Oct. 4.
'THE re-appearance of the bowler hat is not the only event of significance which marks the opening days of October. That itself is, of course, of ample importance, not only showing as it does that the men who hang on to white flannels are a Quixotically brave race, but that the dolce far niente of the summer of a very great number is at an end. About this time of year the Navy also puts its ducks in pound for many a month to come and reappears in all the chastity of blue, for whatever may be the traditional morals attaching to blue they certainly give an air of debonair innocence apart from their spic and span-ness to the wearer. Compliments aside, however, it all means that winter is coming, and in common with the Navy one finds the Special Constables assuming their cold weather garb. No doubt they doff it when under initiation into the art of jin-mitsu, which now seems to. be the Specials' speciality, but when the public encounters these volunteer guardians of the law to-day, their garb is that of men out to stand the utmost rigour of the weather. Further an even larger section of the community come under orders to appear in winter garb, these being the Volunteers. They do it automatically from the first of the month, albeit a routine order invariable directs attention to the change, and from now onwards they will deserve a good deal of attention. Just as well it is that we should take heed of a few of these changes of dress, for if we did not we should fail to realize what they mean in the way of activity to a very considerable section of the community.
Asa matter of fact we need not go further than the Volunteers to get an idea of what the beginning of October means. The average man has only to cast his mind back to the closing days of the last training season and he will recollect how one or other of them, Smith, Brown, Jones or Robinson, announced in less rather than more dulcet tones that he had spent many years volunteering, that anna domini was becoming part and parcel of his daily thoughts and that it was time he let the younger generation have @ chance. Nevertheless. in the autumn when it comes to the first time of falling in with
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.