Connecticut western news., 1915-09-30


 cars were little gray blocks against the gray skyline.
 There was nothing else in all that great plain except the army, no sound but the changing notes of the aero planes and the bluntcd impression rather than noise of the feet of men on the soft ground. They came over slight ridge. SD that one saw the curve of it first furred, then grussed with the tips of bayoncts, which immediately grew to full height. and then beneath them poured the wonderful infantry. The speed, the thrust, the drive of that broad blue mass was like tide race of an arm of the sea. and how much speed could go with such weight. could be in itself so absolutely under control. filled one with terror. All the while the band on the far heudland was tell ing them and telling them-as If they did not know-of the passion and gay ety and high heart of their own land in the speech that only they could fully understand
 To hear the music of country is like hearing woman think aloud.
 "Sambre ct Meuse," Perhaps,
 What is the tuuey' asked of an officer beside me.
 My faith, can't recall for the moment I've marched to il often enough. though. The Samhre ct Meusc,' perhaps. Look. there's my bat talion-those chasseurs yonder."
 He knew. of course but what could a stranger identify in that earth shab- ing passage of 30.000?
 The note behind the ridge changed to something deeper as
 Our guns" said un artillery officer and smiled tolerantly on the last blue waves of the line already beating to- ward the horizon. They came twelve abreast, 1J0 guns free for the moment to take the air in company behind their team. and next week would see them hidden singly or in lurking confeder- ncies of two or three by mountain and marches. forest or the wrecked habi- tations of men.
 When the big guns followed them with that long nosed alr of detneh- mcnt peculiar to the breed the gunner at my side made no comment. He was content to let his arm speak for it- self. But when one big gun in n sticky place fell out of alignment for m instant I saw his eyebrows con- tract
 The artillery passed on with the same inhuman speed and silence as the line. and the cavalry's shattering trumpcts closed 1t all. They arc like our cavalry in that their horses are in high condition. and they talk hopefully of getting past the barbed wire one of of these days and coming into their own. Meantime they are employed on various work as required, and they all sympathize with our rough rider of dragons who fatly refused to take off his spurs in the trenches. If he had to die as damned infantrgmnn he wasn't going to be buried as such.
 Only One Horse Fell Out.
 A troop horse of fianlxing squad ron decided he had had enough of war and jibbed like Lots wife. His rider. we all watched him, ranged about till he found stick, which he used. but without effect. Then he got off and led the horse, which was evidently what the brute wanted, for when the man remounted the jibbing began again. The last we saw of him was one immensely lonesome figure leading one bad but happy horse across an absolutely empty world. Think of his reception-the sole man of 10000 who had fallen outl
 The commander of that army corps came up to salute. the cars went away with the two generals and minister for war, the army passed out of sight over the ridges to the north, the peasant women stopped again to their work on the fields and Il wet mist shut down on all the plain. But one tingled with the electricity that had passed that way. Now one knows what solidarity of civilization means. Later on the civilized nations will know more and will wonder and laugh together at their old blindness.
 When Lord Kitchener went down tho lines before the march past they say he stopped to speak to n general who had been MerchanG's chief of stan at the time of the Fashoda incident, and Fashoda was one of several cases when civilization was very nearly maneuver- ed into fighting with itself for the king of Prussia. AS the saying goes, the all embracing vileness of the boche Is best realized from French soil, where they have had large experience of it. And yet, us some one observed, We ought to have known that race who have brought anonymous letter writing to its highest pitch in their own dirty court affairs would certainly use the same methods in their foreign politics. Why didn't we realize?
 For the same reason. another re- sponded, that society did not realize that the late Mir. Smith of England, who married three wives. bought baths in advance for each of them and when they had left him all their money drowned them ono by one