A soldier in the trenches received a letter from his little boy, which he sent to London with a pitiful appeal for help. “Kindly do what you can for me and the well-being and welfare of my four beautiful children,” the poor soldier wrote. “I am enclosing a fearful letter I have received from my poor little lad, 14-1/2, the first and only letter I have received from him. Sir, I shall be most anxiously awaiting your reply, for this letter is the greatest blow I have ever received.” This is the little boy’s letter: Dear Dad: Just a line to let you know how everything is at home. Mother is drunk for a fortnight and sober for a week for months and months. I’ve stuck it now for seven months, and can’t stick it any longer. I tried to get into the Navy and passed all the tests, but mother would not sign the papers, for which I am sorry. If mum would sign I could go away to Portsmouth on Thursday, but she will not. At the present moment she is half drunk and keeps jawing me so that I could knife meself. I’ve lost my new job because mum would not wake me in the morning, and nothing for breakfast, and had to get mine and the children’s tea at tea-time. It pains me to write like this, but I can’t help it. I now seek your advice as to what to do. I hope _you_ will enjoy Xmas, although there is not much hope for us. I now conclude with fondest love, X. Your heartbroken Son, Leslie. A stream of nearly 15,000 men and women poured into 58 publichouses in Birmingham in less than four hours; over 6,000 were women. Into one house the people streamed at nearly 500 an hour. _Facts in “Review of Reviews,” October 1915_ For months some wives of soldiers and sailors in Scotland were never really sober. “We have done our best,” says a worker among them, “going to their homes and doing all in our power, but it beats us.” In 23 families, with 178 children born, 61 were dead. _Facts told to Secretary for Scotland, July 1916_ Will some Member of Parliament please ask =whether the ships that have brought in food for destruction by the drink trade could not have brought in a large proportion of the 3,500,000 tons of wheat now waiting for ships in Australia and the 2,000,000 tons waiting in Canada?= ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Roll of the Dead No more pitiful record of the war is there than that unnumbered roll of men lured from our armies by this liquor trade, and cast into dishonoured graves. We can take only a few of them. A number of soldiers at Ormskirk came into camp drunk on Christmas night. A request for quiet led to a fight, and one of the men was struck two blows and was dead the next morning. _Facts in “Daily Mail,” December 28, 1915_