The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-07-15
WILL USE OF DRUM CEASE?
French Army Again to Do Away
 with It-Its Place in History.

French Army Again to Do Away
 with It-Its Place in History.
 Intelligence has been received at the
 War Department in Washington to
 the effect that the French military
 authorities have decided to do away
 altogether with the drum in the French
 army. General Faure Biguet, in a re-
 port on the subject, concludes that the
 drum is a serious incumbrance in
 marching, and that it's usefulness is
 impaired in wet weather by rain shrinking the sheepskin. He urges the
 impossibility, even under favorable lcircumstances, of distinguishing drum calls and signals; he says it requires
 three years instructions to make a good drummer, and the fact that two
 drummers are now attached to each of
 the five thousand infantry companies
 in the French army deprives the fighting strength of the country of ten thousand men, being the equiva-
 lent of a division, which in an emer-
 gency might decide a battle. These lconclusions are Approved . by the
 French Ministry of War. Thus the
 drum. with all it's traditional glories, will soon become a. relic of the past, at least so far as the French army is
 concerned This Is the second time within the last twenty-five years that the drum has been, abolished in the
 French army. General Farre, then
 Minister of War, who also abolished
 the corps of cuirassirs, dispensed with
 it some years, ago. only to re-establish
 1t in the service few years after
 ward. Our own military authorities may decide to submit the matter to
 practical tests, but 1t does not seem at all likely, from present indications, that the Washington War Depart
 ment will follow the example of the French and banish the drum from the army. %i
 The history of. this most venerable of all instruments is interesting. The drunl-or. rather "a rude substitute for what we know by that name--has from time trnmernorial been the fa- vorite instrument of. all barbarous tribes The scalp dances of the In- dians and the war chants of the Tartars gre measured by the beats; 1t is, as 1t has been, chief factor in the ,nerrynakihg and the mourning ofQsayages, for whom neither art nor nature as yet possesses sweeter sounds. Sixteen hundred years before the Christian era there is clear record of the Egyptians having possessed drums. They doubtless obtained them from the East, for in Hindostan their legen- diary history goes back to hte7 mystic gloom of tradition. The Greeks ascrib- ed its invention to Bacchus. In Asia the drum was an inseparable attri- bute of every artiscrotic household. Magnificent kettledruns of polished metal, borne on splendidly caparison- ed steeds, followed the great man on his journeys and campaigns. Savage chiefs made their marches to the harsh thump of rude drums fashioned of burned-out. logs, with a sheepskin over the end, and braids and festoons of of the enemies teeth, and even skulls, dangling from them, by way of orna- ment. In the Aztec temples were found war drums, which the priests beat to call the people to arms as by 8 tocsin, made of serpents' skins and with rude f1ilgrees and other of gold.
 The pages of military history are filled with examples of the bravery of and among them the drum mers have always taken foremost place. The records of the French army present the greatest number of such Instances, but the armies of other na- tions bear also on their rolls of honor he names of many heroic .drumnaers. In the annals of our own land many5 examples of gallant conduct by drum mers and f1fers may be found On that morning of June 17,1775, when Putnam, Prescott, Warren and heir 'embattled" farmers were stil1 upon the unfinished redoubt of Breeds Hill, under a heavy f1rt from he British men-of-wa1s in the ,sharbor l md from the batterty on Copp's Hill, Robert Steel of Dedhala, drummer, md Parks, of Cambridge, fifer, boldry l mounted the parapet, in full view or tn 1 ,nemy, and played Yankee Doodle" IS a reville. Most of the readers of l Civil War literature will remember he story of little Johnny Glenn, 'tThe 1 Drummer Boy of Chickamauga," who was borne on the shoulders of a sol Her in the terrific storm of shot and ! shell, and kept up the spirits of the 1 fred, disheartened troops by his rat 1 C-tattoo on the drum which was sus- pended from his neck. Drums in this country have also served for peaceable purposes. Old Puritan forefathers were 1 to church by the beating Of l ! drum; and most appropriately, for 1 he ycame forth clad in buff coat or l u1rass and steel cap, bearing their ! rusty f1intlocks, ever on the alert for ! he lurking Indians, who many times attacked them in the rude log cabins.
 There is one famous, episode in American colonial history wherein the rum played prominent part. When !, ir Edmund Andros, the British Gov | rnor- General of New-England, en-