Part 3

The wife of a corporation workman at Sheffield, home from the trenches with six gunshot wounds and three pieces of shell in his body, found that his wife had given way to drink and starved her five children. She was sent to prison for six months.

_Police Records of Sheffield, November 3, 1915_

A soldier’s wife who had spent the greater part of £100 Army money in drink was sent to prison for neglecting her children. Almost everything in the house was pawned, including the children’s clothes; and the woman began to drink at five o’clock in the morning, and went on drinking all day.

_Facts in “Cork Constitution,” December 10, 1915_

A soldier’s wife in Monmouthshire, with £3 9_s._ a week, was found sodden with drink, while the soldier’s eight children were in rags starving by day and huddling up in one bed by night.

_Facts in “Westminster Gazette,” July 22, 1916_

A smart tidy woman in a London suburb, whose husband is fighting in Mesopotamia, has £2 10_s._ 6_d._ a week. She used to love her children and had a happy home, but she drinks away her Army pay, lives with a married man who has six children, and has become a drunken slattern. The other wife is beaten and neglected, and the soldier’s children have gone to the workhouse.

_Records of Shaftesbury Society_

The four children of a soldier in Dublin were found hungry and shivering with cold while the mother was drinking. Several times she had let her baby fall while reeling with it in the street.

_Facts in “Dublin Evening Herald,” October 20, 1916_

At the trial of a soldier’s wife for drinking and neglecting seven children, it was stated that a child of eleven was left in charge of a baby a fortnight old while the mother was drinking. At night all the children were heard screaming. The house was in utter darkness, and there was an escape of gas. Some men went in and turned off the gas, and at last the mother came stumbling out of a publichouse across the road.

_Facts in “Sheffield Star,” November 25, 1915_

“Your husband is fighting for his country, and his children have the right to be protected,” said the Chairman of the Chesterfield Bench to a soldier’s wife. Her children were found starving while she was drinking, and one day the little boy of three was found crouching naked inside the fender, trying to get warm. The police described the house as foul from top to bottom, with a heap of horrible rags for a bed, and a food cupboard that made the house unendurable when the door was opened.

_Facts in “Yorkshire Telegraph,” March 24, 1916_

The wife of a missing soldier was sent to prison at Chesterfield for neglecting three children between 13 years and 16 weeks old. She had gone astray through drink, and the youngest child, born under terrible conditions, was not her husband’s. It was found lying on a filthy bed, and its drunken mother, to satisfy its pangs of hunger, had given it pennyworths of laudanum. Eleven people slept in two foul bedrooms.

_Chesterfield Police Records, October 9, 1916_

Five hundred children of soldiers are being cared for in the great Homes founded by Mr. Quarrier in Scotland, and most of them are there because of drinking mothers.

_Facts in Reports_

A soldier’s wife at Biggleswade spent her allowance on drink and left her three children locked up in the house for days at a time.

_Police Court Records of Biggleswade, September 1915_

A soldier’s wife was found reeling in the streets of Dublin with a baby in her arms. At her home were found four other children, cruelly neglected.

_Facts in “Dublin Mail,” August 16, 1916_

Nineteen hundred children of soldiers have come into the care of the N.S.P.C.C., mainly through drink, since the war began.

_Records of the N.S.P.C.C._

The Ruined Wives

Who does not remember the terrible rush for the last drop of drink when Prohibition seemed to be coming with the New Year? Long queues of women besieged the whisky shops in Glasgow. There were women of all ages, said the _Daily Mail_, tottering in grey hairs, young wives with babies in their arms, and men of the loafer type. “There was not a respectable citizen,” says the _Mail_, “who did not deplore this discreditable scene, but the remarks of passers-by provoked only torrents of insult.” The promise of the new year and the new Government, alas, was not fulfilled, and now in place of Drink Queues we have Food Queues. Let us see what drink is doing among our soldiers’ wives:

Of 3000 soldiers’ wives being cared for in South London, 2000 are splendid, while 1000 are sinking daily to lower and lower levels through drink.

