The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1914-05-08

armies and navies. It is written by
an "ex-attache." The facts presented
are not new to well informed temper
ance people, but the larger public has
not been accustomed to find them in
its daily papers. And the viewpoint
of an "ex-attache" is worth studying.
Therefore we quote:
THAT the secretary of war should
have declined to consider the protests
presented to his department against
the outspoken championship of the
cause of prohibition by Major General
Frederick ID. Grant, is quite in accord
ance with the policy not alone of the
federal administration but with that
of almost every other civilized govern
ment. For, without entering into any
discussion on the merits or dement's
of the canteen system, the ministers
OF war and of the navy of all the
great military and maritime powers
are strenuously endeavoring to foster
temperance, not so much as a matter
of principle as for the reason of the
degree to which it increases and pro-
notes the efficiency of the men SUBJ
ject to their control.
"In these days of modern warfare
and Of arms of precision, it is no long
err fierceness, fury and reckless dash
that are required of soldiers and of
sailors, but calmness, collectedness,
the exercise of every intellectual fac
ulty, and endurance. These are inn
paired by the use of intoxicating Ii
quors, but promoted by abstinence,
and among those who think like Gen.
eral Fred d. Grant are Field Marshal
Lord Wolseley, his brother Field Mar
shall Lord Kitchener, and most of the
generals who have served under the
latter in Egypt, in South Africa, and
in India, Admiral Lord Charles Beres-
ford, and many another military and
naval commander of equal note and
standing.
"Wolseley has long been an enthu-
siast on the subject, and during his
term of office as commander in chief
of the British army, in succession to
the late Duke of Cambridge, he inau-
gurated a series of careful and ex-
haustive experiments with the object
of ascertaining the comparative eff
fects of alcohol and of total absti-
nence upon the physical endurance
and the staying qualities of the troops.
Advantage was taken of the annual
maneuvers as well as of those petty
wars of which England has always a
few on hand in one part or another
of the world, to investigate carefully
the problem.
Zone regiment would be deprived of
every drop of stimulant; another, be-
longing to the same brigade, would be
allowed to purchase, as usual, its malt
liquors at the canteen; while third.
Highland corps. would re-
ceive a sailors ration of grog in the
form of Scotch whiskey. In each in
stance the experiment went to show
that, whereas at first the corps which
had received an allowance of grog
the others in dash and i'm
of attack, yet that after the
third or fourth day it's members be-
gan to show notable signs of lassitude
and lack of spirit and endurance.
The same manifestations, though in a
minor degree. were observed in the
regiment restricted to malt liquors,
whereas the men who had been kept
from any sort of stimulant increased
in staying power, alertness and vigor
every day.
1T was as the result of these ex-
periments that when Lord Kitchener
organized his Anglo-Egyptian force
for the final march upon Khartum
for the re-conquest of the Soudan and
the destruction of the Mahdi, he de-
clined to allow a single drop of stimu-
liant in his army. save for hospital USE
Spirits, wine, and malt liquors were
barred from the officers mess table
as well as from the regimental can
teen.
Thanks to total abstinence, the
men were able to make forced march
es of the most extraordinary charac-
ter across the burning desert and un-
der blazing sun, the heat of whose
rays can only be appreciated by those
who have lived under the equator.
yet. in spite of this, there had new
er been a campaign until then when
there was so little sickness, where
so few men were compelled to fall
out. even on the longest march, and
where the troops were got into such
magnificent DhySicaI and moral train