A Shameful Case.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 275, 28 October 1902, Page 1

A Shameful Case.

Forkinately, whatever sin of lomiaaiou may be laid to our (Government in tb« matter of providing for returned trooperr, nothing approaching in inhumanity and black ingratitude the conduct of the Home Government in this respect can be adduced. The facts referred to in terma of just indignation by the Navy and Army Illustrated lately show that the nation is sadly neglecting its obligations and setting aside what should be a sacred duty. A man was charged before the London Oeatral Criminal Caurc with attempted suicide, and his pitiful statement should affect even the adamantine heart of a Cabinet Minister : " I was invalided home from the war in South Africa after having had enteric fever. I bavu been three months on the road looking for work. I had bad inothing to eat for three days when this happened, and I did not know what I was doing till it was done. When I left the army I put in an application fer work. They wrote and asked me if I bad woik. I sent back and said ' No,' and heard no more from them." The Navy and Army remarks : "No rhetoric could make this pitiful story more moving. In these fev/ words we have the tragedy of a life. And must not suppose that this man is jthe only soldier returned as an invalid from South Africa who is in such sore straits, or even that he is one of a few. There are numbers of them all over the country, and we are sure to hear of many more cases of the kind before long unless something is done immediately to relieve their distress. This man had tried to re-enter the army, hut the rule is that no one who has been invalided shall ba allowed to enlist again " And Britain claims to be the wealthiest country on earth !