The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-10-29
CossAcK's DOOM SEALED.
Poultney Bigelow Declares that Ciyili-
cation will Cause His Extinction.

Cossack Evolutious With Improvised
on the March-Horses Picketed by
Burying in the Gronnd-Failure of the
Cossacks as Shown in Russia's Last
War with Turkey.
I OF all the cavalry in the world the
most famous is the Cossack. The favor
lite soldier of the Gar is no less super
a horseman than the Arab or the Ameri-
can cow-puncher and he has long been
one of the laost picturesque figures IN
military life. Poultney Bigelow, in an
article on The Cossack as Cowboy. Sol
der and Citizen, in the November Har-
pers, declares that the Cossack, like the
COW boy is doomed to extinction through
the advance of civilization and that he
would even now cut a very small figure
in a great European war.
CoSSACK VS.. WEST POINTER.
The, principal exercises in which the
Cossacks excel reminded me very much
of what / was familiar with at West
IOluU WACH UdC ivy VcAO Il % w iIoQiSO
their taste tor gymnastics on horseback
Our cadets, at least large proportion Of
every class, are quite as clever with
their horses as the average Cossa ck.s I
have seen them Stand on the horse's back
and gallop in that position. vault in and
out of the saddle while the horse is gall
Looping, reach down and pick objects
from the ground, leap hurdles with the
horse, alighting from the animal just
before the hurdle is touched, and vault
ing into the saddle as the horse clears
the obstacle. I have also seen our West
Pointers change horses while at full
gallop or one take the other, behind
him. All these exercises | have seen
done not mercy with the saddle, but
without; and not merely in the riding
school. but while riding out on country
roads.
These are the exercises in which the
Cossack chiefly excels and, it may be
added in parenthesis that the horse OF
the average Cossack resembles in many
respects the degenerate beast which the
government places at the disposition OF
the United States Military Academy.
The Cossack learns these tricks as a
boy when he is allowed with his mates
TO ride the horses bareback to water, and
incidentally is encouraged to indulge in
every manner of sport on the way. He
is encouraged also to -persevere in exer-
cises of this kind, and to be prepared
to make an exhibition of himself when
MS soldier he is garrisoned in towns,
where such exercises smack of the cir
Gus rather than of the barrack-yard.
The Cossack is SO often pictured in the
act of doing daring things with his
horse that it has become common to
think that all Cossacks are up to this
work., AS matter of fact it is only
small and select portion that keep up
these exercises, and these are embodied
in special section of the cavalry regi-
ment designated Dshigits". The Russian
regulations of war order the encourage
ment of these acrobatic cavalrymen par
ticuarly when they indulge in any ex-
ercises which may be turned to practical
account in war, as, for instance, leaping
over an obstacle and firing at the same
time, or compelling the horse to stop
suddenly and fall to the ground SO that
its body may be breastwork behind
which the trooper may shelter himself.