The great Field Day on Monday at Aldershot was attended
by some regrettable circumstances. The authorities had
eollected some thirty thousand Regulars, Militia, and Volun- teers, and determined to do a good day's work in the way of training. They did it, but unluckily the day was one of more than tropical heat, the commissariat arrangements broke down, and the heavily laden soldiers, most of them protected only by light caps, were exposed for eight hours to the full blaze of the sun without sufficient food. Hundreds fell out, more than three hundred were taken away to hospital with symptoms of heat apoplexy, and four of them have since died, while a number more have probably been injured for life. Sunstroke leaves traces. We are not in favour of coddling soldiers, who have occasionally to risk the sun as they risk bullets, but there seems on this occasion to have been a rather feeble adherence to routine. It surely cannot be necessary when it is light at 3 a.m, to exercise heavily laden men during the midday heat, and it is un- pardonable to leave them without. food. We emphasise the fact that the men were heavily laden because no officer suffered from sunstroke. Laymen would fancy, too, that in summer, if real hard work is intended, as it should be, service helmets which are a real protection should be distributed. Ours is an Army of recruits, not of conscripts.
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