"This man will be too expensive in the Army," confessed the Military Representative at the Luton Tribunal on Thursday [June 29th, 1916], in the case of a master shoeing and general smith who said he had eight children, besides having lost one.

The children ranged from 13 to three weeks, and the Town Clerk (Mr William Smith) wanted to know if the applicant had "to count them to see they are all in at night, like you do chickens".

The smith was allowed conditional exemption from military service, and so also was a bricklayer with seven children who had birth certificates to vouch their ages from 15 years to 2.

"Why, you have had one nearly every year, haven't you?" asked the Town Clerk, and the man smilingly acquiesced. "As I should be an expensive soldier to the State, I consider it my duty to remain in my employment and keep my wife and children," he urged.

In view of his earnings it was was suggested that his wife and children would be as well off if he were in the Army, but he did not agree because he said he went out window cleaning at nights, and with his eldest son worked a paper round on Sundays.

"We have five loaves of bread at our house every day," was one astonishing piece of information he gave the Tribunal, and the Town Clerk suggested that he had better keep a bakery of his own.

"It (bread) is coming down in price," was a piece of consolation offered by the Deputy Mayor, and the man fervently replied that he hoped it was because it was getting "a bit thick" - £3 didn't go as far as 30 shillings did before the war.

"I suppose it costs you something for soap for all the lot," was a question of the Town Clerk, and the man said this was so because his wife had all she could do to keep the lot of them clean and tidy.

There was a general laugh when the Tribunal adopted the suggestion of "conditionally exempt while so employed".

[The Luton Reporter: Monday, July 3rd, 1916]