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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 26, 1899)
( > OMAHA ILLUSTRATED BEE. November 20 , isoo. COMPANY L SQUAD IN HEAVY MARCHI NO ORDER Photo by Courtesy of Harry Sacked. IOWANS CROSSING BAGDAD RIVER Photo by Official War Department Photographer. How Different Countries Treat Their Soldiers With the United States at war in the Philippines , England at war with the Doors and every great nation anxiously scanning Its military equipment , the life of a soldier possesses , nt this time , a peculiar and per sonal interest to all people , rotates tbo Detroit Free Press. The great armies of the United States , England , Germany and Franco are on paper merely military bodies moved about at the will of commanding generals , but these armies are composed of units. Each unit IB an Individual who thinks for himself , suffers or enjoys to the limit of human capacity , and who has strong ties binding him to one or more persons in the noncombatant force of the nation. These units come and go from civil life. Their im pressions are spread broadcast and they enthuse - thuso or prejudice the people as a whole , according to personal experiences. This la more particularly true of armies where the service la voluntary , as in the case of Eng land and the United States , and In these countries public criticism of government In stitutions Is not a crime , In fact , It Is rather encouraged. , The rank and fllo of an army Is Its strength. The forced draft does not produce soldiers with high Ideals. The volunteer , as a rule , Is Inspired by something moro than the (1 cslro to feed nt public expense. Ho Is a citizen , a patriot , a willing defender of bin country's policy. Ono way In which this la recognized Is In the treatment of Its soldiers by various nations. The private In the American army has at times been short of food , without shelter and without hospitals , but Biich occasions have arisen from lack of system or Intelligence , not from lack of In tention or dcslra to furnish the best. The American soldier gets double the pay of any other soldier In the world. Ho Is as well or better fed , ns well clothed and as carefully equipped. His life , In times of stress , Is no holiday , but , ns compared to the llfo of pri vate soldlors In foreign armies , ho is a highly favored Individual. An lliifiirtiinntn Clinum" . It was not long ago that a lieutenant in the American army resigned his commission under stress and desiring' to hldo himself enlisted In tbo British army under an as sumed imhio as a private. After serving three months in one .of the crack English regiments stationed at one. of the most do- Hlrablo posts In England he wrote to a friend in the United States : "Tho life of a private In the ( American army Is heaven compared to the hell endured by a private In the British army. " Thla lieutenant was a good soldier , ono of the best drill masters in his regiment and ho had como Into bis American commission from tbo ranks , so bis opinion was worth noting. With all that the llfo of the British private le still far preferable to that of the private In the German , French , Austrian , Russian or Italian armies. The English soldier Is paid 24 cents a day and this Is a princely sum compared to what the soldiers get on the continent. The differ ence Is shown in the total cost of keeping these armies , for while the United States formerly paid 151,000,000 to support an army of 25,000 men , England paid but C2.000.000 to support over 200,000. Germany paid still less In proportion and Russia the smallest per capita of all. A prominent American army officer who has been abroad recently has said that Eug- land luw reached the limit of her military strength In time of peace and that the pay of soldiers would have to bo Increased or enforced military service would have to be made. This point was passed long ago by continental Europe and there- are many significant things which tend to corroborate the prophecy as to England. Matters of this kind cannot bo .Judged In time of war , for all men willingly go to the relief of their flag when Us ascendency Is threatened. The peace basis Is the only safe estimate of a country's real strength In the guarding of Us possessions against possible and not nctlvo foou. In ll'rltitlii'H Army. In addition to smaller pav the English soldier docs not get such good cnro as does the American soldier. This Is shown In a moat Interesting way In a now book called "Tho Qucmi's Service , or the Real Tommy Atkins , " by Horace Wyndlmm , , who served Hevoral years as a pnlvnto In the English army. The book is a simple recital of Wyndlmm's career from the time ho enlisted to bis discharge. There are