_Records of Shaftesbury Society_

A soldier’s wife, with a separation allowance of 32_s._ 6_d._ a week, drank most of it away, ruined her home, neglected her children, and became a lunatic.

_Records of Claybury Asylum_

A young soldier’s wife, hitherto “quite an elegant type,” is rapidly becoming a drunkard. Women hitherto sober have not the courage to keep from women’s drinking parties, and young girls come out of factories and go to publichouses in little groups.

_Records of Charity Organisation Society_

Outside a public house in Dublin 15 small children were crying in the cold, waiting for their mothers. Ninety-four drunken women came out in 25 minutes. There were ten drunken soldiers, and two girls of 15 were thrown into the street hopelessly drunk.

_Facts in “Irish Times,” April 20, 1915_

In Dundee over 170 wives of soldiers gave way to drink last year, and cruelly neglected their homes.

_Records of the N. S. P. C. C._

A soldier in the trenches received a letter from his little boy, which he sent to London with a pitiful appeal for help.

“Kindly do what you can for me and the well-being and welfare of my four beautiful children,” the poor soldier wrote. “I am enclosing a fearful letter I have received from my poor little lad, 14-1/2, the first and only letter I have received from him. Sir, I shall be most anxiously awaiting your reply, for this letter is the greatest blow I have ever received.”

This is the little boy’s letter:

Dear Dad: Just a line to let you know how everything is at home. Mother is drunk for a fortnight and sober for a week for months and months. I’ve stuck it now for seven months, and can’t stick it any longer. I tried to get into the Navy and passed all the tests, but mother would not sign the papers, for which I am sorry. If mum would sign I could go away to Portsmouth on Thursday, but she will not. At the present moment she is half drunk and keeps jawing me so that I could knife meself. I’ve lost my new job because mum would not wake me in the morning, and nothing for breakfast, and had to get mine and the children’s tea at tea-time. It pains me to write like this, but I can’t help it. I now seek your advice as to what to do. I hope _you_ will enjoy Xmas, although there is not much hope for us. I now conclude with fondest love, X. Your heartbroken Son, Leslie.

A stream of nearly 15,000 men and women poured into 58 publichouses in Birmingham in less than four hours; over 6,000 were women. Into one house the people streamed at nearly 500 an hour.

_Facts in “Review of Reviews,” October 1915_

For months some wives of soldiers and sailors in Scotland were never really sober. “We have done our best,” says a worker among them, “going to their homes and doing all in our power, but it beats us.” In 23 families, with 178 children born, 61 were dead.

_Facts told to Secretary for Scotland, July 1916_

Will some Member of Parliament please ask

=whether the ships that have brought in food for destruction by the drink trade could not have brought in a large proportion of the 3,500,000 tons of wheat now waiting for ships in Australia and the 2,000,000 tons waiting in Canada?=

The Roll of the Dead

No more pitiful record of the war is there than that unnumbered roll of men lured from our armies by this liquor trade, and cast into dishonoured graves. We can take only a few of them.

A number of soldiers at Ormskirk came into camp drunk on Christmas night. A request for quiet led to a fight, and one of the men was struck two blows and was dead the next morning.

_Facts in “Daily Mail,” December 28, 1915_

A Liverpool soldier, drinking continuously, had overstayed his leave, and in a quarrel about this he stabbed his brother dead.

_Facts in “Liverpool Courier,” April 20, 1917_

A soldier invalided from France, having recovered from his wounds, gave way to drink, assaulted an officer, and hanged himself in his prison cell.

_Facts in “Daily News,” April 11, 1916_

A young lieutenant shot himself in an hotel near Trafalgar Square, and among the documents read at the inquest was a letter striking him off his battalion for drinking and gross carelessness.

_Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” October 27, 1916_

A captain in the Army ruined by drink, with a fine record of military service, started drinking on his way to a shooting range in London, and in a struggle he shot a detective dead.

_Facts in “Daily News,” September 20, 1915_

In the Scottish Express, between Doncaster and Selby, a drunken corporal of the Coldstream Guards was showing his rifle to a friend when it went off, the bullet killing a munitions works director in the next compartment, and narrowly escaping a lady in the compartment beyond. The corporal had in his pocket a bottle of whisky, which was freely handed round.

