The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1899-04-21

Shout, boys shout, for it makes you Jolly and
freei
The Ramrod Corps.
People who have seen state that one
Of the quaintest spectacles of human
frailty is an outbreak Of Mysteries in
girls school 1t starts without warning.
generally on a hot afternoon. among
the elder pupils. A girl giggles till the
giggle gets beyond control Then she
throws up her head and cries, "Honk,
honk, honkl' like a wild goose, and
tears mix with the laughter If the
mistress be wise, she will say something
severe at this point to check matters
II she be tender hearted and send for
a drink of water, the chances are large
ly in favor of another girl laughing at
the afflicted one and herself collapsing
Thus the trouble spreads and may end
in half of what answers to the lower
sixth of boys school rocking and
whooping together Given a week Of
warm weather, two stately promenades
per diem, heavy mutton and rice meal
in the middle Of the day, a certain
amount of nagging from the teachers
and few other things. some really
amazing effects can be secured At
least this is what folk say who have had
experience
Now, the mother superior of con.
vent and the colonel of British infan-
try regiment would be justly shocked
at any comparison being made between
their respective charges. But it is
fact that under certain circumstances
Thomas in btlll can be worked up into
ditthering, ripping hystera He does
not weep, but he shows his trouble I'M
mistakably. and the consequences get
into the newspapers, and all the good
and virtuous people who hardly know a
Martini from Snider say, Take
away the brute s ammunition
Thomas ism t "A brute, and his bust.
ness. which is to look after the virtucus
people, demands that he shall have his
ammunition to his hand He doesn't
wear silk stockings. and he really ought
to be supplied with a new adjective to
help him to express his opinions, but,
for all that he is great man. If you
call him 1.-THE heroic defender Of the ma
tional honor one day and ga brutal
and licentious soldiery" the next, Won
naturally bewilder him, and he looks
upon You with suspicion There is no.
body to speak for Thomas except people
who have theories to work off on him,
and nobody understands Thomas except
Thomas, and he does not know what is
the matter with himself
That is the prologue. This is the
story
Corporal Slane was engaged to be
married to Miss Jhansi McKenna, whose
history is well known in the regiment
and elsewhere He had secured his colo
nels leave, and. being popular with the
men, every arrangement had been made
TO give the wedding what Private Or
theris called "eeklar " 1t fell in the
heart of the hot weather, and after the
wedding Slane was going up to the
hills with the bride None the less,
Slanes grievance was that the affair
would be only hired carriage we'd
ding, and he felt that the "eeklar" Of
that was meager Miss McKenna did
not care so much The sergeants wife
was helping her to make her wedding
dress, and she was very busy Slane
was, just then, the only moderately
contented man in barracks, All the rest
were more or less miserable.
And they had so much to make them
happy tool All their work was over at
in the morning, and for the rest of
the day they could lie on their backs
and smoke canteen plug and swear at
the punkah coolies They enjoyed a
fine, full flesh meal in the middle of the
day and then threw themselves down
on their cots and sweated and slept till
it was cool enough to go ont with their
"towny, whose vocabulary contained
less than 600 words and the adjective
and whose views on every conceivable
question they had heard many months
before,
There was the canteen, Of course. and
there was the temperance room with
the secondhand papers in it, but a man
of any profession cannot read for eight
hours a day in temperature of 96 OF
0S degrees in the shade, running up
sometimes TO 1903 degrees at midnight
Very few men, even though they get a
pannikin of fiat stale muddy beer and
hide it under their cots. can continue
drinking for six hours day One man
tried. but he died, and nearly the
whole regiment went to his funeral be-
cause il gave them something to do. 1t
was too early for the modified excite
ment of fever or cholera. The men
could only wait and wait and wait and
watch the shadow of the barrack creep
ing across the binding white dust
That was a gay life
They lounged about cantonments-
it was too hot for any sort of game
and almost too hot for vice-and hud
died themselves in the evening and filled
themselves to distension with the
healthy heterogeneous food provided fol
them, and the more they stocked the lesi
exercise they took and more explosive
they grew Then the tempers began L