m working men as 'Let the rich do their bit.' I hold that they
have done it, and done it magnificently. No one can read the list of
casualties without being struck with the enormous number of what I may
call the cultured classes which have fallen in the operations we are
engaged in. Indeed, there is hardly a titled family in England but is
mourning its dead. Our young officers are entering action with a wild
abandonment which it is impossible to realize unless witnessed. Writing
home to his people, a subaltern recently declared that he was at the top
of the fulness of life. Small wonder that our men will go anywhere and
do anything behind such magnificent leading as our officers are giving
them.

But this splendid attribute of the British officer is not only seen amid
the excitement of conflict. At the end of a weary march when all alike
are fagged out and ready to throw themselves upon the earth and rest,
the first consideration on the part of the officers is the men; their
food, their billets; and when these important questions are dealt with,
then, and not till then, with wearied frames, these gallant gentlemen
begin to think of themselves. This evokes a feeling which I may not
inaptly style, hero worship, on the part of the men. Frequently, in
describing the glorious death of some favourite officer, a man has said
to me, 'I loved him like a brother'; and this condition of regard is
mutual, for it is no uncommon thing (on the occasion of the departure of
the 'leave' train) to see an officer, frequently of senior rank, on
spotting in the crowd a non-commissioned officer, or private, from his
regiment, go up to him and with a hearty grip of the hand, say, 'Well,
my lad, hope you have had a good time!' Such a state of things would, of
course, be impossible in the German army, but we Englishmen have proved
that the most solid foundation of a true relationship between officers
and men is respect and love, and right happy are the results attained.

(2) Our men: It is not possible to speak too highly of the splendid
manhood embodied in our ranks to-day. Their language is certainly
reprehensible, but after all we must realize that their vocabulary is
not an extensive one, and the employment of adjectives which, to a
refined ear, sounds deplorable, is only used by them to describe an
intensity which no other words they possess would be capable of
rendering. I am, of course, not referring to blasphemy or obscenity,
which is i