Shortly after I took up the command in New South Wales an incident occurred which gave the first real impetus to the serious consideration and final adoption by the Government of the system of universal service as proposed by me eleven years before when Commandant in Adelaide. I had arranged to read a paper to my officers in New South Wales. Owing to the fact that our own military institute was not sufficiently large to accommodate them we had made arrangements to hire one of the big public halls, and we had decided to ask the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Alderman Allan Taylor, to take the chair and to send invitations to many of the chief citizens to be present. My object in reading this paper was to push on the question of universal service. The title I had selected for the lecturette was, "What has Australia done for the Australians, and What are Australians doing for Australia?" After I had finished the Lord Mayor made a few remarks with reference to the subject at issue and concluded by moving a vote of thanks. This was really outside our practice at the institute. I thanked the Lord Mayor for his kind remarks, and in quite a colloquial way said that it was distressing to go round the public parks about Sydney on holidays and Saturday afternoons and see thousands of young men sitting on fences smoking cigarettes, content to loaf and look on while a few men played games. It happened that the previous Saturday had been the last day of one of the cricket Test Matches, against England played at the Sydney Cricket Ground. The attendance thereat had been enormous, as usual--some thirty-five thousand people. The next morning I was astonished when I got the morning papers to see the following headings: "The Citizens of Sydney insulted.... Forty thousand loafers at the Sydney Cricket Ground. So says our new Commandant, General Gordon." Then followed a statement to the effect that while addressing the officers under his command and many eminent citizens the evening before, the general had stated that on the previous Saturday he had been present at the Sydney Cricket Ground and had seen thousands of loafers whose time would have been far better taken up if they had been devoting it to fitting themselves for the defence of their country, and that they (the newspaper reporters) considered it a very undeserved reflection on the thousands who were watching the big tussle at the Test Match.