The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-19
"ROUND-UPS" OF
 SLACKERS ANGER LONDON CITIZENS
Many Protests Made Against War Office Methods of
 Seeking Out Recruits.

London, Sept. 19.-Lord Derby held conference recently with the ch1ef constables of the principal provincial towns with the object of testing expert opinion as to the most eff1cacious methods of preventing evasions from military service.
 A communiuue issued from the War Office in reply to public protests against "round-ups' whereby hun dreds of innocent people were subject ed to inconvenience and annoyance, vas generally condemned as lame ex- cuse and it was thought that, as the official communique practically admit ted that the raids failed to discover any /appreciable number of slackers, this particular method of using the military dragnet would be dropped. The Manchester Guardian recently, however, records fresh instances Of ''round-ups' describing one as follows:
 "There was a very drastic round- up last night at the Chiswick Empire A friend whose visit was unpleasantly prolonged by having to spend weary hours while convincing the military authorities that he was entitled to exist in civilians clothes, was struck by the extraordinary good humor of men in the most vexing circumstan- ces. A military officer appeared on the stage shortly before the end of the performance and forbade any men of military age to leave. women, children and most of the ineligible men were allowed to go, but some who were clearly above military age were kept behind and all had to file past the .1hilitary officers in long tedious queue. There were striking exceptions to the general Londoner s philosophical testing acceptance Of worries. One or two men were loud ly and openly contemptuous and 'iny dignant and these bold spirits, who would not go quietly, found them selves distinguished by a powerful es- cort of police, ordinary and special, on their way to the Police Station. There was a bag of twenty out of some 300 men examined, and most of these, Of course, had some good explanation.
 Another point was the remarkable contrast between the manners of the military and the police. Entirely un- necessary roughness was shown by some army officers in cross-examining perfectly innocent persons. The reg ular police, with a knowledge of hu- man nature and of how men should be handled, and the special police, who have not acquired the official point of view, behaved with considera- ton and courtesy. Underneath the surface of the submission of the peo- pie there was evidently bitter re- sentiment and that not only on the part of those described by one news paper yesterday as liberty-of-th -the-sub- Nject-at-any-price fanatics"
 As already indicated these affairs created no little uneasiness here, chiefly because of the fear that evil dences of "Zabernism' would inter fere with the spirit of the general ac- ceptance of conscription as a means to win the war against, Prussian militar ism. The Daily News declared. '"The War Office seemed infected with \the virus of German militarism in it's most malignant form"
 Under the heading: "The Prussian- ization of England" William Archer l contributes an article to the same pa per to-day wherein he says:
 While vehemently reprobate many actions of the militarists mili- tant, whom war has dressed in a. lit
 tie brief authority, I think there is
 no great danger providing we win. InA
 stead of militarism becoming endem-
 ic in England, it is industriously cut | ting its own throat. The country is learning what militarism means and
 it will not soon forget the lesson. It does not rise up in fury because the
 Hun is at the gate and we cannot
 endanger a great cause for the sake | of few foolish families, whether they be prosecutors or persecuted, but | when peace returns the reign of the prosecutors will be over and I am not without hope that some then may
 be brought to book for their illegal excesses.
 "At all events am optimist enough | to believe that the people who count on the permanent Prussianization of England will be disappointed. There | is a large reserve of humanity and common sense in the British charac- | ter, which will be mobilized as soon J as the immediate peril has passed