MILITIA TRAINING.
[TO THE EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR."]
enclose a small contribution to your Militia training scheme, although in these days of bloated expenditure I can very ill afford it.
With your permission, I wish to say a few words in connection with Mr. Haldane's latest suggestions on the subject of "The Militia and the Unemployed." It is surely notorious that there has always been a closely corresponding ratio in numbers between the ranks of those two sections of the population, taken as a whole. Why not recognise the national aspect of the question of how best to provide work of a thoroughly testing kind for those in want of employment, by arranging our schemes of enlistment to suit a condition of things so clamant, and yet so difficult to provide for? Such were the ideas of an old Army man and myself as discussed between us some time ago; and now come Mr. Haldane's tentative proposals. His plan of a six months' winter training in the large towns —and probably in most country places as well—is excellent, though as regards some localities, such as fishing villages, it may have to be modified to suit their special circumstances. My main object, as a medical man who has had some practical experience in passing recruits for the Militia, is to try to show that the Army Regulations should be so far modified as to open a wider door for the admission of many applicants who are meantime being rejected. I am bold enough to say that a considerable Proportion of those who are presently refused admission into the ranks of the Militia would in time make fairly good soldiers. The larger number of all recruits come from the class which Rowntree describes as living on a dietary which is insufficient for the proper nourishment of their bodies. Is it at all surprising, then, that many of them are altogether under- sized, deficient in height, and still more in chest measurement; that their eyesight is not sufficiently acute, it may be their hearing
dull, and their intelligence below par? More particularly, can we expect their teeth not to be decayed ? How many are at present rejected under an arbitrary rule on this score ? Have the framers of Army Regulations considered that amongst the average female " slaveys," who have to do more actual bodily labour than the corresponding Militiamen, the absolute rottenness of teeth is appalling ? In my experience, not one in twenty of these poor creatures, with their never-ending toil, really possesses at twenty- five one-half of her original teeth, and still they do their work.
Seeing, then, that those would-be recruits are undeniably ill- fed and their bodies consequently badly nourished, and knowing, as we do, the wonderful improvement in physical condition which is as a rule brought about in the ordinary recruit who • just squeezes into the ranks, is it not worth giving many more the chance of improvement after enlistment than have the chance just now ? What would be the certain results ?
First, we should greatly lessen the numbers of unemployed ; second, we should so far at least strengthen the bodies of those experimented on ; and third, above all, as Booth long ago insisted, we should have "regimented" and disciplined some portion at least of the army of loafers which till the end of time will always be a burden upon us, and speaking as a doctor, though not as an. expert, I firmly believe we shall have made out of the most un- promising material a considerable number of good fighting men.
Medical Officer of Health for Ross and Cromarty.
Dingwall.
P.S.—Farm settlements may or may not be a success in the case of the unemployed. All will depend on the overseers of the labourers, and their efficiency is at least a doubtful quantity. Again, even ordinary farmwork demands long training, if not natural aptitude. Drilling, shooting, &c., are parts of a thoroughly tested system readily adaptable to the capacities of the most awkward pupils, with the moral whip of a well-established disciplinary authority behind it.
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