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H--wn'i-iii.'ww!W'4jppu.pii'imuij hjjii mpu i iMyunwuniiiuij minijpupjjL mnimiwpjimiH . m; and purposes a slave. He must Black the officers shoes or do any kind of menial work and be insulted or abus ed into the bargain. If he objects he is jailed and if he quits he is a de serter and is hunted -down and treat ed as a felon. If an officer has an own brother in the ranks he would not be permitted to treat him other wise than as a servant and if there were a blizzard on and the officer was in comfortable quarters he could not let his brother under the same roof. He would lose caste as an officer. "Is it any wonder that self-respecting young Americans are unwilling to become soldiers at such a price?" The British army system which is ours is described by George Ber nard Shaw in a letter just received in Washington as no better than the Prussian system. With the conscrip tion law justdopted, Shaw says the result will be "compulsory soldiering of the Prussian type, with abandon ment of every civil right, helpless sub . mission to cruel and degrading pun ishments without trial by jury for the smallest assertion of self-respect against not discipline but inso lence and class domination employment in occupations which have no relation to national defense and are either menial or merely the atrical; and barrack life, a thing in describable even by its advocates." Shaw urges Americans to tafce warning by the fate of England and not to shriek at conscription, "which," he says, "the firing of a sin gle shot may make irresistible at any moment, but to prepare for it by dis cussing and defining the conditions on which, citizens can accept military service in case of need without aban doning themselves to the hopeless slavery of a soldier. This is the real preparedness which the American na tion needs." In the French army the officers are recruited from the ranks. They go up on the basis of merit They are not officers because they have inher !ted title, political influence or money to'buy a' commission, as"in England,' or because they belong to an upper social caste as in the United States. France gets more and better officers by promoting the good men. France has demonstrated that the caste system is not necessary to dis cipline. Nor is it necessary to effi ciency. The French army has both. And yet we go on raising officers in hotbeds of snobbery like Annapolis and West Point and perpetuating all the traditions of the British feudal system in the regular army and the militia of the United States. TEN KILLED IN COLLISION ON NEW HAVEN ROAD New Haven, Conn., Feb. 22. Pas- ( senger train No. 19 on the New Haven railroad plowed through derailed freight train between here and -Bridgeport. According to reliable re ports 10 were killed and 16 in jured. Special trains loaded with phy sicians and nurses left here. The dead include engineer and fire man of freight, fireman of passenger train and Pullman porter. o o COAL OPERATORS CONSIDER DEMANDS OF MINERS New York, Feb. 22. For first time in history of anthracite coal miners wage negotiations, demands of work ers gp presented by President White, were not immediately rejected by the operators. Instead demands were taken under advisement and joint sub-committee was appointed to consider them. Four ' operators and 4 miners representa tives were appointed on committee. o o BITS OF NEWS Wife of Att'y Geo. Kelly, Evanston, seriously hurt when her auto his street car. . . Two more children killed by au toes while crossing street: Martha Walch, 6, 613 Webster av. ; Lazar Swi gotz, 13, 1846 Fulton. Frank Bongerno, 849 Taylor, may die. Fell off train while stealing ride.