SLACKERS HOLIDAY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 4006, 12 August 1915, Page 3

SLACKERS HOLIDAY.

ENGLISHMEN TO WHOM WAR MEANS NOTHING. “Sunday Times/' London.) The end of my neighbor’s garden looks out on a spot where three roads meet —one to the right leading to the big camp where a division of Kitcheners army have been in training for nine months, and the. other two constituting one of the main arteries from London to the north. I borrowed this corner of his garden because it enabled me, without being.unduly observed, to note the' slackers enjoying their Whitsuntide holiday.. The first three to come by were pedestrians —fine health y young fellows of 27 or 2S, dressed in obviously new Norfolk suits. ‘‘Jolly old. place, this, isn’t it?” one of them rej-larked. “It was worth walking that live miles to get here. "Nothing like a good tramp for giving you an appetite for lunch. \yhnt I’m thinking about is beer and beef. This is quite the host Whit Monday we have had for years.” Tliev paused at the corner of the road to mop their foreheads and to look about for a place at which to lunch. Immediately in front of them was a Mu board bearing the inscription, “Men of —— who are doing "their Duty.” Below this legend wars a list of some hundred . and fifty names. One of the holiday-makers glanced up at the board. ‘• Rather a. good idea that,” he said. “Ail the men from tlm village, you Bee.” . "I suppose they like to see their r. a moss up there," replied another. “Makes them fancy themselves.” v in the ground by my side were a few stones, but I controlled the impulse to employ them. The three pedestrians passed on, and 1 saw thorn disappear into a neighboring inn. The war apparently meant nothing to them. It was the finest Whit Sunday they had known for years, and walking gave them an appetite for beef ami beer. Our in the trenches soldiers were giving their lives for their country and incidental!v for these three men who could Kfiv nothing about our local Roll of Honor m-vont that they supposed, it pp m-.d thu Vanity of these, whose in —v/erc enrolled there. •a 'OXFOUND' THESE SOLDIERS.” v moior cycle with a side car came wit 1: a trail‘of ’dust behind it and p.-.n .*.! just beyond me. There was a •pretlv girl hr the side car and a young jium of twouty-tlirce or twenty-four on the bicycle. ‘ At the same momeni from the camp came a detachment ol the LincolnHiires, trudging- to the station to obtain stores. “Oh. confound these soldiers, 1 heard the young man say : “I shal have to get off and shove the machine to lot thorn pass.” Evidently angry he alighted anc sulkily pushed the machine to tin side of the road. ‘ “Don’t they make a dreadful oust, said tho girl. -. , Three cyclists —they were big Jans and I should estimate their ages a-tw-enty-ouo —came by, wearing tnci: caps the wrong way and ssuo.nn; cigarettes. , , „ “Which way, -Bert-?” exclaimed one “Don't we turn to the right?” No, they’ve got a beastly cam] tip there. We shall get messed m with the soldiers. Go straight on. They didn’t wait to he messed u] with the soldiers; the camp where th men- were who-had volunteered _ < fight for the Emipre had no attrac tion for them. Perhaps it was sham, that made them wash to .avoid i th On second thoughts I thin) 1 pay them too high a compliment

They seemed perfectly liappy, perfect- j ly content, and they were evidently j thoroughly enjoying the perfect wea- j tlior. So far as they were concerned there might he no war. AN TJX ANSWERED QUESTION. f Other holiday-makers flashed by me. A brake with the typical Whitsuntide ' horse between the shafts—the sort oi & animal that seems to be living under t protest—paused, uncertain which road ;i to take. The party was composed of s two young men, the driver, also a . young man, and two girls. • The men ' were obviously intoxicated. A com- ' pany of signallers, going from the £ camp to the hills to parade, marched past. The three young mem broke into !1 ‘•Tipperary.” The soldiers bore it 1 patiently until most of them had 1 marched by, but a man in the rear i rank was moved to ask the obvious j question: "What do you want to sing for-” h ho said in broad Lancashire, ‘‘Why doesn’t thu’ join the army same as ns } lads?” I There was lift, answer to th.e que>- j tion, but "Tipperary” died down, the J weary horse .was galvanise*! into lift-, , and the brake rolled on. 1 , i A ROUG H-A N D-RE A DV CENSUS. ; j sat there for half an hour and I ' kept a faithful i !e of all eligible men who passed me. That the list might 1)0 quite‘fair I sternly emitted ail those who were doubttu! and all those , who had the appearance of being mar- ' vied men out with their wives. I i limited my census entirely to men who 'were clearly under thirty, and 1 this is the result of ir>v counting. _ ( In that half-hour sixteen eligible ( men passed on foot, an equal iriimber on cycles, four on motor-cycles, and four driving. It- should be noted that the olace where I took this census is thirty-six miles from London. Moreover, the time was from twenty minutes past twelve to ten minutes to one. A SLACKER WITH A CONSCIENCE i T had just closed my notebook and i was moving away. when, one of the I young men in our village—he is i twenty-eight and sound in wind anti : limb —paused to speak to a retired ser- ■ gea.nt of the Grenadier Guards, who was coming in the opposite ‘direction. VI sir." imp::red the young man, whose hr.-tv' 1 'not appear in our Roll of •'■ :ru “what do you think ■ about the : ! ‘i n ? ’ . * "I don't id:in'; 'i will be any better . j unless cut;, n .dv s ho can goes out hand fignt-s,' rwurw.:! the ex-sergeant ; i darkly. i j The young man was qu:te an- j j • p,’-,ashed. But none the less he was , . '-troubled, and bis next question show-, J cd why. j 1 "They’re talking a lot about this [ conscription. Do you think they will I really have it?” i 3 j I saw the ghost of a smile appear | on the ex-sergeant’s rubicund face. i l “Yes. I do,” he said, "Let’s see, 5 you’re under forty, aren t you ? : ‘ The ironical question went homo, for ’ | the young man colored, growled i {something under h:s breath, and turned ouiokly away. They say ho nas v never been quite liappy since coni' script ion was first mooted. This-sfeo-ws g ' that lie has a conscience-—which, at i leant is- something in his favor, lor . the majority of the holiday slackers 1 ; had ambushed appeared to regard the P war as rm concern or theirs at a”.

