at none can escape its effects. No religious or philosophic precept is
potent enough in practical application to prevent its outbreak or to
stay its course. The strong man of military age, who claims the right to
pursue normal peaceful avocations when his country is at war, pleads
guilty, however involuntarily, to aberrations of both mind and heart.

There are few who do not conscientiously cherish repugnance for war, but
practically none of those to whom so natural a sentiment makes most
forcible appeal deem it a man's part to refuse a manifest personal call
of natural duty. The conscientious objector to combatant service may in
certain rare cases deserve considerate treatment, but very short shrift
should await the able-bodied men who, from love of ease or fear of
danger, simulate conscientious objection in order to evade a righteous
obligation.

Lack of imagination may be at times as responsible for the sin of the
shirker as lack of courage. Patriotism is an instinct which works as
sluggishly among the unimaginative as among the cowardly and the
selfish. The only cure for the sluggish working of the patriotic
instinct among the cowardly and the selfish is the sharp stimulus of
condign punishment. But among the unimaginative it may be worth
experimenting by way of preliminary with earnest and urgent appeals to
example such as is offered not only by current experience, but also by
literature and history. No shirkers would be left if every subject of
the Crown were taught to apprehend the significance of Henley's
interrogation:

What have I done for you,
England, my England?
What is there I would not do,
England, my own?

SIDNEY LEE.

[Illustration: THE SHIRKERS]

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ONE OF THE KAISER'S MANY MISTAKES

Louis Botha--we touch our hats to you!

You are supremely and triumphantly one of the Kaiser's many mistakes.
You have proved yourself once again a capable leader and a man among
men. You have proved him once more incapable of apprehending the meaning
of the word honour. You are an honourable man. Even as a foe you fought
us fair and we honoured you. You have valiantly helped to dig the grave
of his dishonour and have proved him a fool. We thank you! And we thank
the memory of the clear-visioned men of those old days who, in spite of
the clamour of the bats, persi