_Facts in “Daily News,” December 3, 1915_

A soldier who had been drinking heavily was placed in the guard room, and died after a night of groaning, evidently as the result of a fall.

_Records of Greenwich Coroner, January 1, 1915_

A young soldier arriving from India on Christmas morning was arrested three days later, after a drunken fight in which a man was killed.

_Westminster Police Records, December 28, 1914_

A soldier spent a day’s leave in Manchester, ate and drank very heavily, and was found dead the next morning from choking.

_Records of Manchester Coroner, December 28, 1914_

A soldier home on leave was found drunk with his wife. They had been throwing pots at one another, and on Christmas morning the woman was found dead with a wound in her head.

_Records of Oldham Coroner, December 24, 1914_

Three gunners had four drinks each of rum, and at midnight lay down to sleep in a garden at Lee, where one was found dying from alcohol.

_Facts in Local Papers at Lee, June 1915_

A soldier died from alcohol in a house where drink was unlawfully sold.

_Facts in “Manchester Guardian,” April 8, 1915_

A private in the Welsh Fusiliers died from alcohol, cold and exposure. He left a publichouse with a 4_s._ bottle of whisky, and was found dead on the roadside next morning, with the bottle almost empty.

_Facts in “Daily News,” April 13, 1915_

An old man who was said to be in a drunken condition was wounded in a fall with a soldier from Gallipoli, and died a few days after.

_Facts in “Daily Mail,” January 17, 1916_

An elderly man, seeing a drunken soldier lying in the street, went to his assistance, and was killed in a disturbance that followed.

_Record of Yorkshire Assizes, November 21, 1916_

A soldier was found drowned in the Trent. He was described as a good man at his work, but not steady, and had been drinking.

_Facts in “Newark Advertiser,” August 4, 1915_

A terrible disturbance occurred in a camp at Portland Reservoir after the closing of the canteen one Sunday night. A large number of men who had been drinking created a disturbance, in which bricks and stones were used, a tent collapsed, and the officers were called to quell the riot. The captain, drawing his revolver, rushed with two lieutenants into a hut where men were shouting and struggling, but appeals had no effect—the men “did not appear to hear or recognize their officers,” and one man raised his rifle and took aim at them. At least fifty shots were fired, and a young corporal fired many shots through the window into the darkness. In the morning a soldier was found dead. Nobody knew who shot him, but the corporal thought he must have done.

_Records of Dorset Assizes, Spring 1915_

Will some Member of Parliament please ask

=whether it is true that more food is being destroyed each week in breweries and distilleries than by submarines?=

The New Drinkers

“_No complaints have reached the War Office of youths who were total abstainers having become confirmed drunkards since enlistment._”

So we are told in the House of Commons. The records of the War Office are clearly incomplete, and the information from the camps may here be supplemented by unchallengeable witnesses of what happens in the horrible drink canteens run by the Army Council.

A soldier who was wounded at La Bassée, a total abstainer until then, was sentenced at the Old Bailey for killing his uncle while drunk. He was a newsvendor, aged 21, and had no memory of the tragedy in which he killed his uncle at a Christmas party.

_Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” January 13, 1916_

A private in the Royal Scots Fusileers, aged 17, was charged with murdering a bugler boy, aged 16, in his regiment. The private became mad drunk in the camp canteen, went back to his hut, locked himself in and fired two shots, one of which entered another hut and killed the bugler. “Was there no one with power to say how much drink should be given?” asked the judge, and an officer said there was no one. “Then it was high time power was given to the commanding officer,” said the judge. “Was there to be no restraining hand to prevent young boys from fuddling themselves in canteens?”

_Facts in the “Times,” November 21, 1916_

An old man sat in a tram in great distress. He had lost his boy at the Front. When he joined the Army he had never tasted alcohol, but when he came home on leave to see his mother he was drunk every night. He was drunk the night he went away, and in three days he was dead. “The last we saw of him,” said the poor old man between his sobs, “was his going away drunk, and his mother, who is old-fashioned in her faith, cannot get it out of her mind that no drunkard can enter the Kingdom of God.”

