The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-06-22
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=
 A TRADE IN WAR MEDALS.

Various Ways in Which They are Dis
 posed of and Uses to Which They are
 Put.
 War medals, mostly won at the cost of peril and privation, are pawned by pos isessors and never redeemed, or are sent to the hammer by needy relatives on the decease of the veterans. It may be here noted that no man on the army active strength is allowed to pledge his medals. As is we'll known, war decorations that pass by the means stated, and other wise, into commerce are eagerly pur- chased by dealers, who dispose of them to musetn1s also to private collectors of every grade, from American millionaires to British publicans.
 These disks of silver, especially those awarded for modern campaigns, from the Crimean war downward, are occa- sonally put by dealers to novel uses. By the aid of a blowpipe the inscription on the edge can be filed with silver, when the surface if need be, is ready for re-engraving. Doctoring of the name, rank and regiment by the method men tioned is common in the trade. So it may be that the virtuoso who imagines he possesses a memento of the late gal lant General Fitz Carnage, K. c. B., who distinguished himself at Balaklava, would be shocked if he knew that his pet curio is a fraud, and that it belonged to old Tommy Atkins, of the Onety- oneth Foot who pawned it before he re- tired into the workhouse to die.
 Again, officers serving or retired sometimes lose their medals, or have them feloniously annexed. Sooner than go through the war office red tape mill to procure duplicates re-lettered medals are obtained from dealers Mendicants get hold of medals in order to exhibit them to credulous and benevolent folks. and thus extract a more liberal aims. War decorations are also occasionally sported by one-armed or single-legged organ-grinders. Such gentry warrant themselves to be British, and plead for patronage as matter of national senti- ment and as opposed to the claims of the Saffron Hill musical contingent of inva- ders. These medal-dsplaying humbugs are seldom ex-soldiers, far less have they been disabled in active service. They are at times considerably Tout" in respect of bit of medal ribbon shown for instance, an organ-grinder of about five-and-twenty years of age was ob- served in Holborn the other day sport ing the Crimean and Mutiny ribbons!
 Sometimes an actor possessed of pas sion for realism who may have to inn personate on the stage the hero Of hundred fghte invests in real medals with which to cover the breast of his tun;c Also genuine war decorations ad rn the uniformed presentments of ( inent warriors in the best-class wax exhibitions throughout the country. A year or two ago a paragraph went the rounds of the papers to the effect that a king of a tribe on the West Coast of Af- rica had mania for collecting British war medals, and that a city firm had standing order to supply his sable ma | iesty. The king owned major-gene- ral's tunic, on which were sewn--both | back and front, and from collar to tails | medals and clasps from those of the | Peninsula and Waterloo downward. | This garment the monarch proudly | sported on extra special state occasions. 1.-The Regiment.