TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 10785, 12 October 1900, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Up to the middle of July The Wastage 90,000 horses tad been of Horses. sent for army purposes to

South Africa, 42,000 of them coming from America, in many cases only to die a speedy death. South Africa is littered with dead horses, and the cost of the war in horse flesh alone must be something astonishing. The waste, remarks one of the war correspondents, has been appalling, and it is evident from what he says that much of it was preventable. Many arrived soft in condition, most of those coming from north of the equator had to face the extremes of temperature of an African winter in summer coats —"debility, disease, insufficient food, dgnoranee and carelessness in treatment, overweighting, and hard work have odne the rest, there seems to be etiil some doubt as to which bre&d of horse 13 the beet for campaigning in South Africa. "Some uphold the Waler," says the correspondent, "despite his incapacity to recover condition ; others belaud the Argentine, notwithstanding his want of spirit awl his determination to lie down in the middle ~i a march; others, again, are well disposed towards the Hungarian, though he has jet to prove his staying power; while many aie in favour of the English-bred,, and are willing to overlook hi 3 delicate feeding aid demands on their attention." Want of "ieart" and of staying power are qualities wbich should dispose of the claims of the Argentine and Hungarian animals as against those of Australia and England, especially a* it appears that the main drawbacks of the latter breeds are due to causes which riit uld not be insurmountable. It is the souadest economy to feed a good horse well and look after him when he is sick, yet this is ;ust the treatment which the horses of the British army have not experienced. Their rations have been determined, we are lo'd, by the Army Service Corps, and not by the veterinary surgeon, and the result has I een semi-starvation, though to spend mulioaa on horses and to save a few thousand on feed strikes the average civilian as idiot ie. Then our horses have far too mucu to ca-.TV, being burdened with a dead weight of soldier'a gear, which makes them look hre pack animals, and which, if our rcc 1.-ned forces are ever to "be really mobile, must henceforth be carried on pack ponies or in carts. De Wet adopted this plan long ago, and we might learn a good many things from our slippery foeman. The pattern of the army saddle has been freely condemned, the American pattern being much better, though much of the "sore back" which has incapacitated our horses must bo attributed not so much to the saddles as

to the -heavy loads carried-- by the horses and to the neglect of their riders to ease the girths when dismounted for a halt. It is also said, that the shoes ace too heavy. Attention to some of these things might increase the value of our mounted troops by 30 per cent. Greater care in the appointment of "remount officers," those charged with the purchase of horses, and an increase in the number and improvement in the position of veterinary surgeons are the other changes which are recommended. It is also urged that the system of drawing farriers and shoeing-smiths from the ranks should be abolished, so that these skilled mechanics should not have to fight, with the result that if they are wounded or killed, their places are hard to fill with competent men. None of these reforms strike one as very revolutionary, but they are of importance if our cavalry and mounted infantry are to possess the fighting value which they have on paper.

According to the great shipSubmarine building programme pubBoats. . lished by the French Govern-