WARNEFORD V.G. A ‘c DEAD HERO'S PERSONALITY. Jj ' . KJ The English papers just- lo hand arc fn.ll of accounts of Flight Sub-Lieuten- ai ant. Warneford. V.O-, and his feat and \\ tragic death so soon after ve had c ; given excellent accounts from tables a , to America, but these extracts from a; an article, in “The Sketch” have n some new features: — st “The virtue of Warncford’s feat was its suddenness. The Zeppelin, once warned, can rise too fast to be bag- , god; and as it r ises its machine guns can squash the little mosquito. But ' at three o'clock, however, on a misty morning a Morane “parasol” mono- 1 plane is the least obstrusive of aIJ 11 flying machines; it is a gnat rather “ than a mosquito. Near by, it looks like a biplane with the lower wings sliced away, so that the pilot, sitting _ suspended, Iras a clear view of every- - thing underneath liirn ; in the distance it doesn't look like anything at all. , But'even this curious little monoplane is sudden only by virtue of its pilot. Without him it clings to earth after ;, the fashion of all other arrangements ; 1 in metal. Sub-Lieutenant Warneford's attack succeeded because he himself - was “so .sudden.” “NO TIME.” ‘/■Some flying men have become expert by patience. They take time to study '‘the theory of the thing.' Warneford had no time. Even Moorhouse, who won the first Hying V.C., and was killed in the act, was a theorist as well as a practical man. Captain Bertram Dickson, too, was an experimentalist; and Charlie Rolls did ' 1 his flying in. France long before anti- t c aircraft guns complicated the day s ; i work. _ 1' “Warneford was one of those young < men who have been in a hurry over ; i since the war began. He enlisted m j t the Sportsman's Battalion because it . was the quickest way-—the Hotel Cecil -, \ is so central!—of getting into uni-j form: his keenness to be in was shown j 1 by his replies to the question. on the ; 1 attestation papers. ‘Yes, certainly, j c ho writes where a plain affirmative.; < would have sufficed. That was on i | January 7th, and forthwith he went,; i to learn his drill. But he was in a • hurry, and Hendon offered quicker f training than"the parade ground. Ex- ] actlv a month after he had entered the Naval Air Service and was learning to fly. NECK OR NOTHING. “In throe weeks ho was finished. ‘The jelly sort of feeling’ that- bothers I some people when they rise above tho i ground never troubled him. ‘That , j man will either break his neck or do : i things, J Meiriam, his instructor, 'is j reported to have said at a first sight , t of him in the air. And Flight-Lieu- > I tenant Warren Merriam knows all ; ther is to know about the quality of 1 Hendon recruits. It is his business to recognise the p-ush-and-go that either breaks necks or does great things. Warneford had only been up once when ho asked to he allowed to pilot his own. machine. He flew solo ' ten; days after he entered the service, and got his certificate five days later. ■i THE FAMILY CLOTH. • ■ 1 “Flight Sub-Lieutenairb Reginald ; Alexander John Warneford was ; . twenty-three, having been, horn at Coo-oli Bahar in October, ISOI. An i only son, he was educated at King Edward’s Grammar School, Stratford- . on-Avon, and afterwards went to sea. ; Though his, father was not a clergy- ■ man, the family tradition was-all for! the church, and was l descended from a' long line of parsons. The Rev. Henry Warneford, Rector of Freshford, ‘ lived in that most clerical of centuries 1 the seventeenth; the Rev. Richard Warneford tho next of the line, was

Archdeacon of York; Dorking was ‘cured’ in the next, generation by the Rev. John- Warneford; and a cleric of the same name attended to tho spiritual welfare of Llanellan and was domestic chaplain to Lady Arden; and, more recently, the Rev. Thomas Warneford was well known in the pie-C-incts of Durham Cathedral. 1 lieaviator's father broke the sequence, and the young man himself, by no means! bookish, never thought- of iestoring the line to the cloth. THE HOME BIRD. “The family, and its former estates, belong to Wiltshire. And though Warneford Place, a beautiful property near Sevenhamp.tori, is now in the hands of Sir ‘Frederick Banbury. It must be regarded as the native place of this new- Victoria Cross .mail. Cooch Boliar was a sort of accident. In all essentials Sub-Lieutenant Warneford was English. lie looked English; and he acted English. it was probably of English fields that he thought when he turned head over heels in the air near Ghent. At sucti moments the picture that flashes on the eye is a picture of home. Nor was ; ho tho onlv Warneford who is making history for'EngUmd—and Sir Frederick Banbury. Ho lias a cousin who is wise a Flight Sub-Lieutenant m the Royal Naval Air Service.”