no attempts at literary flights nor does ho spend much time In moralizing , The Impression gathered from tbo book Is that the English army Is drawn from a very difficult does of men BO far as good citizenship Is concerned , that they are licked Into excellent soldiers and make good lighters. The author also complains of the | small pay , scanty food , poor shelter and in adequate clothing furnished , and ns com pared with these things as found In the t American army his complaints seem Justifi able , It takes a war to test an army no matter bow perfect It may appear In time of peace , and England's army has been mainly ono of occupation. The old saying that a soldier Is i lucky If ho gets six months of fighting in twelve years of service Is well Illustrated with the English array , for comparatively 1 few of Uu men or junior officers have ever The Fifty-First Iowa Volunteers Before the Camera THE REGIMENTAL MASCOT FILIPINO . . SHIELDS ADOPTED BY W. S. SHIELDS . . OF LEON. la. seen service , notwithstanding England's armed supremacy. The Dreyfus case has attracted wide at- tentlon this year to the French army , and Its officers , staff and line , have been severely criticised. In his book "Trooper 3809"j Lionel Declo tells a story of the life of tbo French-private. ' Ho brings out most vividly the details of poor pay , wretched clothea and food , unequal punishment , favoritism , and sums ' up the condition of the military arm of Franco as follows : In tlic French Army. "Yet how does the case really stand ? Are these ' armed multitudes as , formidable as more ' arithmetic would have us think ? France ! , for Instance , prides herself upon be ing able to put In the field millions of trained men. \ AVhat docs this boast amount to ? Upon the outbreak of war , In these days of rapid ] mobilization , much perhaps all would depend upon the troops first In tbo flold. ' And these troops , upon whoso behavior In the brunt of sudden battle the salvation of their country might depend , would be not a body of well-trained fighting men , leavened with veterans , and relying upon tholr leaders with glad confidence but a crowd of half-taught lads , lacking In thows as well as training , and led or driven to battle by officers whom either they have never seen until the day of conflict , or whom they know and hate. "As for the reserves , suffice It to say that officers of the active nmy refuse to regard them seriously , and consider them merely in the light of civilians playing at soldiering. The officers of the reserves ( for the most part promoted privates ) have received no military education worthy of the name. The noncommissioned officers and men consider the month they have to servo every other year a hateful episode. Awkward In their unaccustomed uniforms , they do not oven look like soldiers , and it would take months of training to convert them into such once more. In point of efficiency they are , of course , far Inferior to our volunteers. "I3ut behind these stands yet another line of defense the territorial army and its re serve an army composed of men who have a faint recollection that they once were drilled. There Is something pathetic as well as absurd in picturing these middle-aged citizens In time of war clad In antiquated uniforms , handling unaccustomed weapons , and painfully If conscientiously struggling to acquire a knowledge of now regulations and modern drill. To sum all up It may bo I true that Providence is still on the side of the big battalions , but chiefly , wo think , when these battalions are well officered , well trained and animated with all the virtues of ' the soldiers. " The American military sy tem has serious i defects , which have been brought clearly to light In the recent war. These are defects i which can and will undoubtedly be remedied ; but there are no defects in the material of : DEPARTURE OF FIFTY-FIRST IOWA FOR PHILIPPINES FROM TRANSFER DEPOT , COUNCIL BLUFFS Photo by Courtesy of J. N. Cocliran. THE WATER WORKS TEN MILES OUT OF MANILA. which the army la made or In the spirit which animates It. It Is not too much to say that the standard of material and the strength of the spirit are kept at the highest and most effective point by Intelllgen : and Jlberal ' j treatment of the privates. This Is so much more Intelligent and so much more j liberal than In any other army In the world that ( there is no comparison. Explosive Danger of Dust An explosion of flour dust In the New Eng land mills In Chicago on Wednesday , which killed several men and destroyed the mills , Is but another Instance of the power for harm which resides In an atmosphere heav ily charged with flno particles of starchy or other ' combustible matter. Such accidents are