'I applied to a famous London hotel for a job as a waiter, and was told that if I could manage to acquire a Cockney accent my application might be considered.

'It is a well-known American in London who has at last given me a chance. I am paid £2 a week as a beginning, but am being taught the business, and when I am bet

qualified I am to have a better salary. Now I am hoping to make good quickly. and am looking forward to getting married in a year's time.

'I have come to the conclusion that, while it is not half so difficult as people imagine to get promotion on one's own merit in the army, it is the hardest thing in the world to make one's way as a civilian without the backing of special influence.'

This is not by any means an isolated instance of the difficulty which ex-officers are meeting in their search for work. At

the headquarters of the Ex-Officers' Union a Daily Chronicle representative was given accounts by an official of very many men who have been out of work for months.

'Of several members whom I have seen recently,' he said, 'one told me he was about to apply for a job as a chimney sweep, as he had come to the end of his gratuity; another, now penniless, has been looking for work since March without result and has a mother and sister dependent on him; and a third tells me that after being told he was eligible for free legal training he has spent a good deal on legal books, only to be told that after all he cannot be trained.

'We hope by working together to better conditions for all ex-officers and to obtain work for those who, after giving up all to serve their country, are not offered even a living wage.'

OUT OF CAPTIVITY

BY GERARD HOPKINS

(A prisoner of war recently in Germany)

To hide beneath a little hill
When April brings the earliest daffodil,
To walk, and ride, and run, and eat my
fill.

To climb th' enchanted Down and lie And watch great clouds swell lazily Full-bosomed up the English sky.

To see the little roads again
Drop from the ragged woods and strain
Into the colored patchwork of the
plain.

THE WELL

BY ELLA YOUNG

With oziers straight and long
We stir the water

That slips away
So quietly:
Let us play

That we are fisherfolk
And this the Well of Song.
Beneath the Scarlet Hazels,
In its shadowed deeps
Fintan the Salmon sleeps
Like a bright-plumed bird;
He will wake, he will rise
At a whispered word,
And we may snare him
Tangled in a net

Cunningly staked and set

And have the world for prize,

Or better, cease to care

For any kingdom there,
Both grown so wise.

The Nation

OUT OF CAPTIVITY

BY GERARD HOPKINS

(A prisoner of war recently in
Germany)

To hide beneath a little hill

When April brings the earliest daffodil, To walk, and ride, and run, and eat my fill.

To climb th' enchanted Down and lie And watch great clouds swell lazily Full-bosomed up the English sky.

To see the little roads again

Drop from the ragged woods and strain Into the colored patchwork of the plain.

THE WELL

BY ELLA YOUNG

With oziers straight and long
We stir the water

That slips away
So quietly:
Let us play

That we are fisherfolk
And this the Well of Song.
Beneath the Scarlet Hazels,
In its shadowed deeps
Fintan the Salmon sleeps
Like a bright-plumed bird;
He will wake, he will rise
At a whispered word,
And we may snare him
Tangled in a net

Cunningly staked and set
And have the world for prize,
Or better, cease to care
For any kingdom there,
Both grown so wise.

The Nation