A Canadian soldier, who had been wounded at the Front, was taken to a house by women and left alone drunk. An officer gave him an excellent character, and said he was on his way back to Canada. These men experience temptations here (he said) that they would not find in Canada, and there was too much of this going on.
Hastings Police Records, February 19, 1917
I heard a sad account of the havoc of the wet canteen and a private in a Canadian A.M.C. told us of a lad of 17 who is made so drunk that there is rarely a night when he has not to be helped up to bed. One of the soldiers here told me of his son in Canada being anxious to join up, but after seeing the condition of things over here he was doing all he could to discourage his son.
Letter to the Author
The Canadians in most cases are entirely lost when they arrive in this country, and are much more liable to the temptation which is thrown in their way, but when you give a figure such as this—that in one camp during last year, and two months of the previous year, there were 7,000 cases—it seems to me that it is about time we realised the magnitude of the evil. I do not know what has happened to them, except that I imagine a large number have gone back to Canada, and have not been able to play the part they had hoped to play.
Captain Guest in Parliament, April 23, 1917
In Camp and On Leave
Everywhere we find the trail of drink among Canadians—in camp and on leave.
A Canadian corporal, wounded in the Battle of Ypres, was found terribly drunk after being missing all day from hospital. Confronted with the surgeon after violent acts of insubordination, the corporal broke down and cried like a child.
Facts in “Western Mail,” February 18, 1916