[To THE EDITOR OF THE 'SPECTATOR."]
Sr,—In the Spectator-of October 12th there is a letter signed "E. H.,"which ends up with—" Why do the troops go on short rations ? Because the officers carry pianos." A statement like that would lead the uninitiated to suppose that the officers of all the seventy or eighty mobile columns made a regular practice of carrying pianos and other useless trash of the sort on all their treks. Would it not be somewhat fairer to the rest of the army, when making such statements, to name the offenders and their column ? I have been in this country nearly two years now, and have been trekking most of the time, all over the country, and on the rare occasions when I have seen a piano it has usually been in the form of fire- wood. Occasionally when there was time the piano would be used for a smoking concert, run invariably by the men, though the officers generally attended it, the piano afterwards coming in useful for next morning's breakfast. Even supposing a piano had been carried about by any column (I do not know-of a case), it would not weigh as much as nine biscuit boxes, or take up as much room as one day's ration of biscuit for three companies. How does that account for the difference between ten and thirty days' rations for a column ? Ten mule-waggons are the usual allowance for a battalion of infantry one thousand strong, and these besides the men's coats, blankets, &c., will not carry more than four days' rations, at the very outside, without breaking down.—I am.
Sir, &c., J. J. D. Boesman's Kop, O.R.C., South Africa.
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