Nov. 10.
In official circles at Home a year ago the fiat went forth that for the. future Armistice Day should be known as Remembrance Day. A day it certainly is to conjure up memories of those who ''went West'' in the struggle, but yet the name is not really suitable to the sentiments of those principally concerned in it, the men and women who bore the burden through the heat of the day. The armistice meant so'much to them, and the very word has well-nigh a hallowed sound to-day. We are glad, in the circumstances, that our local bodies retain the name, for with it will not only arise the associations of what is meant in Remembrance Day but their own personal recollections as well. So many and varied are these that to-day one would hardly dare to attempt a precis of them. The war has had such extraordinarily different effects on different people that to analyse the emotions aroused by the anniversary we hold tomorrow would be beyond the scope of almost any writer.
There are a number of people who desire nothing more than that they should lose almost all recollection of the experiences they went through. Among these may be found certain highly-strung individuals to whom the ordeal of waiting in a trench under an intensive bombardment was extreme torture. Although they bore it bravely and without outward display of their feelings, it coloured the whole of their experiences luridly, and the cheerful, even humorous aspects of the campaign are lost to them. Tt is different with others, probably not cast in such a fine mould but better fitted for the task in hand, and they can look back on countless episodes which made life well worth living even in the midst of Flanders mud. Their recollections must include many and many an act of self-sacrifice, of kindness and unselfish ness on the part of comrades and even strangers which would confirm even a sceptic's belief in the innate nobility of human nature. _-The great thing was that these: acts were by no means confined to the men who attained some personal glory in the war, but the grousers, the scrimshankers and all sorts of the stuff of which armies are made, used to do these things.. There
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.