is one of the many things my intellect is incapable of grasping.

In mediaeval days, when men fought hand to hand, there must have been
advantage in combined and precise movement. When armies were mere
iron machines, the simple endeavour of each being to push the other
off the earth, then the striking simultaneously with a thousand arms
was part of the game. Now, when we shoot from behind cover with
smokeless powder, brain not brute force--individual sense not
combined solidity is surely the result to be aimed at. Cannot
somebody, as I have suggested, explain to the military man that the
proper place for the drill sergeant nowadays is under a glass case in
some museum of antiquities?

I lived once near the Hyde Park barracks, and saw much of the drill
sergeant's method. Generally speaking, he is a stout man with the
walk of an egotistical pigeon. His voice is one of the most
extraordinary things in nature: if you can distinguish it from the
bark of a dog, you are clever. They tell me that the privates, after
a little practice, can--which gives one a higher opinion of their
intelligence than otherwise one might form. But myself I doubt even
this statement. I was the owner of a fine retriever dog about the
time of which I am speaking, and sometimes he and I would amuse
ourselves by watching Mr. Sergeant exercising his squad. One morning
he had been shouting out the usual "Whough, whough, whough!" for
about ten minutes, and all had hitherto gone well. Suddenly, and
evidently to his intense astonishment, the squad turned their backs
upon him and commenced to walk towards the Serpentine.

"Halt!" yelled the sergeant, the instant his amazed indignation
permitted him to speak, which fortunately happened in time to save