WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 November 1917, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

THE CI MEN. (From Our Own Corrspqnrtent) Wellington, Nqv. 11. The November quota of.CI recruits will be mobilised next week. ' The Canterbury draft will enter camp on Tuesday, the Otago men on Wednesday, the Wellington men on Thursday and thcAuekland men on Friday. The total strength of the 01 quota will be about 650 men. The recruits will be received at Featherston camp and will be transferred to Tauhereuikau at once. The total number of CI men taken into camp for special training up to the present time is nearly 1000. It,is-early yet to say what proportion of them will become fit for service with the Expeditionary Force. The training,is"progressive and the full course may', take several months, 'fliers is reason to believe that more than half of the recruits,., .probably .not less than 60 per cent., w.il) eventually be passed as lit. The men are very keen as a rule and watch their own progress with as much concern as the instructors display. A big percentage ,of the Cl.men are volunteers who were rejected originally on account of the physical weaknesses that are now being remedied. These men, as a class, are smaller and lighter than a corresponding number'of ordinary recruits for the Expeditionary Force. But -their defects, in many instances, are little more than the results of lack .of physical training and systematic exercise under healthful conditions in the past, and the improvement under the camp regime is often astonishingly, rapid. Weaknesses disappear, chest expansion increases and muscles swell in a maimer that makes happy men of the recruits previously classed a 9 incapable, of carrying a rifle in the service of the State.

RELATIVES' DISAPPOINTMENT. Relatives and friends of soldiers suffered a great deal of 'disappointment when the first reinforcement draft to leave under the new arrangements was placed aboard a tran-port in Wellington The Defence authorities had announced through the newspapers that tW regulations for the control of wharves would prevent next-of-kin saying good-bye to the soldiers at the ship's side, and that an arrangement would be made for parents, wives and others specially interested to have a last word with the men at the camps. Gift parcels, it was stated, could either be handed to the men themselves at the camps or could he entrusted to the transport officer on the wharves for delivery aboard the boats after departure. . The instructions do not appear to have been understood fully either by. the ■next* of-kin or by the men. Majvy people,.including anxious mothers, and wive? with young children, gathered at the entrance, of the wharves under the impression that •they would see their soldiers ..there, as has been the custom on other,,occasions. The men hud passed through the •barrier, and they did not return. :■ After a long wait, an officer of the Y.MCA.-appeared and broke to the women the news that the soldiers had gone aboard and that no further direct communication could be held with them. He had brongM paper and pencils, and he undertook to deliver notes and parcels. The announcement was a very grievous: disappointment to the women. They had to accept the situation and the officer was entrusted with, many farewell messages. THE GRAY BY-ELF.CTION'.

The date of the Gray by-election has not yet been fixed, and it looks as if Mr. P. C. Webb, who has announced himself as a. candidate for the seat,might have to apply for leave from military duties in order to complete his election campaign. The Military Service .Board, in dismissing the appeal made for his exemption after he luid been drawn in the eleventh ballot, ordered him to enter camp on December 12, but the draft he would have joined has been set back until the beginning of January.