A MODEST COLONIAL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11797, 28 July 1900, Page 4

A MODEST COLONIAL.

Deai- Civis, —The letters from some of the New Zealand contingents in South Africa have displayed a considerable amount of " colonial blow," but for pure, sublime conceit the following from a Nelson trooper, which appeared in the Nelson Evening Mail on July 20, undoubtedly " takes the cake.' After casually remarking that his contingent had been linder a terrific rifle and big gun fire at 200 yds without a man being hit, and that in the midst of the fighting he endeavoured to collect some of the bursting shrapnel, lie says: " You read an awful lot about the Home troops being smart at drill. Why, with the little drill we have had we are fai smarter than most of the crack regiments. And another thing, when we are dressed in our best togs and all serene we are a smarter looking company and a better drilled company than 90 per cent, of the Home troops." Poor Tommy Atkins! With all your faults I had at least imagined you were well drilled, and it comes as a shock to hear on gcod authority that you are' not equal to a S, • y ,laise(i colonial volunteer contingent. a-at .cheer up, for there- is this consolation— J- feel sure that when the Hon. Richard Seddon hears about it he will nt once order Lord Roberts, for the sake of British prestige, to procure the valuable services of this Kelson trooper as drill instructor for the Life Guards, Royal Artillery, Hussars, and other equally badly dniled regiments of British regulars.— I am, etc., Kelson, July 21 This is too severe, and it is for that reason that I insert it—taking occasion to put in a word or two on the other side. Granted that the Nelson trooper is not exactly a paragon of modesty": since when 'has modesty been reckoned a military virtue? Pride in himself and in the perils ho has

Amused

run, in the comrades who have shared them, in the record of his regiment and in its camp-fire stories, Of most disastrous chances, Of moving accidents by flood and field, Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach— all this is of the essence of a good soldier. Modesty, forsooth! —it is about the last thing that the captain of a troop of rough riders would ask for. Military men' have an ugly name for military modesty. Demoralisation they call' it. aud Lord Roberts would tell you that a modest army is the kind of army that has either just been beaten or is just going to be. If our New Zealanders at the front are somewhat disposed to brag, it must be conceded to them that they have something to' brag about. They have never been found wanting at a pinch, and they have taken their fair share of any hard knocks that might be going. Mr A. B. Paterson, of the Melbourne Argus arid the Sydney Morning Herald, remarks 'of them, quite casually, that they arc " probably the best troops in Africa." See his letter in Thursday's Daily Times. What makes them the best? Not "that they have more pluck than other troops, but that- their drill and equipment are better suited to the work to be done. The New Zealanders are mounted infantry, and in that character, dodging the Boers from kopje to kopje, they can give, points, I don't doubt, to any crack cavalry regiment from Aldershot or the Curragh..

Dear Civis, —In the " Triad," last issue, there 13 ft review of Miss Fowler's books. The writer undertakes to correct Miss F's. English thus—l quote from memory: — Miss F.: "It is she that he is speaking to." " Triad-" : " It is to she that he is speaking, is it?." The critic does not see that he has turned Miss F's. pronoun " that" into an adverb. What she really says is: "It is she to whom (that) he is speaking." This is one of the places where livnius's retort comes in: "You have made it absurd by making it your own.".— Yours syntactically, Tried. The Triad's rendering is intended, I presume, as a reductio ad absurdum. The editor can't be so far gone tha-t he wants to write "it is to she." He is trying to make out that this elegant locution is in reality Miss Fowler's—whjch it isn't. The particle "that" is a slippery fellow, ambiguous, double-faced, not to be judged at a glance. Here are two sentences, Miss Fowler's and another: " It is she that he is speaking to." " It is to her that she i 3 speaking.'1 Each has a " that" and both are right; but I affirm that that that that " that" that is in Miss Fowler's sentence means is quite different from the meaning of the other. Let not the printer deprive me of any one of those six "thats," for all are right and all arc necessary. Let' the Triad editor rationalise them if he can. As for Miss Fowler, she is a capable scribe and little likely #o be wrong on points of grammar. But, even if wrong she were, carping at such matters is a poor kind of criticism. Civis. j