_Facts told by Dr. Norman Maclean_

Many young officers, called upon to share the wine bill at mess, naturally say, “If I have to pay I may as well drink my share,” and one man accounted for ten glasses of champagne. On a Guest night in his mess several more “were under the table.”

_Facts in “Dublin Daily Express,” April 1916._

A boy got his V.C., and came home wounded. The publican in his street sounded his praises in the taproom, where they subscribed to the bar for 120 pints for him when he arrived. He came home and began to drink it, and was nearly dead with it before he was rescued.

_Facts related by Bishop of Lincoln_

When the Scottish Horse Brigade were at Perth whisky was literally forced down the men, and they were inundated with floods of bad women.

_Brigadier-General Lord Tullibardine_

A teetotal household had two boys in an officers’ training camp, and they gave pitiable accounts of drinking. Boys from school had a drunken sergeant put over them, and a canteen in the midst of them. “Our boys never saw drink before,” one father wrote.

_From a letter to Dr. Norman Maclean_

A boy of 17, discharged from the Navy, spent 8_s._ one night on beer and rum, and created a disturbance in a workshop at Sheffield.

_Facts in “Sheffield Star,” November 11, 1916_

Mr. Justice Atkin, charging the Grand Jury at Bristol, said that in nearly every case where a soldier was tried in the Western Circuit the defence was drink. One lad of 18 was treated to eight pints of beer in two hours, and did not know what happened. That sort of thing, said the judge, must seriously impair the efficiency of the troops when sent to the Front.

_Record of Bristol Assizes, Autumn 1914_

Two boys, 15 and 17, were fined for being drunk in munition works. One was discovered just in time to save him from carrying molten liquid.

_Birmingham Munitions Tribunal, Dec. 1916_

“A boy joined the Royal Navy as a carpenter, living in barracks and working on shore. Every day he was given ‘grog’ for his rations, although he never asked for it and never took it.”

_Facts in letter to the Author_

Such are the tragedies of boys handed over in our camps to drink and its temptations. What of the girls in our munition shops? They have learned to drink in thousands since the war began—respectable girls leaving home to go into munitions, respectable young wives alone at home. With no restraining hand upon them, with new companionships and pocket-money flowing freely, it is not surprising the temptation should be too strong for them. We can take only one or two cases.

The girl-wife of a Cardiff seaman died in the street from exposure after drinking in publichouses with other girls.

_Records of Pontypridd Coroner, December 27, 1916_

A publican at Lincoln was fined £5 for allowing children to be drunk on his premises. Ruth Onyon, 14, and Rose Herrick, 16, were found in his house with a soldier. They had been in five houses and had ten drinks each and reached home helplessly drunk.

_Facts in “Sheffield Daily Telegraph,” Sept. 1, 1916_

A number of cartridge workers were summoned for taking drink into a munition works. One young woman was led to the surgery drunk at half-past four in the morning; another was discharged because she could not stand. Sixteen girls subscribed for four bottles of wine and whisky.

_Records of Leeds Munitions Tribunal, April 28, 1916_

Two girls of 16 and 17 were fined for being helplessly drunk in an explosive works, the magistrates pointing out that their conduct imperilled the lives of other workers.

_Records of Coventry Munitions Tribunal July 24, 1916_

The men and girls at a large armament works drank all night. Girls would lurch into the dormitory dead drunk at 2 a. m.; one lady was up till 4 a. m. letting in drunken girls. As a result of drunkenness there was an explosion at these works, two men being killed and six injured.

_Facts in “Spectator,” Jan. 20, 1917_

A Dublin publichouse was found full of girls and soldiers, all drunk. Three drunken girls were taken away by six soldiers.

_Facts in “Irish Times,” April 20, 1916_

In half an hour 367 girls entered Birmingham publichouses, scores under 18. Stout and beer were chiefly drunk, but whisky and water also, and some port wine. Ten young girls were quite drunk.