not uncommon , reports the New York Sun , and the necessity for guarding against the projection of a spark Into an atmos phere charged with gas or the fumes of gas- ollno or alcohol has been demonstrated often. Such explosions used to be common In the malt-grinding mills of brewerlea where sparks generated by nails or other bits of Iron getting into the mills would set fire to the malt dust , and It was the custom to build the mill rooms of light material which could bo destroyed without very costly dam age. Magnets are now suspended In the malt chutes to pick out the dangerous bits of metals and explosions In the mills are uncommon. It was only a few weeks ago that an explosion took place In the malt room of Stevenson's brewery In this city from which came a flro that did much dam- ago. The dust-laden air was exploded by a spark from an exposed machinery belt. About a year ago there was an accident somewhat similar to that In Chicago in a mill In Long Island City which was ac companied by loss of life. Grain was being dumped Into the bin by a conveyor and It was supposed that the dust was fired by the opening of a furnace door In the nearby boiler room. The flro traveled with explo sive force along the conveyor for several hundred feet and Injured some men who were working at the end of It. Finely comminuted combustibles of any kind , when mixed with a proper portion of air , form explosives akin to gunpowder. A ppark or open flame which heats a few particles of the dust to a high temperature , causes these to combine with the oxygen of the air In which they are suspended , and the flame shoots through the wbolo mass with explosive rapidity. Flame has been known to travel for twenty foot or more along a draft of air laden with gasollna fumes , and It will do the same with a dust- laden draft. With dust mixtures , as with those of vola- tllo hydro-carbons or Illuminating gas , the explosions are most violent when the amount of air In the mixture Is just sufficient to sup ply the oxygen necessary for the perfect com- bustlon of the suspended matter. When these conditions exist these mixtures have the ability to do more damage to buildings ttan would be done by the disintegration of an equivalent amount of dynamite or fulmi nate. In the case of the more powerful ex plosives their particles are simply shaken apart and resolved Into gases with an ac tion so sudden that the air itself offers as much resistance as more solid substances. The manifest effect Is to shatter the harder substances , but only within a small area. The slower explosions produced by the re lease of gases by combustion and their ex pansion by the resultant heat , get time to spread their effects over a wide area , and hence their wrecking effects upon a building when the explosion takes place within. Only a few weeks ago a house In East Fifty-sixth street was wrecked by an ex plosion of gas that had leaked Into It over night from a broken street main. Its walls , front and rear , wore blown completely out at the lower story and stripped above , and the workman who unwittingly started the explosion was found dead within the base ment door where ho had evidently stood while bo lit a match. That accidents of this kind are not preventable so long as men will light matches or take a lamp to look for a gas leak , Is evident , but those in ( lour mills and other manufactories where the danger Is known , ought to bo made impossible through the i provision of ample ventilation and the ex clusion of all flro or spark-producing devices , la clear. Suitable precautions have made the manufacture of gunpowder almost as safe as stone crushing , and the Ilka would bo true of the manufacture of smokeless powder and nitroglycerine if It were not for the un stable chemical character of the materials during , parts of the process. Anything for Peace Cleveland Plain Dealer : The peppery little man hopped around the famous prizefighter , "You're a big bundle of nothing , " ho snarled. "I dare you to strike mo , " The big prizefighter shook his head. Ho didn't want to run any chances of Injuring himself In a'barroom broil. "You're a yellow dog , " shrieked the little man. "I'm a yellow pug , " said tbo big man quietly. Then ho walked away. Justified Detroit Journal : Yes , she had sent the other woman the poisoned caramels through the malls ; she did not deny It. "I hated her ! " cried the defendant , her dark eyes flaming malignantly. "I had rea son ! For once wo went shopping together and I Insisted on paying the car fares for both of us and fllio let met" Here her voice rose to a shriek , while the jury , composed entirely of women , burst lute tears and brought In a. verdict of not guilty without leaving their seats.