the theoretical estimates of the possible decrease in sickness. The whole question is one which must be fought out between the doctors and the War Office; but before the matter is decided it may be worth while to consider what means other nations are adopting to solve the same problem, and how far these means may be found to be applicable to the British Army in South Africa.

There can be no doubt that the proposed Water Corps, apart from the benefits which might attend its labours, would tend to hamper the movements and destroy the comfort of a force. The already cumbrous baggage train would be increased, and it would be difficult to compel the soldier to drink the unpalatable beverage which would be produced by the boiling method. Upon this point. a few weeks' experience on the veldt is worth a lifetime of theory. A stern and rigid discipline could doubtless enforce the habit; but if we are to try the experiment in South Africa, a far more serious difficulty presents itself in the scarcity of fuel, and it is easy to see that when it is a question of uncooked food or unboiled water the case will not remain long in doubt. This will not be a rare occurrence, and a few days of unwholesome water will stultify the labours and discomforts of months. I have said that nearly every officers' mess determined on leaving Cape Town to drink nothing unboiled. It may be conceded that a very small proportion of those who made this resolution realised how flat and disagreeable boiled water must be; but this was not the reason that the practice was abandoned. Despite many honest attempts, it was found in nearly every case that the fuel used for heating the water was urgently required by the cooks, and even when these were satisfied it was obvious that the very limited amount of wood that could be collected for the force would be wastefully reduced if it were used in this way. It is true that if brick fireplaces or ranges could have been used, far less fuel would have been burnt than was actually the case where food was cooked over a camp fire, but even so the supply of wood would have been hardly sufficient. No one is anxious to fall a victim to enteric. But the only known preventive was tried and found impossible, and in the vast majority of cases the attempt was early abandoned. It may well be that in other and more wooded countries, where fuel is abundant, no such difficulty would be found in working a Water Corps to the great advantage of those who could be induced to resist the temptation which an apparently wholesome well or stream presents to a thirsty man; but it certainly seems probable that in nearly all parts of the Cape and Orange River Colonies, and in much of the Transvaal, boiled water on the march means an uncooked dinner, and is not lightly to be undertaken.

It will, of course, be objected that the South African War is not the only one in which we shall ever be engaged, and that scarcity of fuel is only a local consideration. But the discussion of the subject

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has turned upon the feasibility of organising a Water Corps in South Africa, and if anything is to be done to decrease the losses from disease in war it appears more reasonable to make experiments at a time when we have large forces in the field than wait till they have returned to less trying conditions or embarked upon some future campaign under conditions that we cannot forecast. If it be conceded, as I think it must be by all who have had any experience of campaigning in the treeless uplands of the Orange River Colony, that, apart from all other difficulties, it would be highly inconvenient to use fuel for other than cooking-purposes, it still remains to be seen whether an improvement in the soldier's surroundings which would secure him certain advantages that he now lacks, whilst actually economising fuel, would not go a long way towards decreasing the losses from enteric, dysentery, and other diseases.

Situated in a country in which the scarcity of fuel can rarely become acute, and thus faced with a problem that is in this respect simpler than that with which the British Army is confronted, a great Continental military Power, which has given the subject long consideration, has come to the conclusion that the question of food is of as great importance as that of water, if not greater, and, instead of forming a Royal Water Corps, has revolutionised the methods of cooking in the field. Having had an opportunity of witnessing the grand manœuvres of the Russian Army during the month of August, I had exceptional facilities for observing the methods employed, and the result was so striking that it would at least appear worth while to consider the matter before the formation of a Water Corps is embarked upon or the whole subject is dismissed as unworthy of attention. Having experimented and considered the case in all its bearings, the Russian authorities have come to believe that a hungry man is far more liable to disease than is one who is well nourished, and that it is during periods of extreme exhaustion following on days of great exertion and little food that the influence of unhealthy surroundings, bad water, and poisoned dust are most deadly; and until we have an opinion to the contrary it would seem that this, at least, appears to be a reasonable conclusion. They believe, in fact, that it is not only necessary to provide troops with food in its raw state, but that it must be available for distribution to the men under any conditions of day or night when required.

Preserved or tinned rations, if eaten cold, fulfil these conditions, but if it were possible to give hot fresh meat with equal celerity an undoubted advantage would be gained. To cook meat, however, requires time, and even when bivouac is reached after the day's march a considerable interval is necessary for the preparation of the dinner. Fires have to be lighted, often under adverse conditions of weather and circumstance, and it is only after a long and weary wait that the tired and hungry soldier obtains his evening meal.

