Penistone, Stocksbridge and Hoyland Express, etc. — 1915-06-05 (Penistone, South Yorkshire, England)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR PENISTONE AND THE GREAT  WAR.  Sir.-1 am glad you keep pressing tor universal training of our youth and other matters that will benefit the pres Put and future general ions. Notwithstanding that the old moorland town has already done exceedingly well, it 'an still record a steady run of would-be recruits. \lost are accepted, some put back on account of being engaged on Government work, and others, though anxious to .•• ye their country, not being eligible for soldiers through some physical defect.  It i; very disappointing that thioughout the country there are so many young men in these days who bare to he rejected as wanting in physique and stamina. This raises a very serious question in the interests both of the country and our young folks. viz.. Who is or are to blame for this stuto of things? Speaking for myself. I do not think the young folks are to blame. 1 mostly blame the parents, and, shall I say, school teachers. During the last half-century many parents have through ignorance or otherwise not given that attention to the food on which they have brought up their children. How I many girls have been brought up on the I flakiest of pastry and weak tea, and what !percentage of our youth on the "whitest" —and least nourishing—hread dabbed with Jam or treacle? Oatmeal porridge and oatcakes anti wholemeal or brown bread and milk have until recently been almost entirely discarded, and what has been the consequence An American writer, Dr. Laurence !melt, says:—"Never Was there a race which suffered as the English-speaking rare is now suffering from the futility of the worst specimens of humanity. With earb, reneration the vitality of the community is being reI duced by its manner of life and in order to I enable it to continue the fight against the inevitable laws of nature all sorts of artificial aids have to be invented.—false teeth, spectacles, ear trumpets, wigs, in say nothing of prejudicial foods are a few of the contrivances with which we are trying to carry I out the pernicious doctrine of the survival I of the unfitted."  The conseqnence is that deaths from suicide and diseases of the nervous system are steadily increasing. Is it right that these poor and to be pitied "ilegenerales" should he allowed to marry and produce offspring More degenerate, whose only wish can he that they had never been horn? .Are balf the mothers in our country at the present time strong enough or fit to suckle their children? In recent years no doubt the advent of "Quaker Oats" has in sonic measure retarded further degeneration. Men of the tine stature and stamina a Bosvilles soldiers in the Parliamentary war are not readily to be met with in the district in these days. There is a tradition that in the Hunting Lodge (now in ruins) of the Dosville's at Oxspring in times gone by lived a widow who was a noted maker of oatcakes, and used on baking days to , lit up a fag to let the neighbourhood know when she was baking them. Until about fifty years ago reels on which oatcakes were hung to dry were put up under the ..hamber front of the fire in many houses. The old dame I have mentioned had one, and perhaps what has kept her and her substantial oatcakes in remembrance is the fact (?) that one of her cakes fell from her reel and broke a stone flag on which it fell. Fed on such oatcakes as these, can there he any wonder that Bosville's regiment was composed of men none under six feet high and called— Soldiers of a rustic mould; Rough, hardy, seasoned, manly, bold"? l'enistone has long been noted for its oats and oatmeal and other agricultural products. In coaching days l'enistone oatmeal had a ready sale in London and other places, and from records anent Oxspring Mills I snrinise that some tradesmen in Manchester and other towns retired on handsome competencies made from dealings in ."Rollings• grist" and other products of Penistone district in those tlaya. In tliese days I have to be satisfied with- foreign sour. Quaker Oats from America and Provost Oats from Scotland. Shall le ever see, say, odic "Bavercake oats" from Penistupe, fair' ut.H.e not Bosyille's soldier: the .Avator, of cur famous regiment called "The Ils.tmeake Lads "?—Yours truly, AN OLD YORKSHIRBM Penistone, June 1915.