Often The Company Commanders
Receive The Most Pitiful Letters From Mothers Of Enlisted Men,
Beseeching Them To Send Their Boys Back To Them, That They Are Being
Treated Like Dogs, Dying Of Starvation, And So On.
As though these
company commanders did not know all about those boys and the life they
had to live.
It is such a pity that these mothers cannot be made to realize that
army discipline, regular hours, and plain army food is just what those
"boys" need to make men of them. Judging by several letters I have
read, sent to officers by mothers of soldiers, I am inclined to
believe that weak mothers in many cases are responsible for the
desertion of their weak sons. They sap all manhood from them by
"coddling" as they grow up, and send them out in the world wholly
unequal to a vigorous life - a life without pie and cake at every meal.
Well! I had no intention of moralizing this way, but I have written
only the plain truth.
FORT SHAW, MONTANA TERRITORY
September, 1881.
THERE has been quite a little flutter of excitement in the garrison
during the past week brought about by a short visit from the Marquis
of Lome and his suite. As governor general of Canada, he had been
inspecting his own military posts, and then came on down across the
line to Shaw, en rozite to Dillon, where he will take the cars for the
East. Colonel Knight is in command, so it fell upon him to see that
Lord Lome was properly provided for, which he did by giving up
absolutely for his use his own elegantly furnished quarters.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 293 of 410
Words from 78593 to 78871
of 110651