The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-08-16
AFFAIRS AT CAMP COFFIN
THE BOOMING OF MANY GUNS WAS
 HEARD.


 Cool Weather Hoped For-ro-day's Pro-
 gram.
 Mantle, Conn.,. Camp Coffin, Aug. 15.- This has been perfect day for the soldiers, with the thermometer only at S4 degrees at noon. The sky was un- clouded, but a cool breeze swept the parade ground from the sound, and there were no complaints of the heat. To be sure, there were two prostrations reported, but they were slight ones, and the patients were discharged and sent home tonight.
 Private McMahon of Company G, Second regiment, who was in the hos p!ta! this morning suffering from sprained knee. was sufficiently recover ed to leave for home on the 4 o'clock train this afternoon. The only patient now in the brigade hospital is Private James Barry, Company G, Second regi- ment, who has a sprained neck as the result of a wrestling match last night. He is quite comfortable and ate hearty dinner. He sits up this after noon and will probably be all right to- morrow. The surgeon in charge of the hospital this afternoon expressed the opinion that this was the healthiest camp he had seen for years. A num- Der of men call at the department in the evening for prescriptions for some minor malady, colds principally, and there were very few all night cases.
 The day was quiet and orderly, and there were but few men in the guard house. One man was brought in from the Second for insubordination, but he will be discharged tomorrow morning without trial The intoxicated civil ians who attempted to gain entrance to the state camp to-day were refused, or if one managed to enter, he was speed fly ordered out of the enclosure. The officers have decided that all such per- sons shall be excluded from the camp, as they give the place bad reputation. One tramp who managed to crawl in- side the line during the early morning, and went to sleep alongside the fence. was turned over to the civil authori- ties. The only person under the infiu- ence of intoxlcants seen on the camp ground to-day was civilian.
 The talk of the soldiers to-day was the story published in a New Haven morning paper this morning referring to liquor and drunkenness in camp. The article met with hostile reception indeed, and this particular paper was denounced. There were only ten cop ies sold on the grounds. Officers and men were bitter in the denunciation of the article. There were even threats of running the reporter off the grounds providing it could be ascertained who wrote the story.
 The Journal and Courier special correspondent interviewed all the of ficers of Colonel Burpee's staff, Colonel Burpee, and the captains of the various companies of the Second regiment, which regiment is especially attacked in the article referred to.
 Colonel Burpee, for his part, said that he deemed the article an outrage, unqualifedly so. and that there was not grain of truth in 1t. He considers the present camp one of the most order ly that he has attended and drunken ness is almost unknown. To be sure, he does not expect absolute temper ance or total abstinence, for no body Of 2,700 men could be brought together without some of them drinking.
 Chaplain Anderson says that the story is false, and he cannot see where any reporter could have found food for such an exaggerated account Any one needs but to spend an hour in camp, he says, to prove to the contrary of this article. He has seen no intoxication in camp since he has been there.
 Adjutant Thomas T. Welles of New Haven was asked for his opinion re- garding the article, and he denied the truth of it's statements in toto. He be- lieves that for such a paper as this one to publish such a libel is ridiculous. He admits that some of the men drink, and he says that it would be impossible for such a number of men to come to- gether without some drinking, but drunkenness is practically unknown.
 Captain c. B. Bowen, Company I, Sec ond regiment. said the affair was an outrage, and should be so branded He, for one. would say that he never attended a camp where there was stricter attention to business, and less liquor drinking.
 Captain James J. Kennedy of the Sarsfeld Guard, New Haven, said that in all his twenty-one years of camps he has never seen a more orderly camp It has been most successful in every way, not the least in the exceptional exemptness from intoxicati tion. He says that such an article injures the paper more than the National Guard, and the article can possibly do no good.
 First Lieutenant Damn of the New Haven Grays was interviewed and he said that before he came to Mantle he dreaded the ordeal. He has found, how ever that the camp has been exception ally orderly, and the officers have been able to bunk in at taps every night He attributes this unusual state of af- fairs to the almost total exclusion from the grounds of intoxicating liquors.
 small arms on Colonel Burdette's staff, was also interviewed, and he most em- phatically denounced the story. He says there is nothing in camp to cause such a. report and the most casual ob- server cannot fail to note this fact. He does not believe that the article will injure the Connecticut National Guard, for those who have visited Camp Coffin must know the real state of affairs