[To THE EDITOR OF TEE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—Practising medicine as I
do in the City of London it is often borne in on me with the sadness of tragic iteration how much young male life would be spared to the Empire if only there were (to use the phrase of democratic Australia) "universal service" for all boys between the ages of fourteen and seventeen years for the crying needs of the Imperial Navy. The tale of "mean streets," close warehouses, and city offices is the story of tuberculosis; the cry of the Navy is "We are undermanned." And even if such lads did not adopt the Navy as a subsequent career, they would return to civic life, not wasted, anwmic, and foredoomed to early death as is too often the case, but invigorated with fresh air, disciplined with a discipline that would never be forgotten, and a credit to the country they bad learnt on an emergency to serve. We associate the idea of universal service too much with the Army only, but it is the boys, "the fathers of our men," who most need the greatest of all preventive sanatoria! I say that no money would be wasted that was properly spent to carry out such an idea.—I am, Sir, Ise., London, E.C. GEORGE IL R. DABBS, M.D.
Previous page