During forced marches and after days of fighting it must often happen that he goes unfed even when there remains sufficient food in camp to meet his needs, and in these ways the hardships that he has to bear are much increased. These are the conditions which the ingenuity of the Russian authorities has abolished by making it easy not only to cook with despatch and economy in camp, but to do so with equal ease and certainty on the march by the introduction of a simple contrivance, which, for want of a better name, is known as the kitchen waggon.' The shape and detail of the waggon are quite unimportant. The Russians have not yet decided upon their official pattern, and if adopted by the British Army a design suited to our needs would soon be evolved. The main idea is all that we need consider, and experience and experiment would soon decide the size and details. A large metal boiler is fastened upon the axle of a light waggon. The top of the boiler, which opens on hinges, is closed by screws and provided with a safety-valve. Below the vessel there is an iron fireplace or grate, and a metal chimney carries off the smoke. The two-wheeled carriage on which the boiler is fixed is provided with a light trail and limbered like a gun, the driver's seat upon the limber being hollow to carry fuel or supplies. The appearance of the whole is like a gun-carriage, but the boiler is substituted for the gun. During the manœuvres the troops moved off daily at an early hour, and the men in charge of the waggons filled them with water, put in meat and vegetables, and laid wood in the grate before taking their places for the march. About two hours before camp was reached the fires in the waggons were lighted and the food began to cook, so that immediately the men fell out a hot dinner of meat and vegetables and a cupful of hot broth was ready for everyone. If an exceptionally long march had been ordered this process was repeated twice in the day. A hot luncheon may be regarded as an unnecessary luxury, but that troops should be able to eat a good dinner immediately upon their arrival in camp under any conditions of weather, and should thus be able to attend to their duties or go to their rest without a weary wait for badly wanted food, appears less of a luxury than a medical necessity, and has only not been regarded in that light because it has hitherto appeared a condition so utopian as to be practically impossible. No one who has seen the incalculable increase in the comfort of the troops which this apparently insignificant change involves can fail to hope that the experiment may be tried in the British Army.

A comparison between the health of an army employed in manœuvres and an army exposed to all the insanitary conditions of war must always be almost as misleading as the deductions drawn from the military methods of even the most realistic mimic warfare are likely to be in forecasting the result of a European conflict. But the fact that the manœuvres near St. Petersburg were conducted

over a stretch of country considerably longer than the distance between London and York shows that the troops engaged were not coddled; and the variations in temperature, ranging from burning heat to cold and rainy weather, were such as might easily have caused a fairly high percentage of sick. The Russians contend (and it is difficult to discredit the statement) that the use of the kitchen waggon has almost emptied their hospitals, and that many of the ailments from which the soldiers suffered as a result of exposure and fatigue have almost disappeared under the new régime. It must be understood that the adoption of the kitchen waggon does not mean a clear increase in the baggage-train, but only a slight addition of weight and a redistribution of the rations carried in the transport. The waggon will go wherever a gun can be drawn, and the pace at which it moves makes no material difference to the cooking; whilst the fact that the fire burns in an iron grate instead of upon the ground effects a great economy in fuel. The improvement in the general health of a force using this contrivance can only be judged by experiment, and as the small mobile columns now employed in South Africa would only require a very few waggons per column, this experiment could now be made at very small expense. Even if experience proved that the losses from disease were not diminished, there can be no doubt that the period during which the waggons were on trial would be one of great increase in comfort to the troops, and that all ranks would co-operate in an experiment that decreased the hardships of the soldier; so that, even if the doctors were not satisfied that the percentage of sickness was reduced, I cannot help believing that the British Army would appreciate the advantages of a system on which the Russian soldier is enthusiastic. And if it were found that not only was the waggon convenient and useful in the field, but that the Russians are right in believing that hunger and exhaustion are the conditions which tend to spread disease, we should have obtained an excellent article of equipment which when once tried would be found too invaluable to be abandoned. It is rumoured that several Continental armies whose representatives observed the working of the kitchen waggon during the march of the allies on Pekin are about to adopt it, and it seems a pity that no steps have been taken by the British authorities to put the contrivance into experimental use in

war.

H. SOMERS SOMERSET.

WHERE ARE THE VILLAGE GENTRY?

MOST of us have lately seen a map which shows by dots the number of copies of the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' sold in England, with their local distribution. Let us call each dot a family able to appreciate and pay for a costly intellectual luxury. The whole will then represent a percentage taken at random upon the entire number of such families, which may be called, fairly enough, the plums in our national pudding. As its general quality must depend in large measure upon the thoroughness with which the enriching ingredients are compounded with the plain dough, it is easy to see that the map may have an interest beyond its original purpose. For the purpose of my argument I will assume that the same influences which have determined the position of these families would operate similarly upon the whole of the independent class in England, down to the level at which the term 'gentility' ceases to be applied, and that the map may be taken as giving a rough idea of the distribution of the whole.

We must not, of course, expect to find the dots sown with the regularity of corn, so many to each square inch. Each wealthproducing centre is naturally the nucleus of a nebula. But the map is also blurred with masses which bear no rational proportion to the population of the parts where they occur. The dots seem naturally confluent. Astronomers say that all matter must ultimately coalesce. A similar destiny appears to await our well-to-do families. The coast-line from Weymouth to Margate is already almost a continuous ant-hill. Bath, Bournemouth, Brighton, all represent clusters of sheer plums and imply corresponding wastes of flour and water. It is no exaggeration to say that three-quarters of the vast congeries crowded round the west and south-west of London have only a voluntary attachment to their centre, and that South Kensington by itself represents hundreds of square miles from which the fertilising elements of wealth and culture have been extracted. These elements, all England over, are steadily drifting into what we may fairly call 'pleasure cities.'

Every movement has its cry. The slogan of this was originally 'Health.' Gout and consumption drove the well-to-do to 'watering