The Washington times., 1902-01-08

| very peculiar conditions OF Indian MAR
fare. 1t is obvious that such an xrmy
would be much more effective in the Case
| of real trouble-the ever-looked-for Rus
sian invasion, for example-than the pres
ent mixture Of seasoned and raw soldiery.
The danger of unseasoned troops is
| brought out most strongly in Drums o.
the Fore and Aft" in which a raw Eng
| lish regiment Is brigaded with High
| landers and Gurkhas for frontier CAM
| paign, instead of being broken up and
mixed with old soldiers, and hence gets
badly cut up in the field. 1t is in
this story that Kipling says of the
| British army:
when all the men are at the level of
the officer of today, it will sweep the
| earth" He also says that under the
present system the army is gravitating
| toward condition where 1t will know
too much and will do too little.
| later and more scathing rebuke to the
| War Office Is administered in "The Ota-
| sider,' one OF the two or three stories
on the Boer war which he has pub
lished, which describes the way .n
which conceited and untried officer OF a
| line regiment mixed things up for q
| practical body of engineers who were
| doing their best to build necessary
bridge in a tremendous hurry. NJ
From all these examples, and many
more which might be chosen. it will
be seen that the young author had.
even while still in his twenties. very
definite and positive idea of the needs
of the British army. OF course they we're
not all his own. He was a journalist
in northern India from the time he was
sixteen until he was twenty-three. His
father was at the head Of the Lahore
Art School, and between his fathers pro-.
fessiou and his own, young Kipling un-
doubtedly met about all the men worth
meeting in that section OF the country,
and heard them discuss the possibilities.
needs, and perils OF the British army in
India. India is a place in which. the
army is not an ornament; 1t is for
practical use. The officers stationed,
there, with half a lifetime Of service
to their credit, know something about
the science OF fighting, and Kipling's
ideas are probably made up of their opin-
ions salted down and carefully weighed,
and combined with his own notions as
to the value CT the practical ideas OF
men in the field, compared with those of
the officers who go to the front to get
their medals and are then railroaded
home again. which was said to be the
case with certain crack regiments in
London.
In addition to this experience of con-
tact with men of military knowledge and
insight and his own early observations
as a war correspondent, by no means in
considerable. the poet has been serving
in the capacity of correspondent through
the South African war, and that counts
for something. At any rate. this is not
a new or hastily constructed set of opin-
ions. He began defining his attitude tc
ward the British army some twelve or
fifteen years ago. and he has been study
ing it at intervals ever since. In one
of the shrewdest of his studies of native
character, called Zone View of the Ques-
tion," he gives a Mohammedan mobiles
impressions Of London, which he visits
on business for his rajah. Here is touched
upon once again the question Of recruits
for the army. and the Indian gentleman
says something to the effect that IL the
English knew what was best for them
selves they would take some of the mis-
cellaneous riff-raff in London streets and
polish it up as good fighting material.
Kipling here takes the ground that the
discipline. order, and accuracy demanded
by army life would be of inestimable bene-
fit to multitudes of young men who are
now getting no training whatever.