cle it is
Major-General Sir Sam Hughes, at that time known generally as Sam
Hughes, the Minister of Militia.

Sam Hughes did not arise in a single hour--neither was Rome built in a
day. He had been rising for several years, and it had taken the combined
efforts of both the Liberal and the Conservative parties to hold him
down.

Looking backward one cannot help thinking what a pity it was he had not
been given a free hand. He supported the Ross rifle, and raised it from
the status of a political weapon to that of a military one, and whatever
opponents to this weapon may claim they must remember that it was the
weapon that held the line at Ypres in those last few days of April,
1915, and had it not been available the Canadian Division would have
probably been in England patiently drilling with dummy rifles, and the
glory of having saved the situation would have fallen upon other troops.

However, the actual declaration of war drew people's attention to the
Militia, and they demanded action.

Some commanding officers made stirring speeches by platform or Press,
offering the services of their battalions as complete units--an
impossibility to accomplish owing to the terms of enlistment; others
with more modesty sent in their applications, without any flourish of
trumpets, for service in any capacity.

But along the border, wherever there were canals, bridges, and other
public works that might easily be damaged by fanatic sympathisers from
the United States, volunteers were called for to supply the necessary
guards.

Subsequent events justified these precautions, but for some time the men
on duty were the object of much attention from the small boy and that
type of young man who still roams the streets and declares that the
Allies are a long time winning the war!

Spy fever was rampant, and such experts as Begbie Lyte were constantly
in demand to investigate lights that flickered in any manner that a
vivid imagination might possibly take for signalling.

At other points practical jokes were played, such as driving a calf at
night in the direction of the sentry. The soldier receiving no answer to
his challenge would fire in the direction of the noise, and a loud laugh
would greet him. Once or twice, however, the sentry waited for the laugh
and fired in that direction, so that this variety of joke soon lost its
popularity.

Once, however, mobilisation had been ordered the militiamen were
replaced by men who had volu