The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-10-02

Lord HaIdane, Chief Justice Briggs and that very able Kings Counsel Philbrfck-had reconstructed the army and thoroughly and placed it at last, with the adoption of national service, upon a footing that would have seemed very imposing to the pub lie of 1900. At any moment the British empire could now put 1,25O,- 900 arguab1e soldiers upon the board of welt-politik. The traditions of Japan and the central European ar mics were more princeIy and less fo- rensic, the Chinese still refused reso- luteIy to become a military power and | maintained a small standing army upon the American model that was said so far as it went to be highly eff cient, and Russia, secured by a strin- E gent administration against internal ! criticism, had scarcely altered the de- ] sign of a uniform or the organization of battery since the opening decades | of the century. Barnet's opinion of his military training was manifestly q poor one His modern state ideas dis i posed him to regard it, as a bore, and | his common sense condemned it as use less. Moreover, his habit of body l made him peculiarly sensitive to the fatigues and hardships of service.
 For three days in succession we turned out before dawn-and for no earthly reason-without breakfast,n he, relates. CT suppose that is to show us that when the day comes the first thing will be to get us thoroughly uncom- fortable and rotten. We then proceed ed to Kriegspie1 according to the mys- terious ideas of those in authority over us. On the last day we spent three hours under hot, if early, sun getting over eight miles of country to point we could have reached in motor oIn- nibus in nine minutes and half-1 did it the next day in that-and then we made a massed attack upon entrench- ments that could have shot us all about three times over if only the umpires had let them. Then came little bay onet exercise, but I doubt if am suf- icfently barbarian to stick this long knife into anything living. Anyhow, in this battle shouldn't have chance. Assuming that by some miracle I hada,t been shot three times over was far too hot and blown when I got mp to the entrenehments even. to lift my beastly rife. It was those others would have begun the sticking.
 For time we were watched by two hostile aeropIanes; then our own came up and asked them not to and-the practice of aerial warfare still being unknown-t1ey very politely desisted and went away and did dives and cir cles of the most charming description over the Fox hi1ls.'
 All Barnet's accounts of his military training were written in the same half contemptuous, half protesting tone He was of opinion that his chances of participating in any real warfare were <Il H11 should participate. 1t was bound to be so entirely different from these peace maneuvers that his only course as a rational man would be to keep as ob- servantly out of danger as he could until he had learned the tricks and pos i sfbthties of the new conditions. He states this quite frankly. Never was a n4an more free from sham heroics.
 Barnet welcomed the appearance of the atomic engine with the zesL of masculine youth in all fresh machinery l and it is evident that for some time he failed to connect the rush of won
 derfu1 new possibilities with the fnan.
 cial troubles of his family. q knew
 my father was worried" he admits. l That cast the smallest of shadows | upon his delighted departure for Itals
 and Greece and Egypt with three cor
 genial companions in one of the new
 atomic models. They flew over the l Channel isles and Touraine, he men
 tions, and cfrcled about Mont Blanc
 These new helicopters, we found, he
 notes, ''llad abolished all the danger
 and strain of sudden drops to which
 the old time aeroplanes were liable, =
 and then he went on by way of Pisa Paestum, GhirgenH and Athens to visit
 the pyramids by moonlight, flying
 thither from Cairo, and to follow tht
 Nile up to Khartum. Even by latel
 standards it must have been a verJ
 gleeful holiday for a young man. ana
 it made the tragedy of his next expert
 ences all the darker. A week afte
 his return. his father. who was {
 widower, announced himself ruined
 and committed suicide by means of al
 unscheduled opiate.
 At one blow Barnet found himsel
 flung out of the possessing, spending
 enjoying class to which he belonged penniless and with no calling by whicl
 he could earn a living He tried teach
 ing and some journalism, but in a 1itt1
 while he found himself on the under
 side of world in which he had alway
 reckoned to live in the sunshine Fo nnumerable men such an exper1enc
 has meant mental and spiritual dt
 strucdon, but Barnet in spite of hi
 bodily gravitation toward comfoI ; showed himself when put to the test c
 the more valiant modern quality. H
 was saturated with the creative sto cfsm of the heroic times that were a ready dawning, and he took his diff
 culties and discomforts stoutly as hi
 appointed material and turned them { expression
 (To Be .Continued.)