16 JANUARY 1915, Page 14

A VOICE FROM THE FRONT.

[To ran Enrros or Tao “SrocrAroo..1

SIR,—Yon may be interested to hear that the other day—in a place which the Censorship regulations forbid me to mention —I saw a number of soldiers surrounding an officer who was reading the Spectator to them; and in another place I saw a private give a packet of treasured cigarettes to a comrade for a three-weeks-old copy of the Spectator. He felt he bad got a good bargain. Pray do all you can to get the men in England to undertake their proper share of the work we are doing out here for them. Don't butter them up, and tell them they are "heroes," when they are not The impression we have out here is that there is far too much joining "fancy " organizations in En gland, and that this sort of thing is merely an excuse for loafing and stopping comfortably at home in a warm house, instead of dodging bullets in a cold trench. Personally, I know at least half a dozen hefty young men under thirty-five who have become special constables, when they ought to he in the ranks of the New Army. But being a special constable is a comparatively a soft job," and being in Kitchener's Army is hard work. In my opinion, no able- bodied man under forty should be allowed to be a special constable. This is for their seniors. The duty of every able- bodied man from twenty to forty, who has a heart instead of a lump of putty under his fifth rib, is training for the trenches. This is not carried out—as far too many people in England think—by bellowing alleged "patriotic" ditties in pubs. and clubs. There is much sterner work for men to do if we are to beat the Germans. You may perhaps be sur- prised to hear that, when we got the news of the Scarborough raid, everybody out here said, "D—d good thing. Serves 'em jolly well right. Perhaps it will wake them up." Not charitable, I grant; still, under the circumstance., quite natural. Another thing: pray tell the beer-swilling, picture- show-patronizing, football-match-watching mob that it is extremely stupid of them to imagine that this war ie going to be won by belittling the German Army. I am assure yeti it isn't. I have seen the German Army. It ie a d—d good army. It fights hard and it dies hard. No army can do