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