A soldier who was wounded at La BassÉe, a total abstainer until then, was sentenced at the Old Bailey for killing his uncle while drunk. He was a newsvendor, aged 21, and had no memory of the tragedy in which he killed his uncle at a Christmas party.

A private in the Royal Scots Fusileers, aged 17, was charged with murdering a bugler boy, aged 16, in his regiment. The private became mad drunk in the camp canteen, went back to his hut, locked himself in and fired two shots, one of which entered another hut and killed the bugler. “Was there no one with power to say how much drink should be given?” asked the judge, and an officer said there was no one. “Then it was high time power was given to the commanding officer,” said the judge. “Was there to be no restraining hand to prevent young boys from fuddling themselves in canteens?”

An old man sat in a tram in great distress. He had lost his boy at the Front. When he joined the Army he had never tasted alcohol, but when he came home on leave to see his mother he was drunk every night. He was drunk the night he went away, and in three days he was dead. “The last we saw of him,” said the poor old man between his sobs, “was his going away drunk, and his mother, who is old-fashioned in her faith, cannot get it out of her mind that no drunkard can enter the Kingdom of God.”

Many young officers, called upon to share the wine bill at mess, naturally say, “If I have to pay I may as well drink my share,” and one man accounted for ten glasses of champagne. On a Guest night in his mess several more “were under the table.”

A boy got his V.C., and came home wounded. The publican in his street sounded his praises in the taproom, where they subscribed to the bar for 120 pints for him when he arrived. He came home and began to drink it, and was nearly dead with it before he was rescued.

When the Scottish Horse Brigade were at Perth whisky was literally forced down the men, and they were inundated with floods of bad women.

A teetotal household had two boys in an officers’ training camp, and they gave pitiable accounts of drinking. Boys from school had a drunken sergeant put over them, and a canteen in the midst of them. “Our boys never saw drink before,” one father wrote.

A boy of 17, discharged from the Navy, spent 8s. one night on beer and rum, and created a disturbance in a workshop at Sheffield.

Mr. Justice Atkin, charging the Grand Jury at Bristol, said that in nearly every case where a soldier was tried in the Western Circuit the defence was drink. One lad of 18 was treated to eight pints of beer in two hours, and did not know what happened. That sort of thing, said the judge, must seriously impair the efficiency of the troops when sent to the Front.

Two boys, 15 and 17, were fined for being drunk in munition works. One was discovered just in time to save him from carrying molten liquid.

“A boy joined the Royal Navy as a carpenter, living in barracks and working on shore. Every day he was given ‘grog’ for his rations, although he never asked for it and never took it.”

The girl-wife of a Cardiff seaman died in the street from exposure after drinking in publichouses with other girls.

A publican at Lincoln was fined £5 for allowing children to be drunk on his premises. Ruth Onyon, 14, and Rose Herrick, 16, were found in his house with a soldier. They had been in five houses and had ten drinks each and reached home helplessly drunk.

A number of cartridge workers were summoned for taking drink into a munition works. One young woman was led to the surgery drunk at half-past four in the morning; another was discharged because she could not stand. Sixteen girls subscribed for four bottles of wine and whisky.

Two girls of 16 and 17 were fined for being helplessly drunk in an explosive works, the magistrates pointing out that their conduct imperilled the lives of other workers.

The men and girls at a large armament works drank all night. Girls would lurch into the dormitory dead drunk at 2 a. m.; one lady was up till 4 a. m. letting in drunken girls. As a result of drunkenness there was an explosion at these works, two men being killed and six injured.

A Dublin publichouse was found full of girls and soldiers, all drunk. Three drunken girls were taken away by six soldiers.

In half an hour 367 girls entered Birmingham publichouses, scores under 18. Stout and beer were chiefly drunk, but whisky and water also, and some port wine. Ten young girls were quite drunk.