_Facts in “Birmingham Daily Post”_

Will some Member of Parliament please ask,

=in view of the fact that American soldiers are not to touch alcohol, what arrangements the Government proposes to make for them in this country?=

Back to the Homeland

Everywhere we hope and pray for peace, for the day when the men will come home; but we may dread the day if the men come home to drink and its temptations. The sudden release of millions of men, the certain reaction after the terrible stress of these three years, is fearful to contemplate with the door of the tap-room open. There would be an end of civilization itself for days and weeks and months, and for many a town at home the Peace would be worse than the War.

We owe it to these men to listen to the warning of the Prison Commissioners who printed these words in their report last year:

=When war is succeeded by peace there will come a time of trial for those who have never turned their backs to a bodily enemy. With the passing of military discipline our brave fellows will be tempted to forget the hardships and miseries of the trenches in a burst of uncontrolled pleasure and license, and, if trade be bad and work difficult to obtain, the lapse may, if not checked, become a step on a downward career.=

It is not imagination merely. Judges, coroners, police, and all who face the crime and misery of life, know well the bitter things that happen when men come home without restraint. There are witnesses innumerable. Let us hear a few of them.

A captain in the Royal Flying Corps drove a motor-car through London, knocked a man down, drove on, and ignored the police, who eventually mounted the footboard and found the officer drunk.

_Bow Street Police Records, June 3, 1916_

A lance-corporal on Chesterfield station was so drunk that he walked off the platform and fell on the line as a passenger train came up.

_Chesterfield Police Records, June 2, 1915_

A corporal of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, leaving the Front with 150 rounds of ammunition and his service rifle, came out drunk into the streets of West Ham and began firing his rifle.

_Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” July 10, 1915_

A soldier who had received a cartridge from his son at the Front, put it in his rifle, and while drunk fired it in the streets of Manchester.

_Manchester Police Records, January 27, 1915_

In the early hours of the morning two unarmed soldiers were fired at in Woolwich by a drunken soldier, who chased them for a long distance, firing shots all the time, until he was arrested.

_Facts in “Alliance News,” February, 1915_

Drunkenness among soldiers and sailors is appalling. Unoffending travellers are delayed by drunken sentries. Sailors landing after weeks of arduous toil in the North Sea find it easy to get so drunk that some are drowned, some die from exposure, and many return to their ships in a condition of helpless inebriety.

_Facts in “Inverness Courier,” May 1915_

Two drunken soldiers entered the parish church at Codford, set fire to the vestry, threw down the altar cross and candlestick, broke a stained-glass window, and tore leaves out of a Bible 200 years old.

_Facts in “Daily Chronicle,” April 3, 1916_

A drunken soldier at Cannock was imprisoned for drawing his bayonet in the streets. “If I meet a policeman I will murder the dog,” he said, and, meeting one, he threatened to cut off his head.

_Police Records at Cannock, March 1916_

400 soldiers tried to get a drunken man from the police in Grantham.

_Facts in “Grimsby News,” July 30, 1915_

A drunken sergeant was found forcibly detaining a girl at Hornsey. On the police interfering, the drunken soldier drew his bayonet.

_Facts in “Daily News,” September 7, 1916_

Three splendid-looking fellows, minesweepers, were traveling on the Highland Railway. “All were married men,” said a fellow passenger, “happy and proud of their homes, and they spoke with ache still in their hearts something of their lives and work. Well, these men succumbed during the journey. A change of trains was their opportunity, and I left them in a nearly helpless condition.”

_Facts in “The Spectator,” April 8, 1916_

A lady visited a soldier’s wife and found her at home with all her clothes in pawn. Her husband and brother had both been home from the Front, and in one week had spent £8 on drink.

_Facts in the “Cork Constitution,” Dec. 10, 1915_

A labourer, home from tunnelling work at the Front, was fined 13_s._ for drunkenness on his 33rd appearance, having spent £45 in seven days.

_Facts in “Daily News,” Oct. 11, 1916_