THE SOLDIER'S OAP AND RUGS FOR HORSES. [To TIM Eamon
or ran ..SPIECILT01:]
/313., —Your readers need not disturb themselves on the subject of the soldiers' cape. The new ones now being issued are quite soft ; they have ear-flaps which can be buttoned under the chin, and also a flap at the back to run the rain off.
The ordinary pattern is very popular and suitable for peace soldiering, which, after all, occupies ninety per cent of our time, and I doubt if, after the war, there will be any general demand to change it. As a matter of fact, the bulk of the men in bad weather wear woollen helmets or cap-comforters. Meeting an infantryman in the dusk always reminds me of goblins and pixies and Peer Gynt. He is wrapped up in a goatskin coat, and his entrenching tools and pack, loaded up with wood to take into the trenches, almost persuade one that he belongs to another world—Harts Mountains, and all that sort of thing.
I doubt very much if Miss Kenyon's money will be well spent on mackintosh rags (see Spectator, January 2nd, p. 17). Before we came out here we had a lot of trouble with colds and horses off their feed, &a But they do extraordinarily well at present, standing out in orchards up to their fetlocks in mud. My horses have two saddle blankets, and are clipped trace high. They are keeping in good condition, in spite of the fact that they very often are short of bay. But they get two pounds daily of beetroot as an extra. The number of sick is about seven to nine per cent. But these are mostly due to picked-up mile, kicks, and not to want of rugs. The horses get very muddy, like the men, and seem equally unconcerned. Cases of strangles pull round just as quickly as they do at home. Owing to the mud the horn of the feet is apt to get unduly
soft, but that is inevitable.—I am, Sir, &a., B. B.
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