Connecticut western news., 1917-11-01
A Breach of
 Discipline
By JAMES BARNARD

It has been said that in the camps for the drilling of officers for the. army for the great world war tho obsolete in military sciHace has beeI discarded and the men &"e drilled in trench warfare, including grenade throwing, the wearing of gas masks and all such devices of modern war fare. There is one fort where recruits were drilled which can hardly be said to have fulfilled these conditions. That is Fort A, located in the west.
 Fort A. had been turned over to the army as a station for the drilling of recruits for the great world war The cOmmandant, Colonel Whittlesey, an officer of the regular army, wha had grown gray in the service and had added with each year something to hia stock of army discipline, treated new. corners and old corners alike. exactinG from each the same rigid observance of attention to the army regulations.
 There must be guard mounting in the morning, dress parade in the after at bedtime. The soldiers were drilled to march, countermarch, load and fire. in accordance with the manual of arms. and otherwise conform to customs tho colonel had learned some fifty yearl before at West Point.
 What use the men were to make of these observances in the trenches in France probably the colonel had not considered. Soldiers had been prepar ed for war by being thus drilled from time immemorial, and 1t had never oc cured to the colonel that any other way of drilling them would suffice. He forgot, if indeed he ever knew, thaI General Braddock with his trained British regulars had suffered a defeat from Indians and had only been saved from annihilation by Virginia militia that had never learned the evOlutions laid down in the books on tactics. He forgot that General Gibles at New Or leans, commanding the best drilled troops in the world, had been slaugh- tered by General Jackson's squirrel hunters from Tennessee and Kentucky
 There was one ceremony of ancient and honorable standing about the ob- servance of which Colonel Whittlesey was very particular. The colors must be daily raised and lowered at the fir- ing of the morning and evening gun. There was no likelihood of the men pay ing attention to this ceremony in the presence of an enemy occupying par allel zigZag trench to themselves, but the colonel considered it one of the ways ts prepare them for this warfare. and if the gun was not fired twice day on the minute of sunrise and sum- set woe betide the culprit whose duty 1t was to attend to the matter.
 Now, 1t so happened that Colonel Whittlesey, who was widower, was attentive to a widow, Mrs. Eleanor Andrews, whose son was being trained at the fort, and the lady was staying with the wife of one of the officers on duty there. Nevertheless his courtship did not prevent him from being watch full of the neglect of any of his favor. He observances.
 Mrs. Andrews had a tiny poodle no bigger than large rat, and it was questionable, should she be obliged to give up either the poodle or her mar tial lover, which she would surrender. The colonel seemed to realize this, and 1t was generally admitted that Zip, the poodle, was the only living thing at the post who could violate the coloners orders with impunity.
 The only up to date arrangement OH the premises was the contrivance for the firing of the morning and even- ing gun. A wire had been stretched from the gun to a room which con- tained an electrical battery, and key had been introduced to make the cur rent which fired the gun. No one was admitted to the room except the officer charged with the firing of the piece at the specified time morning and even- ing.
 One day after luncheon Mrs. An. drews, having a headache and not wishing to have her poodle, desired some place in which to shut him up.