen by Mr. Thomson:— ''Even those who come short in other ways may redeem themselves by fighting bravely for their country; they may blot out the evil with the good, and benefit the State more by their public services than ever they injured her by their private actions."—Pericles to the Athenians