A CROCKS BATTALION. .
[To ma Remo or Tea '.13orenharoa."1 SIR,—May I suggest a use for nnmilitary men of military age ? I am thirty-six, have been medically rejected for enlist- ment, and am considered by a great doctor as unfit. Still. I am not seriously diseased. There are many like me. Why not form a battalion of such men, give us a little training, arm us with old rifles, send us to France, and let us make a feint- & night attack, for example—pressed to the utmost of our small power, while a real attack is developed elsewhere P Fighting is at close quarters. We could be used without our physique being strained to the breaking-point before it began.
We might cumber a hospital, but what matter if we bad lured away an enemy force ? More probably our survivors would prove a useless encumbrance to the Germans. Our training, being directed to a definite end soon attained or lost, would be slight, just sufficient for us to move in military order and make some sort of show. Perhaps one of the big Volunteer Corps would give this. We need not cost the Government much, for the better off might help the worse off. I enclose privately my name and address, and should be glad to serve as a private in such a battalion raised for such a purpose. Will not some soldier express an opinion on the scheme P Will not some influential person take it up, make arrange- ments, get that official sanction without which preparation would be idle P The plan would help in a humble way to show that our conntry is in earnest. It might well enable the weak to perform a task for which the strong and competent are too often sacrificed. It would crown our last moments with a manhood that our shadowed lives have never known.
[The spirit shown by our correspondent is splendid and does him high honour. We feel sure, however, that the soldiers at the front would shrink from allowing such a deliberate sacrifice on the part of men who were not physically fit. In the matter of home defence the proposal wears a very different aspect. Let men in like case with "Old Harrovian" join a Volunteer Corps. Their fine spirit will be of the greatest use in such unite—En. Spectator.]
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