The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1903-09-13
HEREDITY IN ARMY.
English Paper Declares That 1t is a
Great Advantage.


London, Sept. 12.-Saturday's Review
says: Unless a man has neither breeding
or environment some previous connection
with the service he joins. or enters it
young enough to imbibe its true spirit,
he is likely to learn enough to turn out
indiferently. Experienced naval officers
aver that they are profound believers
in 'heredity' as applied to their own
branch Of the service, in so far that IL
they can get grown man who is a
seaman in the broad sense of the term
as opposed 10 being ''IanGsman," they
can soon turn him into efficient lighting
material. 1t is the great difficulty OF
obtaining such class of men from among
our fishing population and our mercan-
tile marine that has driven the navy
TO the only possible alternative of train
ing up lads 10 be seaman" from the
age OF fourteen or fifteen. A foot SOL
der can be trained at any age, but a
soldier who has TO do with horses must
either. in order to be easily and effective
~ trained, be bred to it or caught young
and educated to it. Thus l have not
the smallest hesitation in saying that our
cavalry should be recruited mainly front
among the inhabitants Of these isles who
are connected with the care and manage
ment of horses. This may possibly sound
Utopian to some, but when it is remem-
bered, first, how small, how very small
is our force of cavalry, only twenty eight
regiments of the line all told, and further,
how large is the number of young men.
who are bred and brought up amid
"horsey'' surroundings in the Unitel
Kingdom, I venture TO think that is is
by no means an out-of-the-way sugges-
ton.
One great advantage of thus getting
recruits who have had to do with horses
before they enlist and who may reason
ably be reckoned as belonging 10 the
"horse-loving" population is that a lad
drawn from this class upon first com
mencing his military career is not only
something of a horseman, but what is
even more important, has some ideas Of
horse-mastership. All who have been
brought into contact with the cavalry re
cruit know well the difficulty there IS
to get him to realize that a horse re-
qUires special care and attention. I'm
fortunately. under existing conditions. the
averag &c cavalry recruit is only too often
one who without any previous connection
with horses has been induced to enlist as
a householder, possibly attracted by the
smart uniform, and regardless of his ig-
norance of horses or of the labor of look
ing after them. Again, all of us who have
had 10 deal with, at any rate, newly raised
mounted infantry know well the trouble
involved in making them regard their
horses as aught beyond animated ma
chimes provided TO carry them about the
country and to sit upon all day and
every day. Hence most of the trouble
about the 'remounts' in South Africa.
If. however. sufficient recruits cannot be
as I suggest. from among our
"horse-loving' population. the only alter
native is to enlist lads of fourteen or fif-
teen at a reduced scale of pay-"boy's
pay in fact-and train them up TO be
l have often heard it re-
marked by cavalry officers that capital
horsemen and good horse masters are to
be found among their trumpeters, who
are enlisted as lads of fourteen or fiji
teen years of age. My contention is that
if some such means as are mere outlined
could be adopted to secure the right
class of recruit for our cavalry. it would
ensure for US the two cardinal points
which beyond all others. make the eff
cheney of cavalry; that the expensive
charges provided for by the taxpayer
would he both well ridden and well looked
after in war time. Surely this is worth
striving for even at the appalling risk of
giving little extra trouble to our infan-
try stan officers in Pail Mall.