ment, France will have at the end of 1903 some forty submarine boats. So far as is known, England, by the same date, will have none of these vessels. It is true r that rumour recently declared .that a submarine boat had been fully approved by the Admiralty. It was said that" the boat travelled well under the water and that by its means a submarine mine containing 500lbs of guncotton could be attached to the bottom of a hostile warship, the submarine boat having time to get away before the explosion took place, while it was also fitted with torpedo tubes. The Admiralty, however, discounts this report by declaring that experiments with these boats had still proved unsatisfactory. Jt is quit* possible, indeed it is highly probable, that submarine navigation is still only in the experimental stage. For the matter of that the same thing may be said of other warships, which are constantly undergoing development and improvement, so that the latest creation of ten or twenty years ago is completely out of date to-day. But France, and, in a lesser degree, America, are apparently satisfied that even in their present stage submarine boats will be of service. Some of their usefulness must be puc down to moral effect, which, if they were one tenth as effective as is hoped, would undoubtedly be great-. The French liave subjected three, of varying pattern, to tests of fair severity. By the Gustave Zede, driven by electricity, a speed of fifteen knots on the surface and seven knots beneath .has been obtained. The French marine architects, however, seem to prefer the Narval, which can be driven by oil engines on the surface or with only her funnel remaining above water, or by electricity under the water. Her greatest spaed beneath the surface appears to be eight knots, but if this is reduced to five knote she can cover seventy miles, a distance which would allow of her traversing the English Channel and slipping back to France without once coming above the water. The Navy Department of the United States has purchased for £30,000 the Holland submarine boat after it underwent a long series of trials and has offered to pay £35,000 for any others of the same type which it may require. The Holland has a much wider radius on the surface than the French boats, being able to cover 1500 miles, while when submerged, she can travel for ten miles at a rate of seven knots, or more, per hour. It has also been amply demonstrated that the vessel is under complete control and can ba submerged and brought to the surface again in a few seconds. It is, of course, possible that though apparently indifferent to tine new feature of naval warfare, which must, if successful, have a great mission in the next war, the British Admiralty are alivo to the position and are taking steps to meet their neighbour on equal terms. But British methods in the past have not been such as to imbue the nation with absolute confidence on this point.

According to Mr Whiteing's "Le Sport." interesting "Century" arti-

cles, "Lo Sport" is flourishI ing in France. It has been said that French- | men never find permanent interest in either exertion or danger for its own sake alone. At the same time, when any variety of sport does become fashionobla in Paris, it has a very successful run. For instance, France has nothing to learn from the rest of the world about cycling. Paris' "cultivates heart disease,"-as a cynic puts it, more enthusiastically than any other city, and the essential recklessntss of the Celt has come out strongly tindex pressure of the present motor craze, which just now makes crossing the streets of Paris rather more dangerous than Alpine climbing. Nn one would accuse Parisians of want of pereseverance, says Mx Whiteing, who has seen the hundreds of fishermen industriously whipping the river along the '"quais." No other capital can show so many anglers to the mile ; and there they sit, hour after hour, contentedl- dangling their lines in the suds of the river-side laundries, or the brown torrents of the sewers. The •earnestness of French Emulation of English habits is seldom curbed by self-consciousness; for, as many people have noted, the French have little- personal sense of humour. When the first "Racing (Athletic) Club" was started in Paris by a number of yourtg fellows from the Lycees, the runners turned out in complete jockey costume. They ran their first contests resplendent in satin blouses, velvet caps, jockey boots, and jockey.breeches, carrying wliips in their hands. Of course everyone applauded, and nobody laughed. When a Frenchman takes up "sport" he regards it as seriously as he treats everything else connected with himself. Most of the- men who go out for a day's shooting in France do not consider a big "bag"' as the chief object of the adventure. 'You miis, and no one thinks any tlie worse of you for it—nor do you of yourself." The costume and the luncheon absorb a portion of their energies, and, apart from everything else, they are content with the discharge of a solemn social function. It is their profound confidence in their own way of doing things that makes them incapable of appreciating the spirit of sport, and, at the same time, of undcrataßdiiig what Englishmen call "fair play." Xot long since a famous French exponent of French boxing— whach. is scientific kicking—arranged a public contest irith an English "pugilist." A certain highly dangerous "coup" was prohibited by the terms of the match; but as soon as the Frenchman found himself hard pressed, he delivered his "coup," aDd tEe English boxer did not recover for several montha. The point of the story is, that the lower-class of Parisian journals raved triumphantly, and talked I about the incident as if Fashoda had been avenged. The French really seem constitutionally unable to grasp the refinements of athletics. And ths worst of it ia that they boldly congratulate themselves upon their deficiency. M. Ribdt, in his important work on Educational Reform, a little time ago, declared that "rough sports do not suit our race, whicE is more refined than that of the Anglo-Saxon." He adds, that Frenchmen do not want to see their French lads turned into English schoolboys; They I do not eeem to be in much danger. I